for all of you people that downloaded these records or just plain can't real old german script, here are the lyrics. jan tour of the southwest with comadre. peep the dates

here is bearing and distance, and the self titled record.


BEARING AND DISTANCE, 2008

PORT OF CALL
dirty nails never fail
to catch the dust that looms
a parsed out time, between the lines
in cloudy foreign rooms
dirty sails never fail
to reach the port of call called home
with compass still, and where bearings kill
any semblance of the unknown
the purest of the greenest grass
lies right beneath our feet
between the need and want we're torn
but in bags we sleep as dead as leaves
and each morning we're reborn

SOUTHWEST PASSAGE
the sordid memories were chasing me
along the swollen latitudes of a rotten globe
its time to hang them up
like sweaty clothes out the window
once i used to care about coming home
the feeling drowned out easy by the engine drone
along the bloated longitude of a rotten globe
i always came back
with some long story to tell
tinged with the helplessness
of unrelatable detail
but like the monotony of a metronome
i always come home

DOCUMENT
throw your wasted words
in diaries just to be forgotten
but these documents
become irrelevant
because after the fact
words can't describe a heart attack
just the permanence of impermanence

no tensions, just tension
each night a storyline
each second a lifetime of deception
where everyone takes,
what they need to take from you

LAUGHTER
as simple as this all may seem
the doctrines and constructs work more easily
when clinging to the vestiges
of youth, or familial obligation
a search for truth, through a blurry xeroxed repetition
a bitter ruse of heavenly competition
remember everyday, when you wake up
you're the product of, flesh and blood
so don't cry, there's no hell when you die

SEVEN
november screams outloud "the seventh, the seventh"
and ohio's burial shroud binds up the desert
november screams outloud "the seventh, the seventh"
and ohio's burial shroud shadows the crescent
but what is hopeful? what is hopeless?
when the needs of the populus
become politics
november screams in chorus line
to deadlocked votes and wasted time
there is no them, there is no us
just tow the party line
and the dream
drags on in rust

THE OCEAN FLOOR
dear fathers you write
safely from your chairs
and think nothing
of your linen bound despair
saying "id walk the ocean deep
and moving river floors
if just to escape
the teeming cluttered shore"
where the builders build their bridge
of sorrow and remorse
"i'd rather not breathe
than fight a losing war"
but listen to what you say
and i know we're all just trying to make it
sometimes even when you swim you get sucked down
sometimes even if you cross the splinters gouge you
this is where the critical and the desperate divide
whether those bastards pull you down
or just pull you aside
no longer, are we immune to our decisions

RUINS
the legacy of latium
is finally bearing down
second it flooded the bosphorus
and soon the cloud spread borderless
and crumbled underneath its own sheer mass
the same way you'll remember us
from the marble of the capitoline
to the marble of the capitol
a proven timeline undeniable
and the, imperial acumen
lied on the broken backs of lesser men
who never had one day, one hour, one minute
second after second it beckons
but the history is deceptive

DROWNED IN A DROUGHT
through wealth and time
we stand on fault lines
51 miles in the promised land
where concrete covers up the river beds
the organized organism
takes the steps we'd surely understand
to survive
and out of its boundaries grow
to provide
the profits reaped for all the suffering sown
the midstates arid lows
to the broken dam's torrent flows
from the valley to the harbor
if we can't bring it to the city
we'll bring the city to the water

THE BRIDGE OVER THE WATER
the bruised and battered face of solitude
all of our lives' trivial pursuits
a yellow page i've read a thousand times
slurs a tired and repeated line
"you have nothing to lose but your chains"
to soil and shovels we're sworn
to layers of history that suffocate the unborn
you may say these bridges i've burned
but i would do it all again
while they all wait, to cross in turn
i'd rather swim

COPYWRITTEN
I've appropriated
As I stumble through, all those lines and verses
To make something new
I guess those authors never died
They just slithered back
With new ideas to monopolize
Like, you can't have the feeling of creation
Because we own the feeling of creation
And now mythologies, run serpentine
And pick up the dirt and leaves of revelry
The future will never see, that these giants
Are just like all of us

