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Mud Tongue

by Boog

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1.
The first time you swallowed me There was no doubt in my mind that it was love My cracked and bloodied fingers were the perfect fit for your colorfully knit kid gloves But the second time you did it, my certainty waned I was as scared as a black ant caught in a slobbering rain And though we hadn’t yet parted, That’s when it started For fear, I turned blackhearted and set our love about to circling the drain The first time you touched my face There was no doubt in my mind, our nerves were kindred You were the hottest bloom at the end of June, And I was a fool not to pick you ‘til winter Thrown and put together, just like pure science-fiction— It was all i could do to be your two-penny prince And though we hadn’t yet started, fate had us outsmarted From then, on, our course was charted We were forever doomed to circle the drain And since the last time you called to me, it isn’t unusual for me to tope when the midsummer moon fills up my room with the same china hue as your skin. I hope you put my flowers in alcohol and choked off the bottle, so they can live to see you happy in the arms of another And when their color’s departed, know that your plan isn’t thwarted Those blossoms have only started to know how it feels to circle the drain
2.
Savage 03:55
I can kill that mulberry tree with a few copper nails Three or four, and it’ll die I could really use a friend, but these days savages are in such short supply Now I’m standing in the Bamboo Bar Drinking Mexican beer on the fourth of July I could use a friend right now, but these days a savage is so hard to find I’m an unkeepable secret I just keep giving myself away And when I do, you don’t even believe it ‘It’s not possible,’ you say Tell me, where can I find a savage? Scrawling glyphs on the walls of a cave A ruthless, but a well-kept savage, A savage in the modern age? I can feel our shoulderblades touch, and I like it very much, but You won't get me to dance. Don’t even try. God knows I need a friend Heaven send me a savage with embers for eyes Tell me, where can I find a savage? Scrawling glyphs on the walls of a cave A ruthless, but well-kept savage A savage in this modern age?
3.
Sour Cute 02:17
Streak your eyelids cyan Plump your lips with cayenne You are yours, you’re in no man’s thrall when you make yourself up like a doll A heavy wind may make you light but it don’t make you a kite with your winged backpack, you’ll reach great heights quite soon, while I’m hacking sandbags off a sinking hot air balloon But would you bend over backwards for me? I’m not that nimble myself, but I’m good on my knees and I’m eager to please Speak to me in absolutes, Gothic lolita, sour cute The truth lies in doing what the others can’t do, while the ones you used to screw will try to put you to the screws Just keep that lift to your head, or they’ll keep shooting till you’re dead and a cherry red river of glitter’s gonna run from those tarantula lashes to that candy-stained tongue But would you take one point-blank for me? I don’t photograph well, but I like being seen in your company しょうがない 仕方が無い It cannot be helped
4.
I took a leave to raise hell Now my baby’s grown But she’s grown so complacent traipsing out on her own I’ve got to exercise my demons Before they all go soft Worry, worry, why you worry About her all the time? Well, I’ve gotten so much practice, It’s become a point of pride I’ve got to exercise my demons Before they start to stray away from me When I’ve got nothing to say, I will force it I will cozen, cajole, and coerce it, coax it forth There’s nothing worse than shooting a gift horse, Then beating it past death, only to kneel And kiss your jockey’s feet Tell me, who’s that red devil In the powder blue tie? But, then again, when my blues burn green, Who am I? I’ve got to exercise my demons, Before they all turn yellow I bite my words back, It’s like keeping down live eels I could eat a ten-course meal Of what I thought I ought to feel I’ve got to exercise my demons: It’s just too many mouths to feed It’s a backwards forward motion A lone blowup boat in a hopeless ocean It’s punctured, but it’s floating Got no heading, but I’m rowing, If only to put the sky and the sea behind me I’m hotter than a comet Making steam in the rain Set them Furies on me, please: I’m killing urges I cannot contain
5.
