Featured art by Rimel Neffati. Click title image to visit her studio.

 

 

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Listen to Suggested Audio

 

Massive Attack “Unfinished Sympathy (Instrumental)”

 

 

 

 

Damned if we do
Same again if we don’t
Damned either way it appears
While hardly a message embellishing relish and hope to relay
We could always play cavalier

 

The odds are quite clear
Wouldn’t wish to upset them
Less they begin to act queer
They may then decide to get even
Joining them could be an option as obviously we are not on the hot streak to beat them
Obstacles can be removed but this proves an obtrusive to-do when we can’t even see them
Hurdles for girdles and pitfalls for corsets
Statues facing backwards, slowly fracturing of liberty anthropomorphic

 

Only human
So they say
Best we play it safe then
Run away from obligations, or else face the devastation of them chasing our dreams clean away
Should damnation swing both ways
Then this pendulum’s the pits
Tough assuming balance when it’s fractiously shifting
Flitting between every slit that it fashions
As its claustrophobic sting soon strips us of passion
Scantily clad to the flesh on our bones
Damned if we do
Very same if we don’t

 

Hung, drawn and quartered all thoughts of precaution
As they’re caught and pulled taut across scorched amber coals
Taught to man the pumps at very heart of the controls
When the soul should be sought after so
Performing barrel roll after barrel roll, alas to no avail
Parachute in hands, all set to bail
Tail winds rising
Clouds conniving
Wind chill biting
Bleak horizon
Serpents writhing
Deep inside us
Move even ever so slightly
Woe betide us
The tide is high, we’re holding on for life nowise held quite so dear
Time is nigh for playing cavalier

 

Our losses are abundantly clear
Having taken inventory, we’re aware of what’s not meant to be
Ventures gained?
Well that’s a different matter of entirety
Save for intervention, there appears to be no end for me
Neither was there ever a beginning, ostensibly

 

One time saint with a penchant for sinning
Tossed away come laundry day akin to dirty linen
Damned if I did
Just the same if I didn’t
Lowered into limbo state by way of sleazy schism

 

Hurdles now curdling, searched every oyster shell thirsting for pearls of lost wisdom
Gleaming the cube, I began then to stream from a curious prism of mercurial rhythm
Had this been delirium, then clearly I’d have traded tears for fears
But weeping seemed in keeping with the reaping of fresh harvest
Helped me slacken off the blackened harness

 

Damnably docile
For one who’d been randomly chosen to choke on my own bile
Once on the slag heap like shag pile
Now far and away more tactile as I managed to stockpile resources

 

Found the chief source to my misery, unleashed a force specifically to trigger me to make ends meet and trend against this bitter siege
My thoughts were no less bittersweet
But now I could agree to simply disagree

 

All nothings whispered sweetly
The freak in me uniquely keen to ween me from the in-between and lead me to the river blind to realign my fevered mind
Had lifted the Venetian blinds, with eyes wide open peeked inside
No longer felt obliged to sign my name across the dotted line

 

The bottom line is this
I now persist to stride a more melodic line
One that transcends space, is the same way inclined for time

 

The tide is high, I’m holding on to melting ice
This frozen pond has thawed for I’m adored, deploring voices in my head that wish me dead by way of chronic droning on
I bled my wrongs in infrared and lit the crimson river bed
And if I’m damned then I’ll be damned before I break a single piece of bitter bread
No idea what lies ahead, my skipper says it’s still unclear
Thus, I’ll keep playing cavalier
With every dash of essence spent

 

My soul knows best, will lend consent
For here within the river blind
The bleak midwinter knows no discontent
I represent the ten percent of those composed to malcontent
For life lamenting death becoming
We shall keep the river running

 

And should this mean our souls are damned
Then helping hands will lift us to the witness stand, disbanding us from no man’s land
Withstanding fire and brimstone
As we trip home to the promised land

 

 

 

 

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