Get all 5 Stephen Mead releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Choral Soliloquies (II), Choral Soliloquies (I), Threnody for a Forgotten Plague, Whispers of Arias (I), and Whispers of Arias (II).
1. |
In My Heart I
02:49
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In My Heart I
kneel down
stripping masks
to the paraffin thin
forgiveness asking
for itself
through each face hated
for its prejudice,
its bullying,
the Tyrannical
sensitivity deems
while magnifying
the magnificent facets
of derisive fangs
& malicious eyes
& scheming stomachs
that digest these bones
turning the other cheek
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2. |
Loverman
03:10
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Lover Man
Where
Can
Health
Be Infectious
Spread Catch
Each Other
Like
Disease
Here
Let Me
Help Mother
Remember 4 A.M.
Phone Dial
Co. Tone
Tubing Swallow
The Rubber
Tongue Water
Pills Coming
Calm Now
Blank Fingers
does
blood
(slumber) foretell
wounds (store)
friction his
smirk shy
face
brave
Oh God Please
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3. |
researching plague
04:01
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Researching Plague
Glass (the slides) falling (the click)
lives, each (to read) a lens (interpret)
microscopic to (& plan) magnify
(a strategy, a) ours (route) ours
What is your standpoint? (Power)
& yours? (is yet) & yours (power)
"Well, quoting the experts..." (& that)
"The statistics say..." (means)
"All evidence, biblical, social (personalities)
reference shows..." (slogans)
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
Go into the meat (politics) emotion (writes lists)
beyond bones & (agendas) this outbreak (mostly)
spreading (to play) though localized (for time)
in the crux of (& juggle) mitochondria (votes)
living the way (while trying) we exist with (not to)
it (step on) even while death (too many)
boasts there's nothing (toes) else though
(so research) I know (regulations) transmigrating
(must) the soul is (a fine line) prescribed
(of intense) to speaking (science) still with those
(& hope) hands we must (monitored as) hold
(footnotes)
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4. |
Dark Angel
03:23
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Dark Angel
The wings are night dipped
So one can barely see them, only when
Nearest, only when feeling how,
Like nets of hair, they graze.
From the silhouette of this window, its
Cloud & yew shrouded constellation, there's
Enough light to tell the sheer interwoven velvet
Which conceives to me exactly what you are.
Of course, at the, center, head to toe,
There's something else: an onyx of heat,
Basalt, ripple-veined, with iron flecks
Turning neon green, plum red, muted gold,
Pale silver blue. Such colors one would think
Solid, like your trunk, arms, & legs,
But, a single sweep down, pressing close,
& all flows to liquid, the river heart
Of some redwood.
What tree breathes acquainted
With such darkness but carrying air's bright
Flight? Is this the voice of skin, a wilderness
In the city, intimate to bridges, subways,
The tunnels of hustle, streets of peace,
Streets, streets of war?
Being all things, I can't call you anything,
Not mine or love, though when you slumber
Like a log, the evanescence just hovering,
I stroke your back, its stretches of nylon,
& could almost covet those terms.
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5. |
Missing People
05:23
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Missing People
Picture on the mantel,
everyone apparently there
in this posing nuclear unit,
& its additions accepted:
boyfriend, girl,
the expected enlargements ex-
cept , next
to one son,
the space is cropped in such a way
another person fit,
& there stands the invisible lover,
the secret sharer, at home, uninvited
because who else knows, would guess
that the man is family,
that the man has spent years
looking in on, being private support.
Here's a different un-photographed image:
Son in the hospital cities away,
delirious speech, the bed sheets,
an imagined rack, control growing desperate—
That guy is a doctor. I know by the coat,
the stethoscope pocketed
& they're shaking hands over me
as if making a deal...my parents...as if ...
where is...Look, I can write checks, sign my name &... time I've been biding, I will buy, bring back...Jim…help… Don't tell
I said, wrong stupid, denying,
hiding
our life is out there in the distant open & yet
...the mantel picture, the family portrait...wrong wrong because ...no skeleton...no closet...you're the person I confess to them now as the door, their handshake, words agree to seal over, against:
this Jim person, listen,
don't you dare give admittance.
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6. |
He Fills the Window
03:00
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He Fills the Window
like a bath, reflections
spreading, but still
quite there.
I like to know
he can hold those contours
even when just standing
watering plants or looking
out, not even touching
what becomes a throne.
I like to know
there's this one slot
in the universe
for him especially, neither
one of them owning
the other but
forming a relation
spatial &, somehow,
very close
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7. |
Industry
03:00
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Industry
Marathons between blocks
(rain is falling, rain is)
of business as usual
(feet moving through)
the talks that stall action
(the blood pushing up-)
during certain emergencies
(hill in a river of)
the debates debating
(other limbs cast against)
because it might be
(the undertow, cast)
considered controversy or
(out as lines who've)
because sides decide
(writhen, been barbed)
to disagree & take a
(& sunk but never-)
vote, another poll
(theless rise taut)
still deadlocked as
(enough to aim, deep)
snails who want to
(gentle & strong in)
be on top of their own
(the flow which won't)
missive missive
(be killed)
missile pile
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8. |
Cliff is a Blue Angel
03:44
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Cliff Is a Blue Angel
With a Prussian blue crystal heart.
It is clear as the kindness
In my lover's seal gaze.
Back streets, alleys,
Roll from Cliff's robes:
Time's winding sheet
Unfurled 'til he's nude.
Soldier, your bones of armor
Are whitest radiance, the roman
Shoulders shucking off duties,
War's tours, a grief-----
Now Cliff is so pure,
The pool of each eye,
A portal for an earth,
For an ocean...
Two tears, tattooed,
Are high by his left cheek,
The ear, gold-hooped...