You replaced your summer sundresses with cigarette jeans went back to blonde and carried on, twenty-five going on eighteen singing Springsteen at the moose lodge, Karaoke queen You came out of it clean But you did me dirtier than a Mailer novel Left me emptier than a lager bottle in a scene that played out like an Aeschylus drama for the whole town to see I get it, he was a manchild and you needed somebody to mother and why settle for just one love, when you can go find another To think of all the times that guy called me his brother You live and you learn Our friends all fought to have my back or first rights to stab it They made my pain out to be just another bad habit but they keep toting me around like the foot of a rabbit That takes some nerve Eyeing a spot of sky where the blood moon sits listless I count the passing hours on my quivering digits and await the unlikely chance to grant you forgiveness you don’t deserve I made a fist around fifteen bills as I passed by the clinic and straightened out my spine beneath those old woeful bridges to deliver to that worm three hundred bucks and good wishes he didn’t deserve How humble is his tongue when it sunders your lips? How wholesome is his pulse under your fingertips? How honest are his eyes, intent on seeing your skin, or his hands when they visit all the places where mine have been? Eyeing a spot of sky where the blood moon sits listless I count the passing hours on my quivering digits and await the unlikely chance to grant you forgiveness you don’t deserve Oh well, what’s a red flag, against a blood moon? Was there ever a more clever disguise? Let the slag of the steel town run over my grave when I die
6.
Dolt 04:55
She dressed for a funeral some time after midnight I lie naked as an unusual newborn exposed on a mountainside Caught up in the lunar pull treading water till the first rays of daylight She asked if I was okay I told her I was all right, which was a lie She pressed me further but I won't Dolt Last night I dreamt I went to trial As if my guilt need be proven She led me by the hand down empty aisles The jurors' seats were a vacant dozen From the stand I watched her shuffle files My body all but frozen I hoped that there wasn’t a bible near for half truths would be spoken We locked eyes She said, 'Just a few questions now. Let’s get some things out in the open. Is that string around your finger a rubber band? So, an elastic bond cannot be broken? When you held me close, were you just painting my smile on the lips of your once-betrothed? Did you your faith defile when you tore off all my clothing? Don’t be shy!' I said, ‘Let me please remind you that all the while your hand was clutching mine I spoke no oath, dolt.’ I awoke before the sentencing, though I imagine it was brief When I saw the sun at daybreak what I felt wasn’t relief Because this wasn’t the sin, but the reckoning a burial, a cause for grief So I’m going to lie right here in the bed I’ve made, hung like a horse thief Damn my eyes If I could take a knife to my beliefs— Don’t Dolt
7.
His is a church for sinners And I’m a beginner but I fall further every day I’m in it for all the wrong reasons, But i’m in it for the right ones, too You can’t believe everything that they say What fool doesn’t want to get paid? Show me the man who doesn’t want to get laid His is a church for sinners And I’m a beginner but I fall further every day Baby’s got such tiny hands Man, but she can’t keep them busy enough Tell me, what does she do When the fat that you two chew Proves to be just a little too tough? Does she shake her head and say, ‘That’s enough’ Or is it ‘Take me now, daddy, give it to me rough’? Baby’s got such tiny hands But she can’t keep them busy enough The first time I lied to you There was nothing to hide. I did what I did in plain view I tried so hard to hold its chain in vain But now it’s hungry and on the move That lie hurts me more than it’s hurting you Or maybe that’s a lie too The first time I lied to you There was nothing to hide. I did what I did in plain view My mother’s in the kitchen Doing dishes Washing knives If it weren’t for my mother I probably wouldn't even bother Keeping myself alive Now two prayers push past my lips: DON’T LET. FORGIVE. While my mother’s in the kitchen Doing dishes, washing pots and plates I’m kneeling in a church for sinners, An eager beginner, Falling further every day
8.
I'd been smoking cigarettes like I could afford them and contemplating suicide in my Mid-Atlantic doldrums 'Peaks and valleys,' said my friend, when he got clean in twenty-ten Now he's back in West Philly, shooting junk again Peaks and valleys, but no even ground Peaks and valleys, never leveling out You're shouting and crying, but not making a sound when you speak You shoulder a boulder up the valley slope, but never quite reach the peak So, I had to find what was missing and remove what was in my way I fortified my birdcage, emptied out my ashtrays, I sweated out the poison, washed and folded my towels I reshaped my mortal clay, baby, and look at me now It's still Peaks and valleys, but no even ground Peaks and valleys, never leveling out You're laughing and smiling, but not making a sound when you speak You shoulder a boulder up the valley slope, but never quite reach the peak I've got dreams in need of hope and nightmares that don't dare quit I'm full of charm, I'm full of love, I'm full of guilt, I'm full of lies, I'm