LOXODROME
Your outlook, is limited to the place you live
Although I know you've been
Outside, of your bubble
You never understand, you never took it in
Never read the maps that you carried with you
Never care dto see the world through different shoes
Rhumb lines erased quickly as they're laid down
Slam you head against the ceiling to the simple sound
Of burning out
My name's not patience
And I'm rarely called sympathy
My name's frustration at these ingrates tied to me
At these ingrates that represent me

SELF TITLED RECORD
THE CUSTOM OF THE SEA
We'll die of thirst
in the sea the same as the city
but flat black asphalt waves
lack the trade winds to save us from the isolation
so paddle hard because we all know what the straws decree
one of us has go
this time no one makes it home

SCIMITAR
Black death
While they were crying
in their bibles ancient knowledge rested in Arabic
from Toledo east to the Caspian
6000 years stand as a testament
while the mystery of the hinterland
draws our eyes from the typical
the east always wears a tarnished crown
in the court of the peripheral
they laid straight border lines
this cuts the tie that binds the crescent
one more fertile a difference place and time

SEPARATION PERFECTED
The heat it radiates up and down your legs from the pavement
we all get burnt when we stay too long
the ribbon texture easily puts to sleep security
it's not the first time
but it's the last time
this prosthesis, although it fades once it's gone,
you can never be the same
can the torn and bloody victim
love the blood splashed fiend who rips him limb from limb?

COMPLETE WORKS
He said history repeats in perpetuity
first as a tragedy, then as a farce
the white trash kids say they like it how it is
construction jobs bring them lots of cash and early marriages
the catholic kid says he's keeping it the same and the mistakes of his parents he'll carry to his grave
and the Christian kids say it's how it's always been where the battles lines are clearly drawn between piety and sin
he said lovers of prostitutes are happy, fit, and satisfied
as for me (us), my (our) arms are broken from grasping the clouds.

PALIMPSEST
Now things are different between me and the world
It moves steadily faster
to avoid the detail you slip into speech where the memory seeps
like the blood spilling out of a limb soaks the sleeve
or the cheap slight of hand we all play the amputee wins the fight
but the war it begins when he wakes from the night
he knows that he lost what he needs
we know we lost what we need

ESPIONAGE
They say it's the blood you shed
but no one wants to die for triviality and emotionless ideology
while patriots act
they mourn contest to their rule
red guards, basij, and plain clothes
police add their flames to a dormant fuel
they rat you out and turn you in
they cut you down before you have a chance
surveil, patrol, conceal, control

WELTSTADT LOS ANGELES
The tracks stretched 30 miles out to the east and long beach south
a travel much different than our lived experience
but the captains of industry leveled a failsafe scheme to replace our transport with the seeds of their making
this constructed culture that lacks infrastructure
rips the community straight from our chests
where are we now?
when we put our faith in pretenders, defilers, and usurpers

SIX
Meanings are meant for defining definitions
to paint all opposition in the simplicity of black and red
all attempts and autonomy will be denied while the vultures of economy reify
if to resist its to be terrorist, then terrorize
is survival and all you've got?
is that deadman's tie around your neck made of 13 knots?

SHORE LEAVE
See in the face from that over there place
on the corpsee with the 1,000 yard stare
die in their beds
everyday while their thinning hair grays to the memory
machine gun snare
the staccato sound
the days of valor and deference have come and gone
the days of blood and soil are gone
now it's time to move on
we have a charge more meaningful
for all the judgment lacked we've got targets on our backs
everywhere we go including here

INDEX LIBRORUM PROHIBITARUM
Tridentine, from time immoral
this will protect you and protect your followers
we've got a good place for you
beneath our gilded jackboot
corrections
will save your life's work
our red pen cuts a swath across your jugular

SEPARATED AT BIRTH
The same twisted roots from a tired seed in it's purest form
it might provide comfort
but it provides no comfort for me
it's easy to deny the faintest notion of parallel or analogy
the simple truth to Abraham became the scourge of his progeny
it's easy to find contradiction in another's faith, another's culture
but similarities reveal the same imposed order,
power structures through a different lens
the image changes but the framework remains
their god, their fight, their chosen plight is a single specter with different names
you know, to see is to believe
the skeptic, the question, our only weapon