I only love the world
From afar
The sexuality
Of Doctor Zanzibar
Bathyscaphe
Transparent mystery
Siphonophore
The owl of Minerva
Terpsichore
Bathyscaphe
Death at the Googleplex
Kayak angst
Miss Victorina
The dainty crank
Bathyscaphe
System of Usher
John Cage gets into the airport
But the airport is not into him
And so they agree to part amicably
And Cage takes the train into town
Ants have a system of governance
From which one could learn, I dare say
But when I get an ant on the tip of my tongue
I spit it away with a cry
I have a dear friend, Captain Harlock
And he sits at a table of wood
Lapping my words up, because he has heard that
Some words are better than food
I love throwing rocks at the tigers
As they cower in their cage at the zoo
But now that the weather is colder
I'd rather be throwing those tigers at you
An old electrician from Bremen
Took a frazzled electrical cord
Connected one end to the Devil
The other he lashed to the Lord
Everyone's murdered by Charlie
Or would be if they lived long enough
He moves in and grows in the holes of your nose
And sooner or later you snuff
This is the problem with dreamers
They're all sitting safe as a house
For all the world, sirs, as the earthquake occurs
As if butter would melt in our mouth
The fall of the system of Usher
Was achieved by a triumph of will
The clown as a proxy for Mother
And Daddy takes care of the bill
The loneliness of Kaspar Hauser
Strange thoughts occur in the brain
If you want to stay strong, make up little songs
To stop you from going insane
So John Cage gets into the airport
But the airport is not into him
They agree that it's key to live separately
And Cage takes the train into town
And everyone's murdered by Charlie
Or would be if they lived long enough
He moves in and grows in the holes of your nose
And sooner or later you snuff
The Dowser
I found a place where the clothes don't fit
Where I can whistle down the road in the rain
The old night porter sweeping up the shit
Making his legitimate claim
I gibber-jabber at the sight of the food
The spit hanging off my chin
My tummy rumbles and my guts all grind
I am anonymous and thin
Out pow-wowing with the creeps in the yard
Looking for an inch of skin
Back downtown to Sheridan Square
For a meeting with the gentlemen
Rancid jism in a furnished room
Boking in a bucket of tar
The living or the dead, sick or on the nod,
Don't really care who they are
The mark inside is coming up on me
A rumble nobody can cool
The Rube is a social liability
The pus oozing out of the hole
I found a place where the clothes don't fit
And God has really let himself go
Explosions of matter in interstellar space
Smothered like a poke in the hole
The spoon and the dropper and the dropper and the wax
The flesh gone rubbery and wrong
Only the young bring anything at all
And they're not even young for long
My hand begins to dip like a dowser's wand
Shaking on a government script
I swear I won't do anything at all
To make the inquisitor sick
A yen comes on me like a great black wind
A great black wind through the bones
You can't trust a special like the old time coppers
When you can't find any way home
My old man said "Follow the van
And don't dilly dally on the way"
Now I'm all holed up in room number nine
Staring at my shoes all day
I've found a place where the clothes don't fit
Where I can whistle down the road in the rain
The old night porter sweeping up the shit
Making his legitimate claim
The Boy Camille
I, the boy Camille
Got a rotten deal
So I've come on thunderboots
To tell you how I feel
I'm the boy Camille
My nerves are made of steel
And yet the laws you passed
Can never be repealed
I started as a woman
Then became a man
But you still refer to me
As "the hermogyne"
You threw me into therapy
Performed your operation
Said you'd make a better me
But really made a mess of me
But I have come on thunderstilts
Taller than the state you built
I have made my choice
I have found my voice
There are more things in this world than your philosophy
There are wonders in this world, like the Boy Camille
So join the queue, roll up and see the strangest curiosities
Bring the man you call your wife, bring your daughter, she's a dyke
Nothing's normal any more
And I have lost all fucking fear
Opened up the thunderbox
No-one's getting out of here
There are more things in this world than your philosophy
There are wonders in this world, like the Boy Camille
And I have come to these conclusions
I have seen through your illusions
I have come to say
A world begins today
I, the boy Camille
Got a rotten deal
So I've come on thunderboots
To tell you how I feel
The Hiker
Insisting on hiking "commando”
He claims for the sake of his health
Everyone knows that wherever he goes
The hiker is pleasing himself
Dressed up in sackcloth and ashes
In memory of his late wife
Whose body is strapped to his bicycle
Flying behind like a kite
The hiker's real name is Frank Randle
His grey hair pinned up in a bun
Flopping in sandals away from his scandals
The hiker is having such fun
The pollen beneath his proboscis
The snuff in its pouch on a string
The hiker's erecting his tent now
His fucksack spread out on the ground
He seems to be thriving though winter's arriving
And death tags along like a bloodhound
The black girls sit up in the branches
Swinging their legs in the rain
The filthy old hiker is down on his bike
Pumping his organ again
Munching a bar of black chocolate
Swigging the tea from a flask
His frankly disgusting appendage is thrusting
Out of its Elastoplast
Amongst nettles and shrubs and deciduous trees
In a hammock he's made with his dick
He is a force of nature of course
His rotting wife strapped to his back
The pollen beneath his proboscis
The ghost flying high on her string
The hiker must reason no matter what season
For him it's eternally spring
The hiker's real name is Frank Randle
His grey hair pinned up in a bun
Flopping in sandals away from his scandals
The hiker is having such fun
Cameo
Who wants one of those girls everyone wants?
