I’ll fall in love with the acquired taste
of holding tongue
and biting cheek
turn the coffee off
and finally give up fighting sleep
Then, in a decade when my son is wondering what I did while they were squelching rights under the guise of finding peace
I could tell him that I’d finally had enough and found a hobby where I didn’t grind my teeth
Took my every passion and I stuffed it underneath a bunch of basic beats I made to sell for twenty dollars each
Every line I wrote that felt a little too insightful, I ignored til they, eventually, were buried down beneath
buried with a part of me that’s safely out of reach
That which cannot do, and cannot talk enough to teach
That didn’t last the siege
And stopped attempting scores that told the all-too-honest story of the scene
But, rather, kept it stupid simple,
with some songs about a creek,
and a love at 17
That, in 3 and some-odd minutes,
doesn’t stray from G and D
Whose sole artistic purpose
is to end up on ‘repeat’
so it can help to pad your streams
and That’s the whole extent
of the intent of its release
It’s commodified and trial-size,
and harmless as can be
Except one simple sample
that my handler sent to me:
A background noise for background noise,
that’s not to be perceived
But research shows the tone embeds
in people’s heads for WEEKS
And he said if it makes the single,
then we’ve got a gold e.p.
The kind of tune the unassuming
Dance to all too easily
the propaganda we don’t understand,
but we believe,
They call him DJ Daedalus,
He’s famous in these streets
Come Catch him live on Friday nights,
the highest spot in Crete
Can’t play you ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’,
it melted in the heat
His wax is to distract the mass,
and keep them on their feet
The beat will drop like Icarus,
and plummet, Sun to Sea
In a tragedy that history is happy to repeat
Some write the songs that tell the crowd
our prison’s something sweet
I write the songs that warn the crowd
we’re not allowed to leave.
You can sneak it past the censors
if you’re clever and discreet
You just gotta add some ‘Woah-Oh’s
on the fives and on the threes
Like Icarus cried “YOLO”
when his feathers felt the breeze
And it was lit until his drip
began to dribble more than freeze
Like the whoop of the millennium
when Sisyphus concedes
And accepts the path before him
and how powerless he seems
The boulder isn’t gonna roll itself
from ‘A’ to ‘B’
and embracing that
will only set us free
Not ‘Freedom’ like
what you gave up your privacy to keep
Not ‘Freedom’ like a flag
with blood that’s dried in every crease
Not ‘Freedom’ like Bill Gates
promoting roaches over meat,
Like Those locusts aren’t a plague,
they’re just a substitute for wheat
But Freedom like
you’ll never have to pay for air to breathe
Freedom like there’s no one there to force you to conceive
Freedom like you’re safe, and have the simple things you need, like an overdue American reprieve
A collaborative ode to the mythology and culture of the Czech Republic, pairing meditative poetry with menacing sounds. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 12, 2022