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Be A Criminal : back to top

Recognize an Opportunity
Weigh anchor, draw the lines
The flood of fortune is killing time.
Weigh anchor, draw the lines
The flood of fortune is killing time.
And I think I heard about it on the radio
Drinking loudly in the overflow
Of another buoyant year
Take the first gust of wind makes you a glow
Undetected here
Weigh anchor, draw the lines
The flood of fortune is killing time.
Weigh anchor, draw the lines
The flood of fortune is killing time.
And I think I heard about it on the radio
When my eyes were sore from staring
Land ho
And on a ship of Tesla’s will
We watch the estate chained
Succumb to sea, overcome emptied
Succumb to sea, overcome emptied
And I think I heard about it on the radio
And I think I heard about it on the radio
And I think I heard about it on the radio
W. D. O. A.

Choose A Weapon
It seems the only way out
Was straight over your head
Too high for you to make out
Too dumb to be misread
Before we pass this sober point
Make sure you’re listening
We kill it all and kill it off
We kill it all then kill it off
Until it’s all dissected and filed
Into a glove that fits
Around the throat of a god
Who’s too ignorant to miss.
We kill it all and kill it off
We kill it all then kill it off
Before we pass this sober point
Make sure you’re listening
Inoculated on your tongue
So numb from asking now.
Right now, you owe me everything
Right now, you owe me everything
Right now, now, now, now
You’re not a fucking thing
You’re not a fucking thing anymore.

Know the Locale
The crime is fear
A subtle movement of your hand against the map,
But you can’t get lost.
Each town’s a pop-up stand with everything you need,
And even our accents sound the same.
The crime is fear.
A home that’s killing you
And a celebration for the words we knew but lost
Called “dumb down” day
Fight, fight
When everything you need is not what you need
Not what you need
The crime is fear.

Focus, Focus, Focus
I Have no ignorance of thieves
In love with language.
God fearing legalese
Pushing the point till it's a shove
It’s time to hang up the kid gloves
And learn the lesson like your head to a gun
It's that you can never trust anyone
Bring Destruction
By the numbers
Why spare what you can plunder
And bury like a saint Of disappointment
Corpses for cannibals
And your a diamond in the rough
You work hard or work hard enough
Keeping well fed and well, well bred
Or die trying to just be dead
Bring Destruction
By the numbers
Why spare what you can plunder
And bury like a saint Of disappointment
Corpses for cannibals
What’s left of me
Is what’s left for you
To choke on to choke on
Bring destruction
By the numbers
Why spare what you can plunder
And bury like a saint Of disappointment
Corpses for cannibals

Commit, Commit, Commit
With everyone so dead
It’s harder to pretend
We’re passionate for crime
When chaos is the end
But in the end there’s more
An end without a means
We don’t care who we hurt
Because no one’s ever clean
And how could we admit
We only had your name
It seemed more than enough
To point and place the blame
A scene no one could stop
With hopeless in our hands
So tight around your throat
No words would understand
Wrapped so tight around your throat
Wrapped so tight around your throat
We will not last much longer
(everything we thought, everything we read,
by time we had a chance the spaces had been bleed)

Dump The Body
Trained by blaring bells
Pushing paper school
Had a better time playing who’s the fool.
Tempted to fate, Loaded
All the time
Debased and eyeing the bully pulpit
Set to do the crime
All right
It's nice to find
A tactical place
A vicious boiling pot
Some anonymous hate
All right
Dear old Sam I am a ringer
Set to come undone
And I could point a finger
But I'd rather point a gun
Give me hell, give me pay
It’s an institution, institutional holiday
I'm going to get some blood on my hands
I’m going to get some blood on my hands
Dear old Sam I a ringer
Set to come undone
And I could point a finger
But I’d rather point a gun
(Drawn over lines breeding with crime.)

