Category: airlift
Corporate Logos
You know the flow by where it won’t go
Those outlines define the shapes of the signs
Drawn in the span between high tide and low
Visible only when moonlight shines
Always digging and ditching
That double-edged duality
Emulating every enemy
As we go about the business
Of re-branding reality
Spiraling staircase
Spells out the word
That all eyes know
And no ears have heard
Four letters in the flesh
Swirling in a soup
Strangely stirred
Walking the talk
Stumbling and slurred
Banks of currency backed by trust
Storing the solid light of the sun
Accounts inherited by birthright of dust
With a ballooning balance known by none
Variable interest which self-adjusts
And long lines of numbers which add up to one
Spiraling staircase
Spells out the word
That all eyes know
And no ears have heard
Four letters in the flesh
Swirling in a soup
Strangely stirred
Walking the talk
Stumbling and slurred
So we’re making matters in our own hands
For all we are are blueprints in sand
With the endless supply of endless demand
Swimming through the subspace substrate
Creation in search of something to create
Anagrams and amalgamated visions
Fused by the art of inverted fission
Spiraling staircase
Spells out the word
That all eyes know
And no ears have heard
Four letters in the flesh
Swirling in a soup
Strangely stirred
Walking the talk
Stumbling and slurred
Alembic
The face of the tabula rasa
Emptiness awaiting the wind
Like a mad priestess of Pythia
Inhaling infinities within
Exhaling soap-bubble streams
Running on the last synapse
Juggling fragile dreams
Until all save one collapse
I made my way to this domain
Dancing in the serpent’s lair
Dissolving the shallow and vain
Washing myself right out of my hair
When the right hand knows
What the left hand feels
When opposites match
Epiphanies flash
And sparks catch
Illuminating the wick
Just you mind the magic
Watch the other hand
That’s where you’ll find the trick
At the crossroads the curtain rippled
Centuries swept away
And then our numbers tripled
When the djinn came out to play
Eternity etched in hourglass sands
Symbols distilled through the ages
Keep whatever you catch in your hands
And transmute it upon these pages
Did you anticipate this instant’s arrival
Grasping at tattered coat-tails?
Can you taste the rag-tag sense of style
Can you hear the breeze rustling these sails?
When the right hand knows
What the left hand feels
When opposites match
Epiphanies flash
And sparks catch
Illuminating the wick
Just you mind the magic
Watch the other hand
That’s where you’ll find the trick
Alchemy is all about purity
Dialing down the ego noise
Rising higher with every degree
That the fire-walk destroys
Sitting in the crucible
We’re cranking up the gas
Down to bare essentials
Extracting music from the mass
We’ve caught a drop of magic
Raining from phantom clouds
Distilled in the alembic
Until it sings the spell out loud
When the right hand knows
What the left hand feels
When opposites match
Epiphanies flash
And sparks catch
Illuminating the wick
Just you mind the magic
Watch the other hand
That’s where you’ll find the trick
Sailing In Circles
Ah, those were our halcyon nights
Dancing on fantasy’s ledge
Outlandish pied-piper satellites
Pushing the envelope over the edge
The stars all shining spectral rays
And the ocean was but a lake
Sailing in circles for a thousand days
Swept away as we fell awake
Oh, all of us felt the loss
From the four-way double-cross
When the arrow hit the albatross
And the headless coin was tossed
First it soars
And then it tumbles
Well, that’s the way
The karma crumbles
Well, the Captain took a turn for the strange
Missing the storm-clouds for the sea
Icebergs high as a mountain range
Echoing whispers of mutiny
The vessel sank like stoneware
In wells of washed-out ink
Wisdom, wisdom everywhere
But not a thought to think
Oh, all of us felt the loss
From the four-way double-cross
When the arrow hit the albatross
And the headless coin was tossed
First it soars
And then it tumbles
Well, that’s the way
Tthe karma crumbles
Gotta get it off my chest
My chest
Oh I gotta get it off my chest
My chest
The sightless prophet held his head
Salty and parched with thirst
Bring that bird back from the dead
And your fate shall be reversed
If your raft survives resurrection
And rises up from the murky deep
Casting a still life reflection
Of when dreams were only asleep
Oh, all of us felt the loss
From the four-way double-cross
When the arrow hit the albatross
And the headless coin was tossed
First it soars
And then it tumbles
Well, that’s the way
Tthe karma crumbles
Rhapsody In Retrograde
Quite a crisis on Haywire Hill
By now we ought to know the drill
It’s enough to make old Murphy ill
Any glitch which can pop up probably will
We’re in the eye of a psychic cyclone
Yes, it’s a mess, and you’re not alone
Regroup until the stormwinds have blown
Retrograde wrinkles all that is known
The state of fate appears a bit perverse
As if we’re under a curious curse
Maybe it’s Mercury orbiting reverse
Or maybe it’s the rest of the Universe
You know, this messenger’s mission
Is subject to being suddenly spun
Mishaps always chancin’ to happen
While I’m chasing Sun under the gun
Say, this empty bag weighs a ton
I’d love to chat, but I’d better run
You may not like the prize you won
Please don’t shoot, I’ve only begun
The payment is tendered in verse
Sent in the form of reality checks
Not nearly enough to stuff a purse
But better tips than the service reflects
I brought my thoughts to the mail slot
Dropped in my cryptic bits of W.A.S.T.E.