We love loving the girls nobody wants
Those girls are beautiful in the eyes of the few
That's the kind of beauty we want to do
Don't go to one of those shows where everyone goes
Because everyone says it'll be a great show
We go, go to the shows where nobody goes
A horrible noise is horribly great if you're in the know
If you don't understand, we don't explain
If you're cottoning on, time to move on!
When we say "bad" we're speaking in code, we really mean good
When we say "good", we're speaking in code, and we really mean bad
But as soon as it's "bad" that usually means that we like it again
This is a wonderful game that can go on and on
If you don't understand, we don't explain
If you're cottoning on, time to move on!
The Brutalist
Days roll by like a tape machine
Splice this film together again
Splice this film as it crumbles away
Life in 1979
What the hell is the role of the snake?
Dot dot dash, language machine
You are an error living a life
Left left right, the fire brigade
Where the hell is the cinematheque?
Play the music on the cassette
Luck is always yours to make
Stay the path lost in the mist
This bloody Mary never rewinds
Life in 1979
Paris 6 she wants to come
The mist grows old but the pain stays young
Rectangle on a celluloid path
Reconnect your telephone
You are near and suddenly far
Standing beside the intercom
Now that the wheels have come off the machine
What the hell is the role of the snake?
The mist grows old, as the pain sets in
Life in 1979
Of all the misfortunes that can exist
The worst is to love a brutalist
Ultra-Loyal Sheepdog
I'm your ultra-loyal sheepdog
Come on, bear, let's go for a walk
Let's chase people, let's not stop
Let's bite people, watch them drop
As your foe, I will blur
As I lunge for the jugular
But on your side I go the whole hog
I'm your ultra-loyal sheepdog
Don't be a bore with feet of clay
Don't sit staring at a screen all day
As a bear you must bite
Be my friend I'll see you right
Come on, bear, I need to pee
Let's be rude to the people we see
Let's put a great big strawberry shit
On the bench where people sit
Let's chow down on a big white whale
I'll have the heart, you have the tail
Friends forever, we can't fail
I'm your sheepdog ultra-loyal
Don't be a bear with feet of clay
Don't sit staring at a screen all day
Bore me stiff and I will bite
Be my friend I'll see you right
I'm your ultra-loyal sheepdog
If you need anything give me a nod
Bring me a whale in a plastic bag
I'll chase people till you come back
As your foe I'll bite and bite
But be my friend I'll see you right
Say you'll defend me, always be manly
Dry your tears and don't be silly
Don't be a bore with feet of clay
Don't sit staring at a screen all day
Don't let people badger you
Stand up for the things I do
I'm your ultra-loyal sheepdog
Yours to love an awful lot
But don't doublecross me, because you see
Your head is meat to me
The Spider
A sentimental spider serves no purpose in her life
I just make her sad after the act
She remembers no delights, she remembers fights
Awful days in Venice and those horrid Paris nights
She's not one to kill a fellow spider in cold blood
She believes in doing it when she's hot
When the place and time are ripe for the crime
If she can't have me nobody can
The spider who swallowed her man
Don't tamper with evidence at the scene of a crime
Leave the sticky web and the cocoon
Leave her plunging fangs in my abdomen
Leave my legs still wriggling even as she swallows them
Latrodectus Mactans I am the gift I bring
Nutrition for our putative offspring
We both know the truth: I have no further use
And once you've had me nobody can
The spider who swallowed her man
The Painter
I'm crawling on hands and knees
And still my dealer won't pay me
Because I smashed her masterpiece
The Donnizetti altarpiece
I'm dressed up like a clown
I'm smearing my blood around
My brushes are enormous
My nose is phallic like a penis
I'm a painter, I know how
I'm not a dog, but bow-wow
I'll do anything, I'm like a cow
I'm a painter, kill me now
I climbed inside a tube of paint
They say I'm crazy because they ain't
I like Sita, I like Agrippa
I love De Kooning and The Dripper
I'm a painter, I like ladies