Don’t Feel Bad :
Our youth was overrated
Because anger never gets old
The street lights color the backdrop
To wash away all the things I’ve been told
That we “can’t find a home within this hollow shell of
half-light.”
And I'm looking at your face
And I'm looking at your door
Through your open window
I can see your open floor
What's unbound is unaffected
The gaze you are reflecting
Staring blindly boldly brilliantly
Emergency
The cheap sex is underrated
Not that you’re cheap in the way that I mean
We fall around in your bedroom
There’s nothing dirty about not being clean
Like everyone wants
And I'm looking at your face
And I'm looking at the floor
Strung up all my grace
Right outside the door
What's unbound is unaffected
The gaze you are reflecting
Staring blindly boldly brilliantly
Emergency
Admit it,
We’re desperate,
And gorgeous
Admit it,
We’re desperate,
And gorgeous
The more they tell us not to
The more we’ll always take.
The things that we felt bad for
Were never our mistake.

Cover the Tracks with Cash
That stain like a shroud
That I undertake
I won’t make a sound
Not Paid off
All the big guns got a reputation
Got to keep kicking the good man crown
You’re a well worn wash of wallet
Watch the floor and get down
A dab on the head
In exchange for a hand
So empty instead
Of the promise I planned
To bank on
All the big guns have a reputation
Got to keep kicking the good man crown
You’re a well worn wash of wallet
Watch the floor and get down
On your knees
You’re going to die
You’re going to die alone
Without comfort of our home
Without comfort of our God
And if you’ve ever done truly wrong
Pay off your plight
Into the bloody hands
Of the truly right.
Righteous

Take a Deep Breath and Have a Cigarette
Nothing, Nothing, Nothing

Accept who you are, accept what you’ve done
The lines we draw between are criminal,
Projected, faint and out of date.
A passed on pattern less than suitable
With sides we can’t delineate.
Nowadays seems only surgery can make you come out
clean
(If we don’t take it, there’s no movement)
So pick a side, and cut away the lines that stitch us
in the seam
(If we don’t take it, there’s no movement)
The lines they fit us in are criminal,
Restrictive, bored and without grace
A passed on culture less than livable
With all the sights but not the taste.
Nowadays seems only surgery can make you come out
clean
(if we don’t take it, there’s no movement)
So pick a side, and cut away the lines that stitch us
in the seam
(if we don’t take it, there’s no movement…from the
side you’re on)
(the lines we draw, the lines we draw)

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A Mile in Cold water : back to top

After the Fight :
All eyes wake up
And I can see the damage
Bruising down a weathered street
And burning
In our desperate sleep
And you can talk for miles
And I can walk for days
And it doesn’t get much better
But sometimes it’s ok
To end a life, to start alive.
Today you always had something else to do
Today is never enough for
These eyes can’t hide a million
Justified lies
They grow warts with age,
I’m digging for a fire
To set this stage
I’ll burn out myself here,
Open arms singing along
To an empty chair.
And I’m a firm believer
In every desperate friend
And every bitter end
And every wayward song
That begs a sing-a-long,
Make everybody strong
To barely just hang onto
Today you never have anything to do
Today is never enough for
These eyes can’t hide a million wasted lies
Stop waiting for an alibi
To give when you’ve been pacified
Get on your feet
Get up and move on.

Selective Hearing Loss
So tired of hearing how all things go wrong
When you know you’re part of this and have been all
along for years now
You make the lines in my eyes cut and kiss
The thin line of your spine, a break I bet you’d never
notice now
It’s not like a joke that you didn’t get when we say
This day this job this life’s too long
A flight too close to the ground
A hairline fracture of your most important part
Turns out the dance we do is nothing but cheap art for
showing
How long can we hang onto stale old steps now
It’s not like a joke that you didn’t get as we say
This day this job this life’s too long
It’s time to break up this ground
So say it, what you want to do
Because nothing was right with what they put you
through
Just say it, what you wanted to
Your pay back is what they’re not connected to

