The Golden State (2002)

1. 88 Ways

Gravity and entropy,
they have it out inside of me.

Eighty-eight ways to build and destroy.
I dig my own grave. I carve my own decoy.
O, what should I be in this world so self-destructing?
O, what should I be in this world so self-constructing?

Eighty-eight ways to build and destroy.
I fuel my decay. I trample my joy.
O, what should I be in this world so self-destructing?
O, what should I be in this world so self-constructing?

Gravity and entropy,
they have it out inside of me.

The hermit and the hero walk in parallel lines,
One with bow and arrow, the other bowed eyes.
In the house of mirrors,
looking different but the same,
one pendulum swings from loving
to and back from disdain.

Eighty-eight ways to build and destroy.
I dig my own grave. I carve my own decoy.
O, what should I be in this world so self-destructing?
O, what should I be in this world so self-constructing?

Gravity and entropy,
they have it out inside of me.

2. Digital

Digital, binary system, ones & zeroes, dark vs. light,
yin and yang, x & y, my mother and my father
made me one night.

In the beginning, a murky mass of hydrogen helium
voted to organize into higher elements,
carbon nitrogen & oxygen, protons electrons collide.

Digital, binary system, ones & zeroes, dark vs. light,
yin and yang, x & y, my mother and my father
made me one night.

Forbidden fruit rotting on the vine.
Forbidden fruit, turning to wine. Intoxicating.
Nakedly we lay in an ecstatic embrace, trying not to
come too quickly, one minute rise, plastic bagged
lubricated safety tube.

This is not a through street; one cannot pass here,
but where me and you meet to graze the divine pastures.
This is not a through street; one cannot pass here,
but run and jump with two feet
and break through all the matter.

Throw your body to the edge of crisis.
Paralysis is everywhere.
Throw your body to the edge of crisis.
Paradise is everywhere.

Digital, binary system, ones & zeroes, dark vs. light,
yin and yang, x & y, my mother and my father
in me still fight, in me unite.

3. Independence Day

There’s a battleship parked in the river,
reenacting open doors, open arms, then open fire.
There are mushroom clouds and machine-gunned copters
descending in the snap crackle pop fizzle of the fireworks
as they blast into the night air breathed in by
innumerable passengers screaming “We Are Number One.”

Independence Day, our freedom is won,
to choose our own way, when to go, what’s to come.
But with each tie we break, there is sacrifice.
How many lives will it take? How many loves just must die?

There’s a man I just met; he hasn’t kissed me yet.
He reminds me of someone else, only better.
But I’m made out of wax, so easy to impress.
Am I melting too fast, dripping into your lips?
Because all my heroes have turned human this year,
slinking ‘round pool tables, sinking into unfabled stupors,
whispering in the night air or into some girl’s hair:
“I Am Number One.”

There’s a battleship parked in the Charles River,
Shooting off fireworks that light up the world,
then fall in the water.
My love’s next to me, head full of the next century
and wondering whether there’ll be a wedding tomorrow.
And the secret smoke signals in the aftermath of gunpowder
seem the most significant indication of what’s to come.

4. Merry Me

Once I was enslaved to a human being.
What to do today now that I’m free?
Merry me, merry me, merry me,
is this how it feels to realize one’s dream?

Once I was enslaved to a human being,
my mother, my lover. Next who will it be?
Marry me, marry me, marry me.
I’m happiest in the pursuit of liberty.

Once I was enslaved to a human being,
one half the saint and the other the villain.
Marry me, marry me, marry me,
kiss the only hand there in emergency.
Marry me, marry me, marry me,
kiss the only hand there til’ eternity.

Once I was enslaved to a human being.
What to do today now that I’m free?
Merry me, merry me, merry me,
is this how it feels to realize my dreams?

5. Like A Knife

Like a knife come to slit my ties to the past,
to all the things which bind me to the grave, you came.
You came in the morning after a long night.
You came in the morning after a dark night.

I stared into the knife, to see if it would hurt me,
threaten my life, use me and desert me.
To a decision, I came.
I came in the morning after a long night.
I came in the morning after a dark night.