They love big babies
I stab my eye with a knife
One day I'd like to try to take my life
I'm a painter, I know how
I'm not a dog, but bow-wow
I'll do anything, I'm like a cow
I'm a painter, kill me now
Before I can even begin to make a picture
I've got to make love to a butcher
Some critics call me satyr
Some critics call me letcher
They all say I find the sublime in abjection
But before you kick me out, ask yourself this question
What is your definition of immaculate conception?
How will you interrogate the failure of your failures
Without the success of the successes of painters?
I'm a painter, I know how
I'm not a dog, but bow-wow
I'll do anything, I'm like a cow
I'm a painter, so kill me now
Catholic App
The app has got a box where you kneel
Tell it all your secrets, and reveal
Your evil thoughts about sex and such
The real reason you skipped lunch
There's a widget in the box that hides and nods
And swears the whole thing is for the ears of God
But human ears if they burn
Take secrets and pass them on
It takes in information, prints out prayers
And issues absolution, fair's fair
You get less time in purgatory
More for things you really need
It's a Catholic app, there's lots off bounds
A thousand sins, ten commands
The app needs to know, time and again
What's going on in everyone's brain
You don't buy them, they sell you
For who knows what to who knows who
I hear the government, the big G
Is stocking up on Hail Marys
I've got the terms of service that nobody reads
They've got the right to send you for eternity
To a torture convention they call Hell
In the basement of the Bosch hotel
The app is free, but you give them a donation
In a little velvet pouch they put in circulation
In virtual hangs also known
As churches and cathedrals made of stone
It works on any platform, night, day
You download free, nothing to pay
Spyware, sure, but some say
Privacy's a big lie anyway
Conspiracy theories are a load of crap
But they're whispering your secrets down in the apse
There seems to be a leak in the back end
Or a mole with a lot of friends
There's a big story breaking, the priest is a freak
The app is really l'eglise catholique
But I don't buy it, the whole thing's fake
Someone somewhere must have made a mistake
God's a paper tiger, that's all crap
They're controlling populations with that app
Knowledge may be power, but you gave away your best
To a man in a purple stole and a dress
It's a Catholic app, it knows no bounds
A billion sins, ten commands
But there's a big glitch that drives me wild
The app can have sex with your child
Unreconstructed
Banged up in the clinker with a milkman for a mate
I must 'ave 'ad it coming but I don't prognosticate
The Sweeney doing ninety with the sirens and the lights
And me in striped pyjamas and the Tottenham tights
She's the last of a dying breed a diamond under stress
In a time when yes means no and no means yes
Well she's not much of a looker and her father is an 'orse
But I like to get my oats without using any force
It's an orrible world
Well I'm a tad unreconstructed, that I will admit
But I do believe in socialism on a Friday night
I take my lady down the Castle, hit the brandy hard
Then it's bouncy-bouncy stabby-stabby
Down the knacker's yard
It used to be a struggle but you knew just what to do
Everyone read Dworkin so you ad to read er too
She said sexual intercourse is just naked aggression
You said "That is sadly true but it's also self-expression"
It's an 'orrible world
Well you might as well 'ang for a sheep as a lamb
That's what I always say
And it's up the patriarchy in the manly month of May
But they've abandoned revolution and your barnet's thin and grey
So it's down the hatch, up the crotch, cheers and bombs away
In an 'orrible world, can't get no joy
With political girls
Following
I'm so totally following you
You are so far ahead, always so totally cool
You were the first to walk on your hands
And carry your purse in your cunt
Now all the girls are doing that
On the Williamsburg waterfront
And I say credit where credit is due
I'm so totally following you
Due to the freaky stuff
Only you'd think to do
Well the music that you're into
I'm pretending I'm into it too