Triple-stamped in care of all I’m not
With a request for the greatest haste
Drafts which couldn’t face
Getting replaced
Covered with clues
From who knows who
And tales of ordeals
I somehow outpaced
Rhapsody in Retrograde
Cavalcade of escapades
Rhapsody in Retrograde
Promenade of plans mislaid
Rhapsody in Retrograde
Serenades for renegades
The state of fate appears a bit perverse
As if we’re under a curious curse
Maybe it’s Mercury orbiting reverse
Or maybe it’s the rest of the Universe
Blues for Kali
They call Her the Dark Mother
And also the Mountain’s Daughter
She’ll sever your head
And deliver up another
Matters may not get better
But they’ll be different all the same
For that chatter don’t matter
And the matter won’t really mind
When you go to leave all the Maya behind
Each day is a tango with death
Dancing true blue tempos
Among shadows and echoes
Simple as holding a breath
And then letting it go
Jai Ma Kali Namo
She’s the Mistress of Mystery
Far as any Third Eye can see
Her method is pure madness
For a little madness is mandatory
In order to shake off the chains of reality
This mortal plane’s a crazy game
Just playing at Being you and me
It takes grace to face a Kali makeover
But you’ll get over whoever you were
For each day is a tango with death
Dancing true blue tempos
Among shadows and echoes
Simple as holding a breath
And then letting it go
Jai Ma Kali Namo
Recycling all forms of energy
The mighty queen of Kundalini
Tantamount to Quantum Tantra
She’s the Universe’s Yoni
Oh, we’re transitory stories
Changing faces places and names
Kali Durga Uma Parvati
That which clings will surely be torn
Nothing to mourn, we’re all Being reborn
Cause each day is a tango with death
Dancing true blue tempos
Among shadows and echoes
Simple as holding a breath
And then letting it go
Jai Ma Kali Namo
Infinite Regress
Oh, where were we?
We were thinking about where we were
When we walked out past the who knows what
And then out of the jungle jumped a jangled ball
Of tangled and twisted hesitation
It was waiting for something to wait for
Hoping for a sudden burst of optimism
To drop from the dark rivulets of doom
Then there were the aftereffects
Of all that foreshadowing
Burning holes in the red carpets
Down the hallways of happenstance
And into the gloomy rooms of never can be
Back up the elevator shafts of impossibility
Do you remember?
Do you remember where we were
Halfway there, or a little less
In the infinite regress of the infinite regress
Oh where were we?
In a hall of a million mirrors
And all of these reflections of me
Carrying out eight billion careers
And many of them were sorry to see
This expanding mass of humanity
With their whys and their wherefores
And their why must this be?
And I looked to them for answers
And they looked back at me
And those eyes went on to infinity
Seeing more than any of us dare confess
Seeing past the however and the nevertheless
In the infinite regress of the infinite regress
Oh I forgot to remember
Or did I remember to forget
But it’s as clear as legalese
Or some obscure dialect of Cantonese
What I mean to say about the box
Inside the box
Inside the box
Inside the box
Ad infinitum
And so on
And so forth
The recapitulation of the retelling
Of a story that was never told in the first place
No, only the tale of it took off
Spreading like a brush-fire in the desert
A great legend of an epic
A quest for nothing in a world of far too much
Well, did we find it?
Nothing, that is.
Not at all.
Where did we find it?
