CHILDREN OF DAWN VOL. 1: THE DEATH OF WORDS
sean wallis
CHILDREN OF DAWN
these days everyone wants to be an artist. everyone wants to put themselves on display. i feel the only true art is that which hides itself away. a singer who cant really sing holds a violin he cant really play. but who's to say what singing really is anyway this book is dedicated to Don, Douglas, and Patrick Wallis.
"Shitting, pissing, eating, escapists. All of us. You can’t rise above your asshole. You can only rise above those who think they can.” - Henry Rollins “Life is my college, man.” - Jello Biafra
SEAN WALLIS
CHILDREN OF DAWN VOL. 1 THE DEATH OF WORDS All Illustrations by Sean Wallis Except pg. 54 by Holly Lane & pg. 37 by Justin Wallis
Layout & Design by Sean Wallis Shit Press Books Baltimore 2010
CHILDREN OF DAWN
Copyright Š 2010 by Shit Press, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, with prior written permission of the publisher. Published by Shit Press, Inc. 315 E. Broadway Bel Air, MD 21014 Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free, recycled paper First Edition 2010
the death of words the first time she took off her jeans and let me run my fingers up and down those buttery thighs, still warm and brown from last summer's sun, i knew i couldn't turn back. and i didn't want to. i'd once heard a man say that she was stupid. but she was just as smart and twice as pretty as any girl i'd ever known. someone else once told me she had nothing good to say, but i clung to every word that leaped from those rosy lips like a newborn to its mother. we’d sleep for days and only dreamed when we were awake. when we spoke, if we spoke at all, it was with our eyes and not our mouths and it was
2 SEAN WALLIS as emotionally virulent as the glowing tongues of light on the surface of the sun. like an ardent coil, racing against itself to unwind, we held on to each other amidst the ludicrous whirlwind of existence which surrounded our gentle bodies. my supernova girl, teasing my neck with her lovely kisses, but in her mind reaching for something distant which even she couldn't see. always reaching for something, that girl, and i never quite figured out what it was. maybe she didn't either – and maybe that's the puzzle. but it was her wildly endless search for something unattainable which had drawn me to her. she never knew just how beautiful she really was, and nor did she care. thats why i loved her. she told me, “when the poison dries, the bees will come back,� then she vanished into her own cigarette wind. and by now i've realized i will probably spend most of my life trying to get back something i never even had in the first place. a fate familiar to most of us, the lucky ones are simply the ones who have learned to embrace it. this is the death of words. not of all words, only mine. now there will be no answers, only endless questions. as we thrust ourselves forward through this pagan carnival on a quest for something, nothingness is the very thing we seek. that is the greatest sanctuary of all, and it finds us, whether we
3 CHILDREN OF DAWN choose it or not. the only thing i have ever learned is: life is carnivorous. (before i start, let me begin) Coping With Insanity stepping outside, the sharpness of cold shatters against our skins like the premature ending of a thousand wet dreams. waking from our sleepless slumber, we trade in our fetal blankets for a brave new consciousness within the reality which beholds us. we watch the empty trees grope the sky & stare down at us from so far above. their stale branches shake hands with eagles & seem to whisper answers to questions we hadn't even begun to ask. 5/4/10 Last words of a fake hero. this is my resignation. ugliness rules the world, bathing in its own fanatical ambience. i can no longer bear to walk through this counterfeit paradise. a gaping desert littered with hollow shrines to a so-called democracy. littered with bruised flags, with age now revealing their blunt mockery of freedom. it is my turn now to resign. i leave this shameless burlesque in my wake, a cancer i have for so long
4 SEAN WALLIS despised. walk away from the rusting ideals we once shared. this empire's disguise will also rust away in time, to reveal to all the naked head of the beast. Last words of a fake hero. -over and out5/4/10 last thing i ever wanted to do was bore you. and you smile because you deserve to. i smile because i wish i did. but imperfect beauty is the most perfect secret. yet you chose to walk away from it. its a selfish sacrifice, you build a house just to watch it burn down. Last words of a fake poet: “no one read the book and neither did I.� last thing i ever wanted to do was bore you. life as a bird with no wings in a room without doors. there are no lies, only exaggerations and this is the death of words. 5/13/10 can you be an actor and a poet at the same time? maybe for awhile, but someday the puppets stop moving and the words cease to rhyme. true fools lose, shake your blues at the sky. is it really foolish to be this unafraid to die? after all, all the poets are dyslexic in the afterlife. real words write
5 CHILDREN OF DAWN themselves, we're just along for the ride. (actors and men only beg to comprehend in their perpetual search for their alluring divine).