I took the knife, slid it under my belt,
was so surprised at the joy I felt
to come out of the mourning, I came.
I came out of the mourning after a long night.
I came out of the mourning after a dark night.

Like a knife come to slit our ties to the past,
to all the things which bind us to the grave, we came.
We came in the morning after a long night.
We came in the morning after a dark night.

6. Autumn

No no no, I know,
you owe me nothing.
No no no, I know,
I’m not your job.
No no no, I know,
we should just walk away.
We both know we know it’s hard.

Autumn come to a seaside town
a little later than the rest.
The leaves hold on a little longer
than they would have out West.

The leaves let go, so let them go.
The leaves let go, so let them go.
The leaves let go, so let them go.
The leaves let go, so let them.

7. Growing Pains

These are the growing pains.
Baby born; body must change.
These are the growing pains.
Skin and bone learn to replicate
is to divide, destroy themselves
towards a whole and greater health.

These are the growing pains.
Love is born; life must change.
These are the growing pains.
Skin and bone learn to congregate.
They push and pull to meet and become one,
forge a frontier and a language common.

I’ve been heartbroken for a year and a day.
My adultery put my child to bed in shame.
She’s not feeling well. She won’t come out to play.
All the other girls and boys, they know what’s best:
forgive the past and live for the present.

These are the growing pains.
Nation born; nature must change.
These are the growing pains.
We came by boats, in hopes, in chains,
felled the forest for farm and firewood, and built
a church on the hill to pray for the greater good.

These are the growing pains.
Country born; conscience must change.
These are the growing pains.
By gunpoint and penpoint, the West was claimed
as one man’s burden, another’s manifest destiny,
with peace and justice divided unequally.

I’ve been heartbroken for a year and a day.
My adultery put my child to bed in shame.
She’s not feeling well. She won’t come out to play.
All the other girls and boys, they know what’s best:
forgive the past and live for the present.

These are the growing pains.
Love is borne; life must change.
These are the growing pains,
the breakdown of the barricades.
There’s fear and cowardice to be overcome
by instinct, force and momentum.

8. Poppy Fields

I scrub my blackened feet,
scrape off the caked on grime of the street.
I wash my hands and face
of the worldly soot that accumulates
in the day-in-day-out farcical strife,
in the humdrum of everyday life.
And I enter my home clean,
step up to the hearth I’ve deemed my own.

I sit down on the bidet
and shower my flower of the decay
that sets in when she lets in a guest
for recreation no creation, her slight protest.
And I enter my bed clean,
lay down my head and dream
of another world.

The desert springs to life.
The golden chaparral gives up her rights
to poppy fields for miles
and purple lupin lavender behind
another world.

Waking with the sun,
the poppy petals peel back to open
and turn the hills orange
to start another cycle of seasons.
Another world.

We dance as whooping cranes
who once again have found their lifetime mates.
We bound across the plains,
roll down slopes, fill our white coats with stains
of another world.

We come to rest as one
at the bottom of the hill, start to make love.
We lean against the earth,
rocking back and forth and back and forth, back and forth.
Another world.

Under a wild sky setting sun,
we ride the waves towards something still to come.
Another world.

9. Hijikata

He danced on his deathbed
and so performed his final dance
for friends, family, and lovers,
and all those who’d had the chance
to know him, to love him.

My domesticated body
and my mind by moderation tamed
seethe within my xerox-copied skin,
and I ask him: “Is all freedom dark?”

One thousand and one birds
take off in an instant,
flying-feeling-filling through the air,
and I ask them: “Is all freedom light?”

He danced on his deathbed
and so performed his final dance
for friends, family, and lovers,
and all those who’d had the chance
to know him, to love him.

10. Age of Reason

In my age of reason,
complicated by feeling,
I dream of impossible things.
I dream of impractical things.

In my age of anxiety,
complicated by destiny,
I waste away the day.

In my age of anger,
complicated by female matters,
I scream mutiny.

In my age of desperation,
complicated by ambition,
I shoot myself in the foot.

In my age of envy,
Complicated by money,
I go for broke.

In my age of doubt,
complicated by our falling out,
I pray to an unexistent God.

In my age of reason,
complicated by feeling.
I dream of impossible things.
I dream of impractical things.