Even though to be totally frank
It leaves me totally blank
Now you're running around
In a scuba mask filled with chicken fat
Dressed as a cat
Carrying the chopped-off head
Of a pig you're smoking like a cigarette
Well there ought to be a law against that
But the lawmakers haven't got there yet
But you have, and that's what I love about you
But if you think I'm totally dressing like that
In a scuba mask filled to the top with filthy old blubbery fat
And then going out and running around
Smoking the corpse of a sow
Well you've got another thing coming to you
Sorry, I have stopped following you
Because the things that you can pull off
Just make me look like a fool
Well call me bourgeois, but I've figured out
This is the best way to be like you
Following you is the last thing that you'd ever do
Spore
If sex were a place
I think sex would be space
I feel so frisky here
In the Thermosphere
You are my spore, my flower
My favourite meteor shower
Undo my Leonid Belt
As I begin to melt
The rocket penetrates
The air is thin but hot
We're animals but not
If sex were a place
I think sex would be space
Newtonian S&M
No longer ties us down
As my ejaculate
Floats like pearls towards your face
We're crossing Africa then Spain
We cross them sixteen times a day
You are my spore, my flower
My favourite meteor shower
Undo my Leonid Belt
As I begin to melt
The rocket penetrates
The air is thin but hot
We're animals but not
The Driver
Carcrash in autumn
Ten years today
You wanted an exit
I was the way
I was locked up
When you broke in
I was the car
You crashed in
How can so much pain
Be in something that's gone?
Guggenheim glasses
Van der Graaf hair
So many faces
But you're not there
Amputee syndrome
My phantom limb
Buzzing inside me
Under my skin
How can so much pain
Be in something that's gone?
And I am the driver
Of nothing at all
One of us void now
The other just null
Japanese paper
Paris in spring
In your apartment
Skin on skin
Like an abortion
With the foetus still there
I can still smell
Your hair
How can so much pain
Be in something that's gone?
Surrounded by flowers
Allergic as hell
The joyride was ours
And the children's as well
Carcrash in autumn
My phantom limb
Buzzing beside me
As real as skin
How can so much pain
Be in something that's gone?
And I am the driver
Of nothing at all
One of us void now
The other just null
How can so much pain
Be in something that's gone?
Ten years already
Life carries on
The Hate Horse
It's okay to hate me
Just feel something strong
Your hate is a horse we can both ride upon
Hate, you and I, how we canter along
Oh, how we gallop along
It's okay to hate me
I completely agree
I'd hate me too if I didn't have to be me
As some kind of hate horse I'd rear up with a whinny
Throw myself to the ground and trample over me
Well you told me you loved me
That wasn't quite true
You feel something stronger now
Quintessentially you
And when I wish you happy
You wish me gone
And so our hate horse gallops on
On Siberian grasslands
Our hate gallops still
We are riding a high horse
Along the spine of a hill
Tiny and noisy, together at last
Clinging for dear life to the hate horse
Foxy Little Otter
You swaggered like an otter
As you walked across the room
I offered some resistance
It crumbled pretty soon
When you waved your otter flippers
Swam into my lair
With paws instead of fingers
And water in your hair
You're industrious
You're illustrious
Suave and devil-may-care
You're a foxy little otter
But you didn't get to me
Until you spread the water
Like a carpet at my feet
And dust is all that matters
Dust is all we need
And fur is made of atoms
Scattering like seed
You're industrious
I'm illustrious
An otter's work is never done
Foxy little otter
You didn't get to me
Until you spread the water
Like a carpet at my feet
And dust is all that matters
Dust is all we need
And fur is made of atoms
A-scattering like seed
When stars are just beginning
Spilling like the sun
An otter's work is never done
I love you like the lumber
Lumber on a dam
I really hope you love me
Love me as I am
And stars are aspirations
Fur is all we send
Love is just vexation
And dust waits at the end
You're industrious
I'm illustrious
Suave and devil-may-care