***** candy arcade florescence this sarcastic dance, mockery of life a dizzying extravaganza of lavish exaggerations a being jealous of its own beauty
you be my skin and i'll be your cool picture framed words in a filthy nest keep on thinking in a wishful town
6 SEAN WALLIS Fall ’09 i haven’t been drinking enough lately. although a friend informed me that i had been drinking too much. different perspectives. the hard times can be the best times, sometimes! so they say... though i’m the only person i’ve yet to hear say it. walking in the rain, avoiding stepping on the big worms. maybe not so much to avoid the squish. maybe, secretly, for just a little bit of karmic closure, like getting tiny invisible receipts for every good deed you’ve done. heard an old man talking to a younger man about his concept of “borrowed ideas.” i’d never believed in these so-called borrowed ideas. once you “borrow” an idea enough to incorporate it into your own ways of thinking, you never give it back. and why should you? this rain feels good on my lonely skin. it takes a certain type of lonesome man to be comforted by the rain. when its been just long enough since you’ve last been touched, the rain can feel like the gentle caress of a woman. rolling down your arms with its fingertips, kissing your face with its wet lips. a man like me loves the rain. i pause then walk slower to savor the sounds of my dreary lover. stepping around perfectly beautiful puddles so as to not interrupt their stagnant mirrors for no reason at all other than the fact that they’re beautiful. like when you and i used to lie in bed at dawn,
7 CHILDREN OF DAWN you were asleep, golden sun shining on your golden legs and back. and i would be ever so cautious not to disturb your perfectly messy hair, so beautiful in its imperfection. because imperfect beauty is the most perfect secret. it hides inside itself and smiles because it knows its reflection well. for lifetimes i’ve longed to learn the secret of that smile. of your smile. high on drunken glee and on occasion quite rarely, i believe i’ve felt it. but i’m in love with words and not stories, i’m in love with melodies and not songs. so for now i feed off someone else’s glow, in hopes to one day own my own. and still the rain drips. and still my feet walk. and still your hair flows like an African river but all these miles away i can still hear it whisper through the sewers and gutters and cracks in the street and up on the sidewalk past my heavy feet as i make my way further. ??/09 my eyes are crossed, my head's turned around i can only see you when i frown an open mouthed kiss another bloody lip sinking fast in quicksand town
8 SEAN WALLIS and you told me you are a hunter even though there is no prey and i heard everything you said although i never listen to what you say 5/??/04 come on death. i want to burn. feel some real pain. this place numbs me. it dries me out. i have absolutely nothing to say. i'd quit while i'm ahead but i'm last in line.
the dead machine Mar ’10 down a staircase & out under the eye of another staring streetlight. i pause. not to think, not to ponder. but to remind myself that it’s worth it to take another step. sometimes i need these constant confirmations to keep my body going, or else all its motors & gears would stop in their tracks like a dead machine. i’m like a wind-up toy car, run out of gas at the end of a long dock. parked at a junction of indecision and immobility. stuck as usual in a blistering silence. no one to wind me up, not nearly enough strength (or will) to turn back, yet still not enough to push forward off into the chilly water that could be my new home. there i would eventually forget about the dock, and the
9 CHILDREN OF DAWN shore, the people who knew me, and most of all the inebriating smell of the fresh spring breeze. grudgingly, like a stale bullet out of a broken pistol, i turned the corner and kept walking on. past the eyes of more streetlights, still feeling their dormant, glassy stares. they look down on me as if they were machine-like vultures, perched high on their posts. head down, i move on toward my heaven between the drops of rain, in their desperate puddles. these streets are the city’s intestines, winding about in seemingly patternless copulations. during the day, there seems a curious infection in the air. an infection of love, but a sort of vain, coquettish love. everyone i see feels it - or makes themselves believe that they do. the city feeds off it. the lights burn brighter with its energy. the echoes of voices on its walls seems to reverberate with a thumping reminiscent of a heartbeat. the city falls in love with itself only to eventually become strangled by it. i am invisible to the passersby because i don’t know this love of theirs. i am immune to their infection. i walk these tired sidewalks nightly, in aimless disarray and confusion and with a deadweight heart. perpetually searching for some sort of explanation for my own lost love. a few more dollars and i could forget my name, once again. wish i could buy a bottle of hope instead.
10 SEAN WALLIS in the morning i awake in a somewhat familiar courtyard with the hot speckles of sun-warmed dew on my face & arms that greet me every dawn. they are my little unknowing, unfeeling companions. they wake me as they lick my vulnerable skin, their salty smiles confident because they know i couldn’t escape them if i wanted to. i shiver in this peculiar early sun, always both hot and cold at the same time. all the flowers wore the androgynous colours of spring. all vying for the attention of bees (or humans) but attentively nestled in their coquettish bushes. all these strange birds, living their whole lives never knowing the power of their words. like a strange beauty, pure as pearl, that hides itself inside a girl. i am coming to you, my love, through these discolored pages with their dyslexic phrases. these fragments of melodies and this tragic book. which will never be seen on any shelf, and may not ever reach your ears themselves. but i must keep trying. when you love something you are always bleeding for it. when that blood clots, the feeling stops and the love that was there will all disappear. all these strange birds. flaunting their feathers while i dreamt of their words. and you were the strangest of all, my love. *****
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come on, die fiery what if you start believin’ in the religion you been preachin’ 9/10/04 flown self and soon will i be new heart i throw myself out of your head and i will (be new heart) now throw me out of your head (i want to be everything you think i am) 5/??/04 the abolishment of homosexuality. when your government tells you who you can and can't love, what will they not try to tell you? Where will it end? if there’s a road to Hell it looks like this. Coma Americana. Crucified unconscious. Numb and dimmed. Lights out. Where will it end? ??/??/?? yea, so, i left a note for my parents: “The path to righteousness is not always peaceful or clean of blood. Mom and dad, I’m going out to beat the shit outta skinheads, I’ll be back around 1:00. Love, SW”
12 SEAN WALLIS 2/15/10 your love blushes in violet overtures of light. i stand at your gentle entrance. an open doorway, silently perfumed with gushing radiance. i find you here, whenever i can, far beyond the pliant curves of these soft caves. i can sit at the opening and gaze down onto your sullen valley, now blooming with emotional urgency. i caress the gods with a tongue made of feathers then make my way through the dense, shapeless carnage which is now my new home. lie back my dear. close your eyes. relax now. drift in on a wave (and) kiss yourself goodbye. 3/??/06 cavernous bowels of shame and dirt you don’t need drugs, you’re addicted to addiction reminds me of something i’ve never seen. i always knew you were a junkhead. the world is spinning, not that you would know. you breathe… not to breathe… the mask has become your face and now you thread every word on a thin string of saliva. you’re more afraid of boredom than death. i had to laugh… you had me caught on your last word. put your hands together, pray for a little taste of death. cut it up, chew it like steak. where’s my piece? still saving your worthless pennies. in the end your hands are tied and pockets emptied. you’ll burn in the fire you started.