full of shit Sometimes I want to kiss my reflection, Other times, I want to tell him, 'Grab the gun, son: this is it.' So, I'm back to smoking cigarettes like I can afford them and contemplating suicide, this time purely out of boredom I'm a wholly different man in my head than when I'm lying in your bed But if you bring me into your life, baby, remember when I said that I'm back to smoking cigarettes like I can afford them and deciding whether or not suicide is dulce et decorum I'm a wholly different man holding a pen than lying in your bed But if you keep me in your life, baby, remember when I said that it's Peaks and valleys, but no level ground Peaks and valleys, never evening out There's a shudder in your throat, but you don't make a sound when you speak You watch the boulder roll down the slope, as you're just about to reach the peak
9.
We went west to no salvation We were thinking that we were free We’re just now getting out of the garden only to be buried by the sea Between the notion and the nation there’s this little thing called faith Birds fall dead on holy places sacred spaces long laid waste We went south just to get some air but it was a tree-lined way of pain, Bienvenue au le monde, mon frere Ma, you can’t have an Abel once you’ve had a Cain Between the victor and the victim there is a constant tacit game: He who sleeps will be he who bears scars without a name We went east just to say goodbye to those who’d said the west would be the end It seemed a clear drop at the horizon but the sun must rise again, friends Between the crowning and the coronation tiger-lilies line the way to the battered door of the station, where they bear your sons away We went north to twigs and pebbles and a dusty country road (It was skulls and bones and ashes trapped beneath the snow) Between the shouts of the louts and lushes there’s the thrum of locust wings Beneath the singing of the thrushes the spider loves the fly on in
10.
And I apologize, Great Mother, For I am the one who is receiving the slug Bullet after bullet and thudding But too poor to pay the gunman He says, ‘This one is out of charity, son’ Next morning and a greater sense of nakedness In the ears and under But too poor to keep the blood running And last night was a flood What else be found when it subsides, But dams that quiver, swollen and numb? That’s versatile stuff, though, the gums! Too poor to keep my guard up, And last night, you threw a heavyweight’s punch A kiss’ll get my heart sloppy-drunk On its own dumb blood, So be careful with those eyes, or I will stumble Does this qualify, you front-facing, old, sagacious bum As being reinvented, drug out of that mud? The middle will never get what’s in this gut, Because I ain’t so poor, that I’d fall in no clutches But if you’re the poorhouse, baby, Open up your doors and make those clutches tight
11.
Now I will sing you the pain of a man misunderstood. That is, both the pain and the main: my song, this missive launched by a longbow of pasteboard and gilt Though in its readers hands the stock will yellow and wilt, its message leaves her little to intuit: The heart is the hardest soft target to hit My lover has a billion houses and a wardrobe of ten billion blouses She says, ‘You can never not have something to wear.’ But all it takes is one little tear in her heavy coat for me to break through it The heart is the hardest soft target to hit The rules laid down by a victim are cruel, but I humored her, in hopes that when she finished school she’d be wise to the world, her ignorance finally fed The game kept me warm in another’s bed, but it wasn’t long before I outgrew it, because the heart is the hardest soft target to hit Bacon grease and Camel smoke: the two scents I’ve come to love the most, walking down this well-worn corridor I reach out to touch the door, but my hand seems to go right through it The heart is the hardest soft target to hit At a homecoming rife with pomp and flags I was led into danger by her ruby rags, bagged, gagged, and stolen away from my world But her net wasn’t too hard to unfurl I’d say that even a child could quickly undo it The heart is the hardest soft target to hit. For the purpose of making my actions more clear: it was not money or distance or faith, it was fear Fear was the reason I orphaned her, turned tail, and ran But my face always did look so hollow and damned, no matter how many times she drew it The heart is the hardest soft target to hit

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All tracks recorded live in one session, Sunday 02/21/16

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released March 14, 2016

Recorded, Mixed, Mastered by Rich Gavalis at Dome Sound Studio, Royersford, PA

Album artwork by Chelsea Dodge

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Boog Pennsylvania

'I've heard the more you suffer, the better it is.'

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