Is that a threat?
The only thing that happens twice are your mistakes
Seems a crime to let them take you over
And such a shame that you’re the same since first we
met
Thought you’d learn more then regret
From broken ending s that keep repeating
(Raining parade)
So go ahead and spend what’s left of life asleep
Dreaming all you promises keep
But we’ll know the truth
Just say I’m wrong one more time
I dare you

Squirrel Bait
She said, I’m done with all these ornamental figures
Hanging on a sturdy, dusty wall
They all must be gone now and passed along to distant
memory
Please wrap them up carefully
Saddled on shoulders with some regrets for
Quickly getting this thrown away and scrambling for a
thing to say
I don’t want to make this any worse than it is
Moving on is sometimes better then hanging on to
leaving
Lock up the doors but save the keys
Because some regrets lead
Further away form cutting through
These walls will not crumble
But light can be renewed
In the face of our frustration
It’s now a consolation
It’s only memories
She said, I only want someone to take this burden of
memory from me
You all need something from home

Our Mild Scoliosis
So stand right up then stand so still
Your words taste like un-swallowed pills
More useless drugs to put faith in
That makes your speech sound ghostwritten
The radio keeps breaking up
But I’m sure these songs weren’t meant for us
Of all the ways that I thought we’d run
So sick, complacent wasn’t one
We’ll depreciate and cease
With no dance to shed this disease
It will swallow us, moving like
Somebody is slashing our bloodlines
To taste for wine
So stand right up but don’t dare move
So much as pose, so much to prove
You had a voice but spat it out
Remained in line as a devout
And of all the ways that we come undone
So sick that silence was the one
No one is expected to know
How to make this more than a show
With everything you had to give up
While trying to let it all go
Until the end of this life
I won’t step up to let you down
Because at the end of all this noise
There’s never the silence
Like you wanted

Always be closing
Standing in line trying not to oppress time, were you
He said
Gave a nod to my head
Never really shuffled along
Never tried to do wrong
Never had time that he couldn’t spend
Getting over not getting…
I’m buying a bridge that’s just average
That’s how you feel
He asked me if I could swim
And shrugging it back he said
So positively
I’m positive he said
It’s like we’re born on our knees
With numbers sketched on our sleeves
Random or row by row
Like bullet train cargo
It gets you when you’re too young
To know the meaning of one
I can’t believe conspiracy
Exists in me
I’m not mad
And I’m not tired
I’m just waiting for the day
When we can finally break away
Turing prisons into clay
Swim a million miles away
Laughing on the shore
Are our eyes on the same station
Fit to be tied
Just passers-by
Just waiting for the day
When we can finally break away
Turning prisons into clay
And swim a million miles away
Dreaming in a dream
Stuck on repeat
I’m still asleep

Fuel
We stood up and sighed like it was the last time
You’d be hanging around this unsteady ground
Gave an assured grin, laughed like harlequin
And I thought you looked better than you had in years
What do they say about regret
That you want to silently forget?
We were just waiting (pierot, pierot)
It was so criminal talking about friends like funeral
Burning effigies tributes to textbook tragedies
It’s my last scene in your last dream
A moment if you please
What do they say about regret
That you want to silently forget
We were just waiting
For the other shoe to drop
You should be here but you’re gone
Why can’t fate be wrong
Why can’t we listen
Stop this slow division
Can’t we just wake up
Now we need more fuel for fires
Got to keep lighting funeral pyres

The Dumbest Angel
One more conversation left to kill
Between this stupid angel’s eyes
That show a desperate smile
Coated laughter, wet with bile
Seems to be so it might as well be
Honest insight, safe and airtight
Slogans form my sterile birthright
Stop our motions slow to nothing
Wait,
Because intent counts for something
Don’t stand in place and let this break.
Angel, so stupid
Don’t ignore what beats so quickly
Turns right now to years past by me
One day I could, might make something
Snap me out of what we’re becoming
And find what it takes
To replace this state of dying
Restraint has no place here
Because a slogan more hollow than what you might think

Becomes what you put your faith in.