13 CHILDREN OF DAWN
there ain’t no cure for death. 12/??/05 burning out before the dawn the moon moves fast but waits too long (we are slaves unto ourselves keeping stars under our belts) this abattoir breeds bruised skinned feet selling death on sold out streets surrounded by such beautiful light daily sugar handshake life 3/10/05? you will continue to go on being slaves you are too stupid to change you are too mindless to do anything for yourselves i hate your stupid fucking faces no eyes. just eyelids. what a waste what a waste of fucking skin you are. i’ll leave you some words so you can choose which ones to hear it is not death for all words, only mine. ??/??/04 we made our brave waltz into the sugary mist finding a tiny universe in every blade of grass a moment too soon an eternity too late
14 SEAN WALLIS
in the longest line for the shortest straw iconic priests and television manifesting indecision nature is its own religion what you feel is what you are what’s behind door number 3? fashionistas, drunk on vanity if you follow in others footsteps you’ll never get there first 5/18/05 banana smile peels back your face your eyes your skin your cigarette burns you smile that wicked smile shiny chrome smile you would put a price on sunshine
hell drips like red wine off of every blade of grass
15 CHILDREN OF DAWN
america, inc. these days, turning on the radio is like putting an I.V. of bullshit straight into your ears 5/??/05 death is now for sale distributed by mass media productions, incorporated with discount prices! fear not! for hell is but a phone call away (life as expenditure) toy soldier armies feel no pain work It's obvious there's no way to win. If we work enough to be able to live then we have no time for living. american life - hypnotized by routine, solidified by unconsciousness alarm clock screaming numerical obscenities searching thru flooded eyes for ghastly and blazing red digits another day, another dollar to pay off the man to feed the machine and also to feed me
16 SEAN WALLIS
i scream choice because that’s all we have. america, inc. longitudes, latitudes - couldn’t guide us to truth transmissions, translations - you’re vague and disconnected the faceless men of enterprise with our bones they build their homes
she said “fuck me” i said “yea, fuck you” 10 dollar whores, 12 yr old street kids motels 8 bucks a night a million pigs, some with badges arresting everything in sight plant a seed of Love grow a flower of Hate i just cant understand it
mind of state our own minds are the greatest weapons of mass destruction 4/18/05 Abattoir wake body – not mind make ready for another day at the slaughterhouse walk a wrinkled sundried earth jigsawed with glaring carcasses dead on the doorstep starved without a key
17 CHILDREN OF DAWN we, at the slaughterhouse are an auxiliary military rapists of life and thieves of innocence ENTER THE DEATH HOUSE pigs screaming flop on the ground like wet jelly use body – not mind adhesive memories of brutality occasionally vexing one’s state of composure NEGATIVE INFORMATION NEEDS TO BE EXPELLED 4/18/05 Freedumb your whole lives spoonfed lies from the grapevine of confusion rabidly devouring every word salivating at illusion cheap wine and lascivious expeditions into soft curves are the echoes of self-doubt constipating in your collective unconsciousness wondering what’s behind door number 3? trying to kill time while time’s killing you? a coercive media interjection to a cigarette conversation The Major died peacefully in his sleep while his sheep bleated. every plain is followed by a slope and this trail has no end
18 SEAN WALLIS television eye of the world. fashion boys drunk on vanity. flesh covered rapists, masked as human holy drug dealers, flower in hand. bartering dollars and cents for rapture. The Major asks his sheep if they’re ready to die. Slaves to the Powerwhores and forever in debt to the hungry loathing carcasses of christmas swine
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deeper than inside sometimes when we’re driving real fast i forget to breathe 6/09/06 naked buildings, exotic cool temples sedimenting in their ancient madness wild secrets confessed to the nauseating streetlights our ears pried sweet music from inside shining siren into the wilderness of desperate dancing streets (buried myself in the sound (wearing nothing but a smile and wired eyes (retrograde (static (beat implosion) 6/11/06 new morning wrapped itself around our faces with muted colors of tender death absorbing grinning hallucinations and fresh blooming memories of gaping pipeline skateboard heaven in unapologetic san fran heat 7/19/06 the beat is stagnant the strings are the variable a hurricane of sound coming in drenching waves of sonic bliss
20 SEAN WALLIS
21 CHILDREN OF DAWN
superfluous innuendo maybe you should call your band Doppelganger the absurd of death (nothin’ scares me but this room (is) full of nothin’) i am at your fearless command i have done everything you've instructed before you have asked me to yet i am left hungry and panting in the dark you are word unspoken and at best you are an imitation dear mr. president 8/26/04 in blue radiant flames naked men make their claims of genius while an (unheard) tongue licks its brilliant words and puts them to sleep in a sheltered cave waiting for a sacred find by a sacred mind (for Walter) 8/26/04 BIRTH OF PASSION
****
DEATH OF KNOWLEDGE (behind a shield of debris, left hiding from misanthropic walls of marching critics). blade in hand and foaming teeth, machine-like warriors wrapped in warm blankets of doubt retreat to the nauseating safety of self-hatred.