Never be sure but here’s my best guess
In the infinite regress of the infinite regress
That which you’re used to
And that which seems new
Flirt through a curtain
Of never gonna happen
And almost didn’t make it
Slipping through the cracks
Of detours down garden paths
If it meant any more
It might be meaningless
Taking a break from eternity’s recess
Just to wrap my mind around my mind
Descending into the deepest end
And the deathless unending endlessness
Oh how did we ever get into this mess
Of the infinite regress of the infinite regress
If You Want To Live Forever
If you want to live forever, you’ve got to talk real slow…If you want to live forever, you’ve got to never finish a thought. Never finish a thought.
If you talk slow enough, then the thought that you’re talking about catches up with the thought you were thinking, about the thought you are having, about how if you want to live forever, you’ve got talk real slow, if you want to live forever…
League of Intergalactic Hobos
Caught this hotfoot surfing volcanoes
But only when the lava tide’s low
Touring Texarkana via tornado
Pursuing rumors of ice-blue buffalo
Hitched a northbound balloon and damn near froze
Selling kilos of snow to the Eskimos
Courting the worst-case scenario
With a chain-gang of leprechauns in tow
Oh, you have to know this ain’t my first rodeo
Non Sequitur
Yo-yo
Pogo stick
Wax and wick
Icy slick
Logistic tricks
Animated meat
Meet concrete street
Follow that clown
With the big red frown
Whichever verb
Does the noun
You know
Whichever verb
Does the noun
Knick-knacks
Triple stacked
Look, I’ve got eyes
On the back of my back
Kicking at air
Is anything there?
Build a moat
Around the I
Draw the bridge
Then wonder why
The fortress fails
To edify
The fortress fails
To edify
Yin yang
Finger bang
Sir you rang?
Hierarchical harangues
Jump? How high?
Now scrape the sky
Birth the Sun and scorch your thighs
You’re lucky to even qualify
Trickle down oil spills
Duck your head it’s just a drill
Don’t know who will
Pay the bills
When we only
Work for play
Jack be shady, Jack be slick
Well, Jack ran off with the music stick
Is half a loaf any better
Than a half-assed cranial kick?
Well, we’ve got wax
And we’ve got wicks
But the candle won’t call it magic
No the candle won’t call it magic
If the flicker’s in on the trick
No the candle won’t call it magic
If the flicker’s in on the trick
In on the trick
You say more poison is the cure?
No, that’s just pure non sequitur
Now do tell what fresh circle of hell?
And are you sure you’re sure?
Well, I think the chance is one in ten
Better confiscate their pens
Now is morphing into then
Groovin’ on that grimoire grammar
Slam the gavel!
Jack the hammer!
Correlate unrelated dates
Don’t stop
To hesitate
Just hold your wait
Hold your weight
And activate
Tick-tock
Kick the clock
Round the block
That joke’s debunked
The cost is sunk
And the potion’s drunk
On the fast-track
To a cul-de-sac
In the back
Of a jacked-up Cadillac
Be sure your big break
Don’t break you right back
Be sure your big break
Don’t break you right back
Word salad lightly tossed
Assonance the special sauce
Pre-sale clichès at half the cost
Scrabbled Yahtzee Boggle
Rocket moon boondoggles
Don infra-violet goggles
Helmet meet baton
There’s your crown, peon
Win the hamster marathon
For it’s half-past time
Half-past time
Half-past time to Immanentize
An Eschaton
Imminent ties
The Eschaton
Imminent ties
The Eschaton
Question Marks
The sky was raining question marks
Djinn spinning in bodies of dust
Air rippling with cobalt sparks
Dancing in fantasies of treasure and trust
Coming to in a bed of thorns
Beneath a scalding hot pink dome
The wailing wind imitating horns
Mirages curdling up with foam
Clouds and crowds appeared like smoke
Where nothing at all should be
And all at once like a Cosmic Joke
Dawned a shimmering glimmer of destiny
Well, it’s time and it’s time
And it’s time to write the future
It had to happen later or sooner
For the second hand is the Great Undoer
So know your spell well
When the bellwether chimes
Cause like they say
Like they say
History rhymes
The ambrosia and the nectar flowed
And then the star struck nine
Falling from the comet she rode
Hanging from a dangling vine
A silent voice was thundering
In a cadence soft and divine
Said we heard you out here wondering
If you can read between the signs
Can you read between the signs?