Penelope
I can wait, I just can’t wait
Just can’t stand up and start again
Begging on the moon to bring you home
Every night, done and undone
Every night, done and undone
This memory will never fade I keep it close to my
heart and wait
Sometimes a city burns out its beauty
And somewhere you just sit and waste your time
Sustaining time

Favorite Goodbye Fuck
So tell me when did you
Think that one more time
Meant my whole damn life
Spent in turning down
A watch that never stops
Or lets you catch a breath
But keeps my eyes dead on sight
To see what we’ve got left
Enough to burn this town
To ashes we’ll all need
To cauterize the past
And let these real wounds bleed
Because after all has been spent
Into the drain right now
Then we can clear our throats
And talk this through somehow
When the end comes
You won’t notice
When the end comes
You won’t know it

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The Bend Before the Break : back to top

Serious Heavy Drama
Spent a lifetime making plans for the moment when your
mouth would part and fail
Saw one chance to change and see through all the
half-steps that I’d taken
Tally up, I’m sick of failing
Just thought that this might be going somewhere
Not on your life
And you though that I’d give up so easy
Like nothing we’d said would have mattered
Just thought that this might be
What you wanted
(the last time to pay what’s due)
(this last time I see you ending expected a movement
of blank stares)
Just cross this line and I’m through
Night air pulls through one more summer
When did life become a playback tape
Left out lines from text left over
For someone to erase in twenty, thirty years at best
would get you
Inside of some photograph without a name
It’s not you that lasts it’s how you change and
Learn to struggle
For what you wanted

Harlow
I haven’t slept for days now and if that’s not enough
I still walk around in dreams
Covered by these streets have silent voices
And I’m fading like a picture to the past
In these ghosts I believe, won’t picture this city
Fractured in light glass
Not another dusty vision
Or empty vessel
And will they look embittered now that I can’t stay
And rolling eyes annoyed as I blindly say
I used to have a life here
And no one has to die here
I’m flying out on Lincoln hill
Broken hearts beat still
Some stories never end
They just get told again with different pictures
The people here don’t cry
They just close their eyes and whisper
To dead friends
We never really made amends to
The spaces haunt you
Remember everything you did
To gain one inch of ground
Let them know we tried everything
But we couldn’t save this victimless faith

Aside from bleeding
How much more honest can I be?

You’re devastated, I’m sure
Fell silent in a crowd so you wouldn’t mind
Left to study the patterns of speech and the shift
Of the outline in the corner you just couldn’t find
And now the truth hurts a little more every time
I try to speak but stop short because I’m watching you
listen
I know no matter the words said, you’ll read wrong
And if this gets stripped to the end it could kill the
beginning
So I’ve got nothing to say when you ask what I’m
thinking
No time to be this tired
Fess up to another unerasable year
Of steps that I took to ignore
A strained slow sinking inside that’s made me aware
Of how far this has gone
How far have you
No time to be this tired
Nothing like sitting beside yourself
Nothing like passing up this view
There’s nothing stopping you from leaving
There’s nothing stopping you from being alone
Caught right in front of your first decision
A shot that leaves no regret for the ending
As if our lives should be this and nothing else
I stripped clean what remains
Burns clear and true

Untitled
There are no words

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Twenty-Four : back to top

Twenty-Four
Have we had enough to drink tonight
We'll feel better in the morning
Or worse I'll feel separate again
And walk to the store
More desperate faces that
Rake through and cling to you
Just walk out the door
Twenty-four.
Convenience is more
There's no change in my pockets
And no change on the streets
Just a lot of headline pointing to something
Who can afford to reach out
Out of here back to a shrinking bed
That rhymes with
Crawling walking lying dead
Is this never ending?
One time got stuck in the same old ending
Light without life