22 SEAN WALLIS
cocaine headspin that’s me in the backseat this is my favorite world this is my favourite word the heat never said please cold asks no forgiveness the sky is a shaken memory this is my favorite world gift 7/8/04 slow singer, scarlet voice the words melt at the end of your tongue a gift from me to me a hidden sacrifice i burnt the ardent rose as i, in the fire, lay awakening pray now, to the REAL dream to the realization of self and soul!
23 CHILDREN OF DAWN 7/8/04 heroin(e) i starve everyday i starve myself to stay alive stripped my devices stood in (naked) light when you’re begging for life you’re the most alive soft air licked my face with a gentle tongue and rosy breath intangible love flowed around me in swirling colors painted my face captured my mind
become what you are 5/??/04 love love is an impotent dominion powerless without selfish need love, impotent as fear, fighting against itself like precancerous sores jerking wildly at each other with invisible teeth 10/29/06 he has a very itchy habit of mocking foam-toothed beggars, locked inside transparent moonbeam gaze who are forever fumbling for nonexistent pocket change. drenched in filth and only smiling to disguise their secret cursing of passersby
24 SEAN WALLIS death rattle 5/??/04 dormant moon lends its absence to a blinding night as darkness shines its transparent shadows cerebral mirrors allow for a reflective mentality a winding path through reconstruction of soft forgotten memories time has made us unwilling statues, progressively cementing our souls with the rust of age i want to know what makes the flower wilt i want to know what makes my skin wrinkle sugar acid love 7/8/04 wet organs shaded vermillion in shadows light blackness crawls into the slightest curves and deepest canyons hiding its cold face against the warmth splashed with textures moving across a subtle wave of touch coolish voices speak their peace with prophetic wisdom unmatched by human thought their eyes watch from every perspective sliding past and creating alternating patterns that shape the room the entire room itself seems to shift its form with four dimensional intensity eyes closed and soul stirred i give myself in to a new radiant love
25 CHILDREN OF DAWN (rudy g) you see human tragedy as commercial opportunity. life as expenditure. the worst drug of all is fear. and our leaders are hooked like unrelenting fiends. a man wakes up one day and he’s a cockroach. the mask has become your face. now you thread every word on a thin string of saliva. my mind is florescent. i know your secret. i live in the desert. under an umbrella. you look so much different with your clothes on.
i met a girl at the bar. she was beautiful and stupid just your type. such a convenient disguise to hide behind gorgeous eyes you spread your legs for everything who wouldn't love you? but who hasn't loved you? if i could have you i don’t think i’d want you
trying to kill timH
*****
25 CHILDREN OF DAWN (rudy g) you see human tragedy as commercial opportunity. life as expenditure. the worst drug of all is fear. and our leaders are hooked like unrelenting fiends. a man wakes up one day and he’s a cockroach. the mask has become your face. now you thread every word on a thin string of saliva. my mind is florescent. i know your secret. i live in the desert. under an umbrella. you look so much different with your clothes on.
i met a girl at the bar. she was beautiful and stupid just your type. such a convenient disguise to hide behind gorgeous eyes you spread your legs for everything who wouldn't love you? but who hasn't loved you? if i could have you i don’t think i’d want you
trying to kill timH ZKLOH WLPH¶V NLOOLQJ \RX"
27 CHILDREN OF DAWN
...please,
28 SEAN WALLIS 5/31/10 hes a heavy drinker but never drunk hope can be such a naïve drug, more addictive than junk. he’s a pretty heavy drinker, but never drunk. and on this laborious evening the walls abandon us again. everything crashes down, down on us just as we reach our invisible climaxes. just as we get there. i never thought i’d get back here again though. i always thought the last time would be the last time. your smile melts into mine. we dance with our thoughts playfully because we know it is only safe inside our heads. everything outside simultaneously tempts and threatens us. and where was he? your drunken sailor boy with the pearly eyes. the big swollen eyes. i really didn’t mind him much. or at least i’d never admit it to you that i did. drunk on his own incoherent rambling. only ever really drunk in his own mind yet still always bullshitting to hear the sound of his own voice. walkin’ around stumblin’ over your pretty body. and me, ever so tongue tied but with such greater, more meaningful things to say to you; if only i knew how to say them right. once i laid with my eyes just barely open so you would think i couldn’t see the two of you. i only wanted to see if you would act the same when you thought i was asleep. by now the walls must be teasing us again, threatening to close us in forever. stuck wallowing in our hot beds full of dried sweat and borrowed
29 CHILDREN OF DAWN ecstasy. borrowing from each other what we always thought we could give back. the three of us never realizing what we traded was for keeps and what we gave would belong to the other forever. never thinking about the toll of emotions that eventually swallows all wicked children like ourselves. i always suspected i knew, but what could i say? sun comes up, again as it always does when we start to cry for it, start to think it will never touch our bare bodies again. nothin’ ever happens that won’t happen again a million times. nothin’ to do but lie here and wait for hunger to ease its way into our beds again. i think its safe to say sanctuary is by far far away the mailbox grits its teeth and i pull back i can smell the hunger on its breath i am a flaming jesus walking broken steps you look so much older with your head cut off dead heat and confusion we hide at the bottom of the ocean hell drips like red wine off of every blade of grass ??/??/04 the night wrapped itself around us in reluctant beauty. your voice, softer than a feather tickled my thoughts. blew your spirit onto and into me and eased and coaxed me into unfolding mine. i
30 SEAN WALLIS have been drawn into a mysterious fluttering slumber of which i have no control and cannot yet comprehend. you are my only god, painted in picturesque perfection. i had let myself have you. i realize only now it was my mistake.. your words made my heart ripen with appetite. but the fruit of love is rotten and diseased. ..my mistake.. 6/23/07 a cloud of bullshit surrounds you. i can smell it. i can taste your fucking pig stench from 20 feet away. thats how i keep myself alert to your presence. i can smell you before i even see the flashing lights. swinging your big 'ol club like a broken dick. shining your flashlight in my eyes. i dont need a light. more transparent than glass i can see right through your black fucking soul. 6/23/07 so yea i got harassed by a pig the other day. i was drinking a beer in a parking lot by myself at night. he told me that people like me would die without ever doing anything productive or positive. he told me that i didn't exist. i told him that if he didn't exist my existence would be infinitely better. Vuelva loco a su gato!
