CONVERSENSATIONALISM

this is a song i wrote when i was 19 for a band called yes sir! mister machine. on the recording, franco fernandes is shouting some words, i’m playing the guitar and shouting slightly less words, seabass du toit is playing the other guitar, gideon de kock is slapping that bass and julian brookstone is the roboctopus hitting the drums.

it’s called the coast of arms and it goes:

is this your idea of being divine?

i’m neck-deep in varicose veins today
but i can’t help,
notice that the day that you left
you left lead
in my veins like the
Hand that played anchor
and all you could do
was set fire to the sails
and i still hear the sound of incisions,
like sirens,
calling my name to the hospital bed
(that you never escaped)

you were only a Name until today.

there’s no pride in the seas that we became
but in the absence of God, what’s left but
making Names?
and fame to blame (each other) to cover up the shame

there’s no absence of hearts and spades
but diamonds elude us like snow into rain
like the rain that played bells on your funeral day
as you lay as you lay as you lay

it’s too late for trivial exchange of
words to pacify the way in which
we built our houses and shut the door
to anything but hate

parting is such sweet sorrow
(but lingers so seldom)
becoming the taste of ash
(in the mouths of our past)
and smouldering all the while

and i still wonder as to how far
we’d have strayed if you’d but stayed
a moment longer but now

let’s sit in circles and judge each other let’s sit in circles and
judge each other let’s sit in circles and judge
each other let’s sit in
circles and judge each
other let’s sit in circles and

the queen is dead.