Shit Twice and Die Like a Man
Alright. These were all recorded on a 4 track some years ago. All sounds by the author except for stomping from my children upstairs. Visit the House Band page to hear these songs with your ears through your computer.
I’ve grown into a lazy young man
My skin is all that I have
Come and take my place among the master race
I will do all that I can
to shit twice and die like a man
When I quit this place, bury me on my face
I grew up an angry young man
The anger here is as fine as sand
Don’t I look foolish now staring down at my hands
All the broken glass in the schoolyard
The broken eggs beneath Gowanus Parkway
Through the Gilded Age didn’t we thrash about and rage
I was born with my feet in cement
But I won’t die choking on sand
It’s a bitter pill for a world that exists just to pound sand up my ass
I fucked a hole in the wall
Of my house made of glass
just to prove I’m a bigger man than a billion grains of sand
I don’t go looking for wars
reeking of absinth and whores
The man I used to be – washed up somewhere on the Keys
The mist on the hills of a brand new day
Downwind the stink of Independence Day
Bull moose drops like a goose – breakfast in the afternoon
On the beach – in the sand
In the backroom with the band
In the bar with a knife in my hand
In the streets – in the park
In the back of my Skylark
We can make it baby any old where
(country-style whistling)
Your feet – your hands
The way the sweat beads on the small of your back
and drips down the crack in your ass
I can weep – I can pine
I can drink a gallon of cheap wine
and throw it all up in my lap
I’ve been away for almost two years
I don’t even hardly know what to do with a girl anymore
I am afraid that I have no fear
I might just grab a girl off the street in 2007 anymore
Why don’t you just make the best of this thing while your young and unbloodied by the bludgeon of time anymore
I’ve taken the time to reflect and consider my dear
Morals in a man are only the sum of his opportunities to act queer
I never claimed to be doing God’s work here my dear
17 is a very confusing, trying and difficult year
Why don’t you just give one back to your species my dear. Give it up once for 1.8 million good years
Think twice before you flash me that particular set of eyes
I’ve long left off believing in particular sets of lies
You’ve got to think twice – don’t tempt me. Be a good girl – act right. You’re a smart kid – do the right thing. God frowns on a dirty mind
Azure eye shadow, tangerine lips, you combed your hair straight for the trip
Field trips make you excited – on the bus like dirty little kids
The Battle of Greasy Grass Creek
Just as George Armstrong Custer faced down the whole Sioux nation
so might I be faced with an eternity of de-famation
Just as stories of the bloody 3rd might thrill an adventuring man’s woman
so might a sanguine night at the local saloon make a modern man feel alive again
Round up your 15 best ponies and all your strongest medicine
He who rides with stiff cock have at his back the east wind
Ride with hubris and a brass band to the strains of Gary Owen
Ride against Gall, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull – 600 Sioux and 900 painted Cheyenne
Ride under Sherman and a white god up over that final ridge
Unto history, into death – one last sacrifice to this continent ancient
I never did one single thing to dissuade you
but if a better man with a bigger heart should happen to persuade you
I would take my lot for what it’s worth – there’s not a single thing on God’s green earth that could make me sit by and smile while some other boy tries to fuck you
I believed everything I ever told you
And if I lied to you it was because I thought it was the best thing that was for you
Everything I want to be – that don’t mean shit to me if you are not there to see – you make a molehill out of me
I swore up and down you would not outlast me
I thought time was on my side but it was just my ego telling lies
I thought I had a crystal ball – we were going to have a ball. And when you said what would never be I was the last one to believe
A girl like you must own her own problems
But a boy like me don’t mind when the leaves turn in the autumn
And it’s just like you to see right through every alias that I could use – you really put me in my place, momma, come and slap me in my face
Bad times, heartache and misery
A good woman is hard to find and hard to keep
I’ve done things in my sleep the lowest horse-fucker wouldn’t do with the rancher’s sheep
Love and hard lessons in the year of the monkey
Six days in a row don’t make a week to me
Six years on the dole just sounds like seven to me
I break strings – time breaks hearts. Suicide drink despair or the long, boring march
Momma I swear I am not sexually deviant
But it’s a devious world to try to play tricks on a boy like me
I have no place in my heart for the things I see on TV
I do not have the urge to kill those who have not attacked me
I bear no malice for the living things of this world
Momma I swear I have not killed anything that was not suffering
I have come to believe in certain things.
I have come to put my faith in certain things
Fate makes the birds sing
I do not need to dress myself extravagantly
I have no wanting for the things that a richer man can buy
I remember every story about Jesus they ever told me
I do not look upon my neighbor covetously
I am not compelled to behave lasciviously
But what can a little girl know about the holy lord of hosts?