31 CHILDREN OF DAWN dirty magic cigarette burns jesus returns, hoping.. sunny day secret how long can you keep it i read the book but not the pages ..jaded sunny day secret how long can you keep it happy.. happy.. how long can you keep it rolling and moving happy.. happy.. (if i could have you, don’t think i’d want you) unknown it feels so good to be exploding i am your permanent guest you must now become what you are and lay your swollen kingdom to rest who wouldn't love you? but who hasn't loved you? some things are truer than fact i love the ending when we got drunk & waited for eternity to find us under the grass
32 SEAN WALLIS 4/27/10
Most Wonderful Name
i've known all the girls with the most beautiful names lazy angels who dance on stage, their arms in flames. with a disquiet plagiarism all their own, their names reflect the beauty their hearts only long to show. but i fell in love with the most ordinary one she was a little June clover, dancing in the sun yet only as ordinary as a ponderable flower, shy but enchanting in its waning hour. timid as a blushing dream but with a glowing affection like nothing i've seen. as a slippery sunset fades too fast away, now all i have of my pretty love is her lovely name 5/29/07 this is the rest of your life waking up in strange places running backward races it doesn’t mean a thing regretful celebrations worshiping a dead king *****
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here comes everything (el musica de la muerte) come on, on to my side we can hide in the sunlight
S/hit Towne P/avement tarpit pavement claws at ankles in a white hot summer i feel like i’m the king of a cardboard jungle
Dirty Magic cigarette burns jesus returns, hoping sunny day secret how long can you keep it i read the book but not the pages ..jaded sunny day secret how long can you keep it happy.. happy.. how long can you keep it rolling and moving happy.. happy.. (if i could have you, don’t think i’d want you)
34 SEAN WALLIS
Dead Air the truth has come undone and the excitement is less fun but if love doesn’t exist then there’s still laughter all the people with dementia crowd the government conventions political wasteland of impotence & all the geniuses are bums on the corners of the slums giving sermons to a choir of flies if you have no hope then you’ll have no fear and you can laugh at yourself cause that’s the only thing that’s real so tilt your bottle up and never bring it down and if we hope then hopefully we’ll drown right now the hungry rats all mourn for gravity’s latest victim so vacuum up all your wasted moments the electric chair hums a tune of wanton forgiveness while the police keep feasting on the homeless the police keep feasting on the homeless
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Drowns Out 9/14/09 when you feel yourself breathing while you’re asleep is it really real or is it really a dream? the days of sleeping late and staying in are gone now we wake to a premature sun and the boredom drowns out everything yea the boredom drowns out everything and it’s the same old party everywhere but somehow i keep ending up there you keep me warm until the sun rises we wait ‘til dawn and then close our eyes only to wake later to another surprise the truth is in our beds wrapped in a blanket of lies i’m in love with your gold hair and the color of your eyes but the boredom drowns out everything the boredom drowns out everything
36 SEAN WALLIS
Magnified Plaid her body, i wanted her mind you can have my body but you can’t have my mind find a niche between lines of thought in empty spaces at the end of the trying day i just sit her and while away i am who i am and i have always been the same thoughts along the way often stray but the mind never changes, only grows i’ll find my way, i’ll find my place everything you say sounds the same to me and you talk so fucking much
Love Song for Ants i followed your trail out of town i followed your trail underground i want you more than bad i want you more than bad i started a collection of dirt you can dig so deep and never hurt i started a collection of dirt bury what you love deep in the earth i recognize your body but not your face (last line of actual song: gibberish)
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Blue Is the Color blue is the color of the homeless heart swimming the streets, painting the dark blue is the color of my lover’s heart stars burn too brightly then burst apart blue is the color of the ghetto child who knows he will never get to the other side & those who are always last in line the poor, the broken & the disrupted minds you see but you don’t look can’t get back time you never took if you breathe but you don’t care then what’s the point of air the light in here is dim for a reason so we can’t question the writing on the walls & a politician’s war is a war with no casualties except for the poor in the longest line for the shortest straw what do you do when the cure is more deadly than the cause?
