It might be in the rings of trees the growth and stretch of bellies or the lie is in the scent of things and there are no memories there
Just when it seems they aren’t anywhere someone’s son plays his guitar and there you are before regret, in the basement, green, 15, pre-heroin
Or someone’s daughter in a car, goes by with her music echoing, cock-hungry before the steeple, with dirty knees for horrid people, some mothers name their daughters melody
This fucking bass line is no melody, this song is too damned sober, these lyrics are too angry, and it plays over and over and over
Blame Elvis, his diazepam and dexedrine, blame Kurt, his shotgun hole and opiates, blame some stranger’s face, blame there’s nothing left in this place to taste
Blame the goddamned air for all it cares, blame Escher and his stairs, blame the man who wasn’t there
Everything eventually forgets, at least this algorithm can boast, it conceived the guiltiest host of hosts
We could have played something for the sheep, when they started to bleat and got lost in the maze, we could have cranked that shit up so they could feel it, when we saw them wander the country in a daze
But no, we let them die until they became one solid monster immune to change, we broke the chambers and locked the cage, and then we mourned our growing pains
There might be water out there, in one of Teddy’s parks somewhere, robots just refuse to see, they lack the program upgrade of the stare
It’s more likely though, they drank it up, with a tattoo of rain and a ten minute drum solo, and the taste of metal from a jailhouse cup
Mommy needs to be alone now, baby, it’s time to rake the muck, she is finally done collecting pens, she lusts for dreams of clean again
Nobody plans to hear a thing at 20,000 leagues, or find the scent of burning wire, but yin and yang was just a spiral, an involute of ice and fire
So here we are at the finish again, with vertigo and an itch to begin, the labyrinth in its perpetual spin, because we’re too fucking smart to end.
Barefoot Iowa 