The Current Political Climate

We shouldn't feel this way this selfish way we shouldn't feel this way
At all. There's a lot going on out there & I just happened to see this
Come across my desk: A man wrote us a letter saying 
He was concerned about receiving mail from us 'cos

Of the current political climate & I said: Well what the fuck
Does that mean? & they said: The goddamn town is boiling!

All the lines can't all be winners. It's a sad state of affairs when
You're too tired to think & too drunk to chase the skirts
To act like you've been there before. But we have been there.
We've been there since the summer of 2002. We get our mail

There. We bring a cup of something hot & sit & wait
For the man to bring us good news about the climate political

Or otherwise. He hates our stupid names & stupid faces
& loses our letters like I'll lose your scent. Just because
He can just because it hurts too much to hold on.
He & I are old enough to know we're being naive

& we still don't give a good god damn. Fuck the right
Thing the adult thing club it like a baby seal & sell it

For a profit. 'Cos some good can come from the loss
Even if it is a bit messy & just a tad unpleasant at times.
These words just this particular set is a waste of wasting
Time & I'm so very sorry if you see them and think less

Of me at all so think of me when I was good when I was
A fucking monster unstoppable & damn-near bulletproof

When all I had to worry about was a finding a home a couple
Of bills I could call my own. I'm running an old program
In a new machine & the gridwork doesn't know how to react
& I don't know how to react to it & I feel we are all getting

Close to something we won't see coming won't be able to put
Our fingers on until it is wringing our weak & sore & stupid necks.

Burn the World

It is 12:15 a.m. on a Saturday, and my hair looks too good
to sleep alone tonight.

But I got drunk off that stupid joy,
and lady? I can't stand up straight no more.

Don't bother searching for my network, you can find me
underground. This is where/how I will live now. 'Cos

the light can't get us here, but the cold
sure will. I'll invite it in, make a home for it

like I did for you.

We were too full though, I see that now. We had no room left
for the things that should matter.

I see that now.

There was a time when it was bright, and I thought about buying new sunglasses
but I kept the ones I had because I was wearing them when I met you during the storm
when Ian and I went for beer and they almost got taken away with the wind, almost
got knocked off my face, but I kept them on, and you read me Whitman, and I wanted
to tell you how important I thought you'd be to my life, that I had never met anyone
that looked like you, that had your voice or history, but I didn't tell you that then.

I won't tell you that now.

There was a time when it was warm, and it was only one day, but in that day
I was thankful for the fullness and I was taking sips of you, taking swigs of stupid
joy, and I was feeling sublime and you were feeling like you never had before.
You have a brain, you said, and I laughed and said "I do". You have passion,
you said, and I nodded and said "I hope so". You're something rare, you said,
and I wanted to write you a novel, or maybe just a love letter for when you woke.

Now is not the time for overdramatics.
Now is the time to burn the world.

I'll puke on the flames if I want to feel warm again.

Talk

We talk about "love like the whole world", but we don't know a fucking thing
about it. We want to be movie characters; that romantic comedy ending
that plays for Sunday matinee schoolgirls and bitter intellectuals.

We talk about the future like we have a single clue of how it will look.
I'm going to live in a cabin. I'm going to have a two-car garage.
I will never settle down, and you will never be able to find me.

We talk about finding the one, and we're convinced that we have
when we find someone we've never known before. I've never seen
the cut of his jib before. Her scent is from far away places.

These things are important. These things are not love.

We talk about happiness like it's something permanent, like a disease;
once we catch it, it will never go away. We'll have to call former lovers
and tell them of the diagnosis. It's only right (and we're all about being right.)

We talk about our lives like they're worth talking about.
We are not special. We are not unique. We are painfully unoriginal.
And the loves of our lives will smell it on us. We can't hide the scent.

We've been damaged and tainted, brainwashed and slightly bruised.
We've done too much living and not enough in the same useless breath.
We were banished from our homes to look for new ones, only to find

the new homes don't want us either.

The Queen of The Salt Water State (For Kathleen Bennett)

But at least I know we'll never be that far now from each other/

just a couple hundred feet either side of sea level.

- Los Campesinos!, "Hate For the Island"

We thought we could solve the world's problems from this bed,
but we were woefully unprepared. We knew not what we were doing

and we liked it this way just fine.

In another postal code, I have given you a new name; a badge
you can carry and flash when you're in need. We should be so lucky

to bow before you: The Queen of The Salt Water State.

And just because I left, it doesn't mean I left you. For how could I?
You are the conversation topic now. The reason to return

to a place that won't have me. And I love you like the whole world;

that's still enough, isn't it? 'Cos that's really all we have
when it's hard and cold, and the soft spots and hot hands

can't be found. I stole that line from that Welsh band we like,

because we can communicate with chords and borrowed accents,
even though we are so very (sort of) far away. I drop my R's more,

because I thought it would make you smile.