38 SEAN WALLIS
It’s Wide Awake, I’m Morning took another sip and forgot your name it’s wide awake, i’m morning i laughed too soon and spoke too late it’s wide awake, i’m morning trying to kill time while time’s killing you it’s wide awake, i’m morning it’s hard to lose an argument with you you hate it cuz its true life as a bird with no wings in a room without doors i know we’re all pretty doomed i’m sorry if i enjoy it i can see right thru me i’ve got a secret smile that you’ll never see i can see right thru you you told a lie but it’s coming true
Crackpipe speak too softly, forget how to scream sleep too deep, lose hold of the dream
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Like A Child when summer faded into fall you taught me everything without trying at all but cold came on too fast now everything good is gone erased my writing on the wall without you it means nothing at all running from yourself, you hide you gave up before you even tried only wanted to begin just can’t win there’s only one girl with a smile that can make me feel like a child there’s only one girl with a smile that makes me feel like a child
Unveiled just wanted to impress you looks like i failed just wanted to undress you see your beauty unveiled
40 SEAN WALLIS
Anchor of Words we reach for everything --- we lean on everyone baby, you’re better than the best the best questions are never asked baby, you’re better than the best fragile means nothing to broken glass when we’re walking around i’m dancing in your steps and i’m looking for something but finding something else please don’t ever cut your pretty hair just let it grow down your back words just feel like an anchor sometimes (please don’t sink now please don’t sink now) words just feel like an anchor sometimes (please don’t sink now please don’t sink now) *****
fake rainbows, fresh hangovers and by now you know that soon can mean anything Spring ‘10 children of dawn, deliberating their own executions. unregretful prisoners of their violet hour. eyes closed and smiles wide as the new sun grasps for the horizon. i can’t help but smile
41 CHILDREN OF DAWN because i know i am one too. but it won’t be yesterday until tomorrow so we kiss ourselves goodbye for now and laugh at sleep and meaningless things. sleep is just for dreamers and we only dream when we’re awake. sleep never existed in the land we have created for ourselves. a land far beyond the walls our towns have built around us. it’s all here. it’s all deeper than inside. Paper Night 5/10/10 we've fallen on a paper night, everything neutral and stagnant. you looked up at the big, milky moon and counted the stars out loud til it made you laugh. you closed your eyes and tried hard not to smile but i knew you could feel me looking at you. its hard to speak when there’s nothing to say. and all the words started to sound the same. and all the questions began to answer themselves. but i loved these moments of silence, your naked reflection echoing off my skin. we were immaculate standing there, not speaking. just Knowing. the off balance dance of soft light seemed to make the air that was between us bend, pulling us closer together. the sky was a rodeo of splendor with beads of light furiously shining like distant diamonds stuck in the thick muddy darkness of an abandoned mine. you were the only star in my sky. the only one i could ever really see. we used to talk about racing through the fields,
42 SEAN WALLIS our skin bursting through our clothes while our souls were bursting out of our skins. there used to be so many words back then. words bounding over other words, rolling off our tongues in a charade of epic bliss. the words seemed to stack upon themselves, building small towers, but sounded equally as poetic when they toppled over. they teased and flirted with each other. they shot up in the air like fireworks, completely unapologetic but never vulgar unless they had to be. it felt like they would never be finished with their lovely waltz as they danced in circles around our heads. soon all language dissolved into itself and began to flow in a silvery stream up toward the sky, picking up speed as it flowed. the once stagnant night had become wild and florescent and hungry but we stared into each other and shook our fears off like they were a dull parade that had already run its course. your eyes were soft prisons where i was always waiting in anticipation for what you would say next‌ 5/18/10 make a collage of all the things you can't have. all the beautiful legs that beg for someone else. the hearts that beat, the lungs that breathe. all for someone else. a restless lapse between dreams, like when you're staring at something but you can't see it. all the things you wanted to feel, they couldn't feel you. (cont.)
43 CHILDREN OF DAWN speeding fast past roaring fields of golden blossoms reaching high to tickle the air. the wind here is yellower than the sun and twice as big. all the sounds of this dense universe race against each other to meet your ears first, many reaching them at the same time and colliding in the air. by now we must have agreed that everything is just a piece of something else - a piece of a piece. everything lives inside of everything else. its all a big shaky blur. everyone you know is a piece of themselves yet still a piece of everything else. all their pieces are melting at once into this shaky vacuous blur. and all those things you couldn't have are folding into a dark page of nothing. dissolving within each other until all thats left is a collective pool of all the things that are just out of your reach. trying so hard not to read whats on the page, but the page reads you either way. i love the way your legs used to bend for me. something about that creased smile behind your knees right above your calves, created whenever your legs folded together. i always wanted to kiss you right there, behind your knees but you wouldn't let me. but i would climb your legs like vines, clinging to unborn promises as i made my way up toward secret mouths of wonder hidden between the tiny blonde hairs on your abdomen. these invisible pores bleed salty sweet tears as i lay my cheek down against them on the hearth of
44 SEAN WALLIS your warm stomach. how can a sunset as glorious as this one be prelude to such a pale waif of a moon? yes, curl those legs around me like graceful snakes, make me beg permission for a breath of your stolen air. i want to kiss the distance between the hairs on your head and to latch onto them as stringy anchors to pull you so close we both suffocate in our own lusty shells. 12/7/07 welcome to america, land of fake freedom. Patriots will be honored, others will be monitored. welcome to america, land of false hope. our pastimes are football, beer, and wife beating. land of the free (white man). where pastimes are fast food, shopping, and fag-hating. where rednecks roam free without leashes. ***but alas! there is Hope!*** freedom does exist! for a price, naturally. and of course, there are some prerequisites. first and foremost, white skin. although if you meet the second requirement of having substantial dollar value, maybe we can overlook your complexion. most importantly, its how you play the game. and just how much of your country's truth and justice you're willing to sacrifice for your personal gain. lastly, we will simply need all cooperation in keeping this little system of ours running smoothly and without interruption. don't want any of the sheep finding out what's going on behind the curtains, do we!