Cliff, is it Dover washing white
Froth over indigo there where you are?
Oh Holocaust Nosferatu, half gypsy
James Dean, half shaved Genet,
You are a saint out of prison now
& what of our own tears?
Mortal is flesh, as is sorrow
Only a season...
Cliff, wave back to us
& spit your tobacco-----
Blue birds sail forth with good news.
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9. |
DOLLARS
05:21
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Dollars
dropping
BABY LIFT YOUR HEAD UP
how to run to catch be
HERE'S THE SPOON
on top
TRY JUST A LITTLE
instead of
THEN LATER WE'LL TAKE A WALK
billed under piles pink
OR I'LL READ FRANCOISE SAGAN
slips paper
PUT ON MICKEY MOUSE EARS
paper for (sign
CROAK PENTHOUSE SERENADE
here) operations
DO THE OLD TROMBONE SOLO
tests meds net
WITH MY HANDS
gross
THOSE SHADOW ANIMALS
experiments to live
YOU MAKE INTO LIGHT
live with
BECAUSE THAT'S HOW
the cost of health
WE'RE RICH
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10. |
Closure Thomas
03:17
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Closure, Thomas
Your one lid, which, at
The end, to peep about,
You had to lift
With 2 fingers quite
Like a magician
As brown magic glittered
In the roundness of your other
Eye
Refusing to lose focus
When I called you
“Love, friend dearest”
Good lid. Pure eye.
Let them each rest as if
For my lips since
Closure, Thom, might
Be just like that kiss with
My own hands in your hands,
My own lids shut & no matter
What distance stands between
We will be closing in for a deeper
Opening
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11. |
Buddy
04:49
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Buddy
I remember everything:
The curve of your palms, the shoulders’
Expanse, the compass of my chin
Tracing custom army soap scents
Amid duffel bag wool…
Lights on, a scuffle…
I leapt, scared rabbit, white tail vanishing
Through loose rain lit window…
Nobody saw whom, not even the sergeant,
Old metal head, a cinder block over…
For this you got hard labor, 15 months,
Shame to the family name, a dishonorable
Smirch. They figured you’d name names, break
Under pressure, your temperament, nervous,
Not a soldier, but a queer…
“Son, have a cigarette. Make it easy on yourself.”
Easy. Son. Across the seas Nazis gassed jews & we
Bombed Japs. From prison you wrote, said the fellas
Were nice to you. I pictured knuckles, submission,
Then gentleness covert. You were of use, a pro
In the jungle of Good Behavior, its one rule unwritten…
Today, on the radio, some Vet telling of his near-death
Experience: shell fire, blacking out, his astral soul hovering…
Next: flowers, a tunnel, & kind, intelligent light encompassing
Pain at the end…
Here, in the kitchen, Beethoven’s Last Symphony.
Outside, a snake-stretching cat, humidity, a sponge
On asphalt, blazing, our neighbor’s new sprinkler
Watering their patch of green, its multi-spout streams
Suggesting the shell Venus rode…
I have your letters in a basket, private guilt, secret rage.
Some disease the system gave you riddled all else.
Buddy, is there really the light that veteran talked about?
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12. |
And Dream of Seas
03:21
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And Dream of Seas
"I would rather drown, remembering——" H.D.
If the food stayed down
(& it did)
If the hands found each other
& not blindly
or just through letters,
that piercing paper touch
(& they did)
If we were soluble, the flesh
transparent & could merge
in a flow where nobody
drowned
or at least not alone
(& we might have)
If your voice, face was suddenly
inside mine & sky-lit eyes
looked out brighter,
an ocean in the all over dark
(& we almost)
If I were not sad, could feel
joy even in your leaving
without angry idols, fearful
obsession or the fact
fact of your sickness
(& I am)
or death
(am not)
then the last vast wave
would not want oblivion
(& we cannot)
only a sort of truth nearly
clear
(& we don't)
in this surge,
the real dream
which does not stop
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13. |
Building Immunities
03:45
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Building Immunities
Forgetting regret, in depths of slumber I dreamed, river-willed, stirring stillness: you again, you—— Caresses, pebble-tended, an imprint leftover is this consequential. Along the skin's corridors, soothing, lavished, haven't we been loving off the pain?
What is such silk slipping, such ivory unveiled?
A statue? Dusky tusks? Yes, mist, water-intimate, what a marble-shining shore appears star scattered!
I am convinced we will reach there, traces of touch re-collected, immemorial, smoothing scars, lighting lamps.
I believe it will be glorious, the resurgence of skin with the blood plush remerging recharged
despite the carnage of life.
Of course it is not sound, butI must trust in the triumph bringing your face
back once more, back, for the fluids,
the immunities
love built pure as health.
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14. |
The Stones of Memory
04:55
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The Stones of Memory
Sit in your hand, reflective,
polished, well-travelled.
How dead ends, promises have
tended their destiny: the wind-river,
mistral sea now condensed
in the light of some beloved's
breath.
That was the buoy through long nights
of sickness when you retched
and retched until the water
finally stayed down.
That was your island
when the spasm-gripped body
cried for Mom and knew in
the dark not death but
life, life's agonizing fears.
After that, cleansed pure, ceremonious
as Christ, the simple pleasures
became became:
that basket of apples there,
sun falling on red and ripened
green, the particular brilliance of the
rain, its resonance too, a sound
near to sun
the small stones behold while,
as if to a shell,
you quietly listen in.
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Stephen Mead Albany, New York
A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published outsider artist, writer, maker of short-collage films and sound-collage downloads. If you are at all interested please place his name in any search engine in conjunction with any of the above-mentioned genres for links to his multimedia work and merchandise. To order CDs via VISA or PayPal please visit stephenmeadmusic.weebly.com ... more
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