Naevus - Soil lyrics

SOIL

FROZEN!

I was born
In a leper colony
Fumbled out under the hill
But benches were the birthplace
Of all that carried me
And they need persuasion still
Gone with dumb escape
Reaping curious flesh
I touch what once was mine
Sheer and shining sheen
Of drips - how frozen!
Constrict for the last time

What has been
Denied to me this night?
Probably my own energy
Because I have tried
So many times to fight
My senses will not obey me

Consciousness is wrong
And sleep my enemy
Both tempt me to release
If you have teeth then you
Had better show them now
And end my disbelief

Puff-puff go the bricks and mortar
Fumes, they lure me
With every fresh collapse
Get it done, get it done!
Hinder, hinder, hinder!
Twisted, tangled, perhaps

HOW DOGS DIE

Poor little boy deceived in small ways
On his way home the lashes were laid
Now he will watch and he will wait for
My good face to heal over
There are so many signs that I miss
I don't pretend that I can exist
Scribbler the scribe is overlapped with
Copyist the clerk, so lost in service

And wrapped like the milk-boy's grey coat
My reflection is trapped in his eyes
Is this how dogs die?
How dogs die

I talk about my health again when
I cannot find a way to explain
If there are words that fit me and you
Send me away, it's long overdue
I dream of biting scabs from my tongue
Waking I find there really are none
What does it represent in this case?
How to distinguish purpose from waste!

I can't seem to cut myself clear
I can't seem to find any worth
Is this how dogs die?
How dogs die

A NAUSEA

From greying folds his carcass will rise
Into the broken morning, haloed with flies
His body will move through air and through smoke
Trailing in ash where once there was oak

Pornographer of the heart
Taxidermist of the mind
Itching with a nausea
For other people's lives

He will devise a portent system
Hidden away from us in swathes of pain
He watches Lovesick and eats up his porridge
Never sats on de plane

Pornographer of the heart
Taxidermist of the mind
Itching with a nausea
For other people's lives

Pornographer of the heart
Taxidermist of the mind
Itching with a nausea
For other people's lives

He needs for nothing, or nothing that's known
To anyone who may come near
His shiftless body is aching with wonder
Wondering what it is doing here

Pornographer of the heart
Taxidermist of the mind
Itching with a nausea
For other people's lives

HARM

We trudged down from the undergrowth
Along the open road
We knew our own way home
We knew our own way home
At that flattened, twisted junction
I have chosen heavy loads
The unlucky ones, they know
The unlucky ones, they know

There's no disguise for this
Why do I try to hide
The workings of, the amblings of
A toppled mind?
Will this continue to the next thing?
Did it follow from the last?
I can't remember how
I can't remember how

A passer by was staring deep
Into your open skirt
As we lay there in the dirt
As we lay there in the dirt
Should we make ourselves do painful things?
And do they really hurt?
Do they really hurt?
Do they really hurt?

You pushed me down into the crack
Of that ruptured edifice
And trod my leaking limbs down flat
Saying, 'Nothing will stand proud of this'
And no, I don't have a routine
Or at least not one like you mean
And I say I can't get to sleep
But I'll lose myself in those filthy sheets

HEALTH

Expectancy waiting
Do not be afraid
Of harming what follows
It may deserve it
Ease or pride found
It cuts its precursor
With the relentless hand
Of health
I am awake now
But synchronize nothing
Wastage repaid
With empty forfeit
Resemblance met
With a final stroke
At the lucid heart
Reap this again
I thoughtlessly sidestep
I leave my position
Unusual entrance
Cannot occur
Greet me with favours
Or fend me off
There is nothing wrong
Nor can there ever be

FUNCTION

Renewed and denuded I lie here
Awake to the consequence of less
I can mount this all within a word
The body is a table, however pendulous

How salacious was my valley?
The timing was not nearly right
Dress it all up in the words of the body
In the compost of whispers and mice

Rubbish strewed me; it's gone
Nothing knew me; I've won
Rubbish strewed me; it's gone
Nothing knew me; I've won

How wide was the mark?
How wide of the mark were we?
Did we really have to pull it all apart
Just so that we could see?
How wide was the mark?
How wide of the mark were we?
Did we really have to pull it all apart
Just so that we could see inside?

CUTTING TOOL

Is there a way to speak of this?
Is there a thing that can be known?
Some form that can be met or left?
Disgust: discuss

Because they were born to their places and grew there
They should thrive on oxygen pumped into them
But they don't, they just shine in their juice
Oh, I must find my cutting tool

Lead me astray then take me home
I've been all brown or black or green
Awash with air, amok with mud
It's all in error

Gassy and sour, oh, they won't be forgotten
They sit self-appraising, self-serving, self-loathing
I have no more use for them, let me be rid
Fetch my cutting tool

And now I could have more to say
But this mistake must be my way
I've learned in terms that pass away
They must be gone

Walk through that door at this moment, you'll find me
A bloody thing slumped in this chair, held together
By thin, mucous membrane and sore, oh, so sore
With my cutting tool

DESERT

Does it look like a man?
Does it look like a woman, or a dog, or a cow, or a mouse?

You don't deserve this
You don't deserve anything at all

Does it smell like a fish in the dead of the night?
Will it look at me sideways with a grin?

You don't deserve this
You don't deserve anything at all

I WAS THERE

I was there and nothing hurt
Never the same, never the same
Now it's all been done again and again
Again and again, it's all been done

Can you see me now? Can you see me now?
Have I fallen down? Have I fallen down?
Can you see me now? Can you see me now?
Have I fallen down? Have I fallen down?

Well, now I'm living like a normal man
And desire is out the window
Now something must be done but nothing will be done
To avert my eyes from nothing

Now, I didn't know, no, I didn't know
Was I looking away when I regained my life?
No, I didn't know, no, I didn't know
I was looking away when I regained my life

Well, do you see these hands gone scaly and old
Like another son, like another son?
And do you see this back that I never see?
I let it suffer for me wherever I go

Nothing to be done, there's nothing to be done
But I'm going to do what I've never done
It was never the same, it was never the same
They suffered for us when we stared them down

Never the same, never the same
But they let us be born into God's good air
There was a way around and there's a way around
But I'm damned if I can find it

USE

So this is what I'm reduced to
Obsession with the process
Pushed to pride in worthless things

Stumbling into eastbound trains
I'm caught in their littered slats
I'm eaten alive by filthy archways
Crusted with soot and leavings
The tufted hundreds gather round
And stare with eyes like sovereign rings
But I can withstand a curling
No camouflage, no truck

I travel up between the cracks
Bodies form other crevices
There is another there, along from me
Looking around, but mostly aside
Paper fills the seats between
Hair drapes down over
Some new form of relentless inactivity
Beaten down into idiocy

Putting into correct perspective my suffering
I was concerned for my welfare
So I cut it off with a knife
Clicking Spanishly
And did I mention Jesus?
Anxious children wait in rows
I'll keep the trophy for myself