45 CHILDREN OF DAWN 11/16/07 have you ever been in love with a whore – and realized it – but still couldn't stop yourself? what's the word to describe when you're so disgusted by someone that there's no word to describe it? 11/16/07 when everything you loved just flies out the window and there's no reason anymore to try. that old man says, “Put that smile on, boy, we're gonna go downtown and see if we can make ourselves fly.” he grins, “I'm gonna have to get pretty shitfaced to make it though this day.” ...then you call me up and stutter for awhile. you start to tell me your problems but i'm not yet drunk enough to care. i'm not sad because i can't control you. i'm sad because you won't control yourself. and i imagine that someday soon you'll have a baby brewin' in you. thats the way it usually happens. you've gotten so cool, now that you've got your smoker's cough. and me, i'm still just praying for distance. unbroken absence and isolation. the longer I stay alone, the stronger I become. any anger I have toward the outside world can be eventually transformed into safety and comfort within my inner self. Subtitled: “i wanted to fuck you but you were already fucked”
46 SEAN WALLIS 5/22/10 all the girls i've ever loved had the exact same face. (its by far the strangest realization). and i'm sorry sorry sorry if i ever fucked you. i never meant to fuck you. i only meant to love you. even if a fuck is all you wanted. and i'm sorry sorry sorry if i ever gave you what you wanted. because you deserved so so so much more. you deserved much more than you could have ever known. though you obviously had no clue. and is it so wrong to want more? is it so wrong to want to give more? inamorata incognita hyacinth mistress, feigned existence wishful mistress, implied existence loftily singing will they bring you a fever on a plate of silver my disguises wear themselves i'll never change for anyone but i'll evolve for myself transformation is the only constant. great pacific garbage patch, where everything dies of starvation w/ a stomach full of plastic. its the new diet of nothingness. we didn't ask to be born into this
47 CHILDREN OF DAWN toxic world. doomed to repeat the mistakes we never had the chance to make. today is not a bad day; tomorrow is what i fear the most.
the long arm of the law? or the short dick of the law sad thoughts about the happy days. as we lay in the sunlight between the rays. feeling completely incomplete we're just living out someone else's plan. when your whole life is shaped by some stranger's hand. ...unheard prayers of the man who never had a chance. broken since birth then taught throughout childhood to feel he was destined for his so-called situation. taught to live and die hopeless and never ask for a penny more. taught that he was no better than the dust in the cracks of the sidewalk where he, in his middle age, may very likely sleep. this is the man who has no reason to fight temptation, no reason to try. he was born dead, an empty egg shell that could've survived had it not been cracked. and who taught him all this? a man named America. a corporation called America. a disguise named America...
48 SEAN WALLIS 12/2/07 she'd always had that smell of gentle decay. Death silently making its way into her gorgeous brown hair. a subtle cancer encompassing the tips of her fingers, teasing her skin. hiding in the dark sanctuary between creases of silky tanned flesh. I loved her. I probably still do, but who knows. this queer affliction of hers both disgusted me and strangely lured me to her. I loved her. maybe I still do, but who knows.
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you can't win the human race the only way to get the disease is to convince yourself that you need it. Summer '09 wild knowledge cities communicating on verbal railroads. spread wisdom like a plague of enlightenment but still can't defeat the captains in their high seats. ghetto wilderness, crooked stars shine down on broken street corners. these streets are bought & sold for the price of a Negro's blood by an empire of devils on their thrones of rust. herding their sheep into pastures of mental sleep. cultures once contagious now successfully suffocated. keep your eyes open, the man is at your door. a warm blanket of doubt hangs just below the smoggy clouds. keep your gun near, the man is at your door. all the love that i've found is enough to last me a lifetime. but all the hatred that i've seen is enough to last an eternity. ??/??/09 what's wrong with stealing from thieves? what's wrong with taking back what was taken from us? any square can fit a circular hole, you just rearrange the circle to look like a square. any
50 SEAN WALLIS idea can break through a closed mind. you just have to find the right key to open it. is it like logic without reason? is it like consumerism without need? when has prude thinking ever invented anything? when has practicality ever broken barriers? from your perspective you can see me but you can't see what i can see opinions are just windows to other perspectives and facts are just opinions people choose to believe in ***** i love the way your voice cracks & bends like a tall tree in a rain storm you've got a coughing cold you've got a pain like no one knows what's good about having tons of friends who you don't even know? 7/9/10 we brace ourselves against the night. smiling against the blackness. lay facing. your eyes stuck inside mine, silently chanting your sullen vows. you're not my girl. you don't even look like her.
51 CHILDREN OF DAWN but could you ever? and could i ever fool myself for the sake of happiness and sanity? i'm trying so hard for something that's already gone. It's lost. beating a dead prophet back to life to beg for one more piece of his immaculate mind. It's lost. we dance in tangled shadows of ourselves. but i'm secretly trying to break this spell. you're beautiful w/ sarcastic hair and curious smile. you do a good imitation of yourself but what i pine for is somewhere else. you are a constant reminder of the thing i can't have, as i am pleading daily for it. with a contrast too painfully obvious to be ignored.