Well, the Mobius Band got out of hand
Stripping the fabric from the folds
When the hourglass ran out of sand
And told a tale which never ever grows old
Well, it’s time and it’s time
And it’s time to write the future
It had to happen later or sooner
For the second hand is the great undoer
So know your spell well
When the bellwether chimes
Cause like they say
Like they say
History rhymes
Goatman Pan with a pipe and a plan
Playin’ that good ole Bacchanalian Jam
Looping Shepherd’s tones through miles of caves
As droves of dryads come in waves
Sarasvati strumming slide sitar
Pondering swansongs down from the stars
Drawing each breath toward that which inspires
Rolling through ragas which never expire
Shiva rocking skins with all six limbs
Beating up on singularity’s rim
Drumming out the dead in single file
Chugging Soma like it’s going out of style
Like it’s going out of style
Well, it’s time and it’s time
And it’s time to write the future
It had to happen later or sooner
For the second hand is the great undoer
So know your spell well
When the bellwether chimes
Cause like they say
Like they say
History rhymes
Reset
High mojo in the whole
Heavy spells getting sprung
From the bottom of my soul
To the tip of my tongue
Riverrun
I come bearing an hourglass
Where the sand flows both ways
Not very clear on matters of mass
Tho’ quite precise where energy plays
Remember the future about like the past
Clouded by all that I’m missing today
All I can say is both move very fast
In the slowest of all possible ways
From swerve of shore
To bend of bay
Ending up where it once begun
A way a lone a last a loved
Along the riverrun
I find my way by ballpoint compass
As the world’s mapped on a sphere
Needle tuned to the heart of bliss
Nested in a maze of ten billion gears
Right now it’s pointing directly at this
Voyage of thought on waves to your ears
As a sailor who knows it’s easy to miss
Islands of hope in storms of fear
From swerve of shore
To bend of bay
Ending up where it once begun
A way a lone a last a loved
Along the riverrun
Half of humanity’s planted on Earth
So the rest could sculpt the sky
Someone must keep the sense of mirth
In a mound of molasses ten miles high
In the intermission between death and birth
We get to be ghosts with the freedom to fly
Relearn what a good limitation is worth
The way you dig on a well gone suddenly dry
From swerve of shore
To bend of bay
Ending up where it once begun
A way a lone a last a loved
Along the riverrun
Shamboozled
You’d never guess it from their tattered jackets
Four shadows sharing the glare
How they rode skyward chariots
And vaulted the moon on a dare
Well, I tell you, it was a sordid affair
How the clown confronted the crown
And both of their heads came tumbling down
Read more: Shamboozled
Sugar-Coated Half-Truths
I’m not trying to rise to sainthood
Nor vying for a Nobel prize
I plan to be good and misunderstood
So here’s a word or two for the wise
My miracles are mighty meager
Y’all better bring your own wine
Yes, I’ve been known to walk on water
But only in the winter time
Oh, sugar-coated half-truths
Go better with a shaker of salt
And if you wind up in Heaven
It ain’t gonna be my fault
Do us all a big favor
You can thank yourself later
Better be, better be your own savior
Because you’ve seen a side of me
You might think you’ve seen it all
Relegate me to the role you see
As if anyone were that small
I’ve been confused for my depictions
A case of mistaken identity
Yes, it’s true, I do fit the description
But no, that doesn’t even cover me
Yes, sugar-coated half-truths
Go better with a shaker of salt
And if you wind up in Heaven
It ain’t gonna be my fault
Do us all a big favor
You can thank yourself later
Better be, better be your own savior
Wouldn’t be caught dead in chain-mail
No, knighthood is not for me
Not on a hunt for some bloody Grail
And I say leave the dragons be
Oh, I’ll serve my head on a platter
If that’s what the music craves
For love of what truly matters
Carried away in the carrier waves
Just a Mariachi for your courtships
In this moment we all designed
Songs on my lips as I’m gathering tips
And leaving a little peace on my mind
For sugar-coated half-truths
Go better with a shaker of salt
And if you wind up in Heaven
It ain’t gonna be my fault
Do us all a big favor
You can thank yourself later
Better be, better be your own savior
Better be, better be your own savior
No Mind Left Unblown
The studio debut from
Air Lift Underground-
Air Lift Underground Living Theater is brought to you by
Amana Mission Publishing Ink.