Scenic, pure and purely fucked. And outside. With no audience. Reluctant and Stuck. “staying at home is getting old. trust me, i know why mothers eat their young.” Subtitled: “watch my mind drift away on a river of salty liquor”
52 SEAN WALLIS fashion will change with the weather. but you’ll be fake people forever. 7/10/10 teenage girls, playful and Excited. fascinated by their own mournful aching bodies. they want their fevers caressed and minds numbed. daring themselves to bait their curiosities‌..the empty bed sulks at your newborn presence. heat drips off you like warm tears. she was more naked than any girl i had ever seen. with a cartoon-like radiance that made her vulnerability almost comical. the sun's gonna rise someday. too bad we won't see it. 10/10/07 shiny polished notions of reality and modernism. they all fuck you out of your basic human instincts. your institutions have failed you; schools are now for fools who are not creative enough to invent their own approaches or devise their own solutions. the world is choking on its own fear, too afraid and stubborn to break the leash and think for itself... ...not knowing what it would be like... ...to breathe in honestly for the first time ever, to exhale purity. to bathe in truth, at last, and to play arpeggios on the strings of one's own soul.
53 CHILDREN OF DAWN so much wasted talk. so many wasted hours. droning conversations which grow more stale than a cellar air. its true, words can sound just as pretty without meaning, without Purpose. but with Purpose, they belt out lively incantations, they fall w/ great resonance onto the empty echoing halls of despairing kingdoms, onto the nocturnal landscapes of so many slumbering townships. Wake up! Wake up! throw off your narcissistic
54 SEAN WALLIS blanket of dreams for a new bright awakening! throw off your shackles of Prayer for they will only drench you in more of your complacent fantasies! i’m utterly bored of this jaded banter, so pointless and dull. the richest red wine cannot extract me from these situations, stuck withering alongside my contented compadres in their monochrome speak. it is time for a new religion – it matters not what it is so long as its new new NEW.
55 CHILDREN OF DAWN from this height it would be Death i'm fairly sure. magnetic magic illustrated curiosities all regret final & flown; i don't ever want to hurt anyone. all i want is pretty GIRLS ***** famous last words: “WATCH THIS!� I have kept this closet available for you my friend. It will be your indefinite sanctuary. For there you will be safe and protected whilst you live out the final years of your coma. lets start a new religion tonight. lets race the gods to the finish line and make them beg for their own divine. note to self: racism: in TV/movies, why are there never any black robots?
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Loved Fiercely I Chromium lamentations of a grey sky; it bursts into tears at the first sight of new dawn. A picturesque travesty. Loved fiercely, but eventually watered down. Stricken deeply, but finally burned out. Slowly given in to the cult of automatic emotions, the very kind of feelings that create an adhesive void between two people. Dawn hides and day breaks, animated vignettes of wistful flowers along the rows of homes. Gleeful mutterings at the corner of 12th St beyond the clapboard walls. Fictitious priests impressing their spells upon onlookers. Shining their lively smiles on people like tainted mimes. Dressed as friends. They speak of purity; they do their best impersonations of what they think we were, you and i. The day you left you were looking for something new. There isn't enough paper in the world to tell you how i felt then; but i use the biggest pieces, far larger than any standard letter that's ever been sent. Jealousy's lumbering shadow has cornered me again; (you're) the dream i wish i could forget.
57 CHILDREN OF DAWN II one less heart beats one less man breathes on the shores of these still seas the only way to get the disease is to convince yourself that you need it III Walked all the way to the shore greeting indigenous bums and crisp waves. Great visionary serpents everywhere appeared to be happily drowning. Cute blonde girls gleaming in their true skeletal beauty. Now you? Above the waves, there you are. I see your face, hungry but cured. Cured of the hormone-fueled craze of your youth. A lustdriven rampage of quenched temptations, echoing on into the sanctum of adulthood. Still you are perpetual Victress over my small kingdom. I stall here in the musty mud of my half-standing castle. Driven inward by the biting surf. Time heals not but fares well in hiding truth. Soured hearts bear witness to new excuses they choose. *****
58 SEAN WALLIS 5/21/10 for a very long time we were stuck in the frozen sadness of winter. thats just the kind that winter brings. it creeps in quietly with the cold and finds a comfortable place to wait out the time. that same old winter sadness, frozen solid like a regretful pond, trapping all its senses under the ice. but this new warm season is different. in it grows a different kind of sadness, a ripe sadness that hangs off the vines like dark sour grapes. i'm searching for something within the light shining off reflective leaves of high trees. trying, but realizing more and more that i am the only one searching. even the light itself has no concern for what i find. humid afternoons the dizzy glimmering from those leaves is strangely entrancing. i know the summer is hinting something to me. speaking to me in tongues, urging me to decipher its tangled truths. this is your summer. i am only in it. it has become a useless promenade down a path that once seemed hopeful, but now more likely is paved in infinite confusion at best. by August, the mint leaves which tasted of such sweet, green sugar are brown and dried of their innocence. the vines hang but they too are bored of the endless repetition of nights and days, cold and warmth, life and death of the tireless seasons. the spoiled
59 CHILDREN OF DAWN grapes now mostly lay on the ground, their vitality gone. the sadness begins to rust, turning a dark golden amber, almost tempting to touch. i chase the fading sun one more time toward the horizon, still not sure what i'm even trying to achieve. the sadness greets me there, at the end of the road in the coming twilight, grasping the tips of my fingers in its silent victory. close my eyes. i know the season will turn again and i have once more tried my best to overturn this inevitably crushing steamroller of fate. eyes shut tight to the first September wind, the only thing left to do is to wait for whatever will happen next...
60 SEAN WALLIS