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Absolute Still Life

by Wreck and Reference

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1.
A Mirror 04:16
if sleeping is the only love then this hunger is the only engine bitter burning desperation a gnawing simple fate catalyst collision and a counting of catastrophes stopping going running out of gas and spending too much money these pale memories stacking up the dull pain of age bruised fruit peeling skin bruised ribs tired lungs I could tell by the way you slammed the car door that you weren't coming back but you weren't going home we were driving once now we're just grinding against the gravel slow moving traffic going nowhere but you can't get out bubbles burst and salt in your eyes it's just like a bad dream it's just like a curse the great sucking down the great humiliation at least we got some sleep disturbed wretched half sleep the sleep of dolphins dreams of fishnets dreams of sirens dreams of tissue dreams of childhood dreams of drowning in the maelstrom dreams of drowning in the Clyde we were swimming once now we're just caught in the current spinning in the eddy barely floating on the surface and you come to alone again in a cavernous room teeming with strangers they're laughing not at you but not with you either so you laugh as you stumble to another drink everyone here is having such a hard time I hope they get some help I hope they find an answer somewhere I hope their hunger sends them spinning safely home into their beds and not another basement or other symbol of their emptiness we were dancing once now we're just sitting in the corner bodies pressed together a tired imitation of another song we were running once now we're just crawling through these ashtrays we were standing once but now we’re just sleeping in the sewer
2.
Sturdy Dawn 03:45
and back in that time I can remember walking around on an empty floor with a box of nails half open I remember that I was memorizing lines for a play out of fate out of fear the box it was at least half open and at least I wasn’t hungry except for thinking an idea like who cares what you live for in your garden the only things that will grow are pains coming alive before a sturdy dawn I was pacing the garden I was memorizing my lines it’s just an old house it’s just a condition I fear sometimes I’m afraid of sentences but sentences will never appear on broken television they won't appear on your broken phone you are also broken you are also tired you are also car tires and the car tires are on fire In the next life if you’re lucky does the burning pile of rubber that is actually you have to wait to burn stop playing the dirty dawn like it’s stupid stop giving in to idiocy out of fate out of fear you were practicing your lines didn’t you practice you fucking clown of fate it’s just an old house its just a condition you fear these lines won’t appear on a forgotten television they won’t appear on your broken phone out of fate out of fear we're running out of things can you wait or go to the store first I can tell that you’re not sick you’re not tired you’re just paranoid and nameless quit trying to blame the decapitated dawn quit trying to memorize my lines for a play I didn’t ask to be a part of before I was thrown vulgar and wet out of the tunnel out of fate out of fear quit trying to blame the decapitated dawn I’m just trying to memorize my lines for a play I didn’t ask to be a part of before I was thrown vulgar and wet out of the tunnel out of fate out of fear and maybe I will see the sturdy dawn quit trying to blame the decapitated dawn quit trying to memorize my lines for a play I didn’t ask to be a part of before I was thrown vulgar and wet out of the tunnel out of fate out of fear and maybe I will see the sturdy dawn quit trying to blame the decapitated dawn I’m just trying to memorize my lines for a play I didn’t ask to be a part of before I was thrown vulgar and wet out of the tunnel out of fate out of fear and maybe I will see the sturdy dawn the present is a bloated pig floating in a blithe caravan of black trash bags to heaven scrape up whatever you can to put together that tomorrow even though in present fever dreams who knows what it means to feel or see or expect the pigs to tell apart the truth confused about why some ideas persist some die a rightful death some reborn to die again that must mean the numbers didn’t help at all don’t punish me if you won’t punish the “me” of yesterday if I had two wishes after cancelling your wishes I would ask for more silence more silence claw my eyes out if I had two wishes after cancelling your wishes I would ask for more silence more silence the javelin flying at me is my secret friend
3.
eris came to me at night and whispered in my ear you're getting boring you're getting old and as she left she placed a single golden apple at the foot of my bed I tried to go back to sleep knowing it was futile until the fractured dam in my skull burst forth again as it always does I took a bite and it was mealy and it was bitter not at all how I expected such beautiful thing to taste the smell of burnt toast flooded my nostrils another mockery, another practical joke and when I finished core and stem and all I just lay back and waited for the drama to begin for my life to unravel crumble or capsize to recede into obscurity and smolder in the shadows of your brighter bolder and far more fragrant blooms they say inside all obsession is the seed of a wish a prayer for absolution from the pressures of the living and so I spat the seeds out and wrapped them gently in a cloth and tucked them tenderly beneath my sweat stained lumpy yellow pillow and slept for seven years and then another seven more just waiting for the stem to rupture through my skull and free all the fluids free all the dreams draw in all the pity dam up all the streams but nothing grew
4.
the grind the special grind you know the one defines you three dimensions still some things to figure out if you’re saving memories that’s wrong but don’t worry the sun will burn them out crossing off the list all the useless things we’ve done dreaming about starting over don’t recall the places that unwind you hold the rock over your head and say goodbye push the rock into the hill and say goodbye hear the walls out hear your tendons now no one belongs here the face turns to uncertainty again try telling skin to start over all I can do is chew on the inside of my mouth too much current through salt water and the road same and distant on the few days you can see it we’re the blind rats with the bricks gallons of cement and building low houses in the desert watch the sand a tiny heart inside this body quiet murmurs just to stay alive
5.
so here we are in the house of humor in the latter days of the law some reverberant dread shatters all the windows sloughs off all your skin ‘til it’s raw slices all the mirrors into shards the capital hum you've been chasing around you've been digging up dirt's at your door creeping in like red wine flu and heartburn a swollen ache you've felt before waking and unwaking you throw yourself into the briar I throw myself in every day these are Armageddon dreams and they are nothing more than that I have nothing left to say there are ten holes in my body and all I can think about is what goes in and comes out every time I see a photograph of myself I ask am I the fox or the hound chronic inflammation cathexis and chaos that is everything that I can recount from thirty years of bending buckling folding and smoking it out
6.
whatever took away the cold and gave you light I wanted you to have it I am here like the silence of walls always present always looking in dirt and finding something in dirt my grave maybe it’s been to long for me pulling stones out of my body cavity but lucky for us we can have freedom if we really want it this sing song bullshit will erode into nothing eventually and no one else at all will have it our effervescent tragedies and laughter cold springs fear facing eternity whatever took away the cold and gave you light I wanted myself to have it we are here like the silence of walls for right now maybe I’m trying to forget all of my lines they're not worth repeating I hope that I’m one day forgiven and lucky for us we can have freedom if we really want it cause their power trip bullshit will erode into nothing eventually and no one at all will have it our effervescent tragedies and laughter cold springs fear facing eternity
7.
In Uniform 04:38
it's an itch at the base of your neck behind your eyes on the roof of your mouth a desire that burns as desires do to hurt as you have been hurt are you excited that every day the world's smartest people are developing new ways to haunt and perturb if you could you would vomit on cue on the face of those who have wronged you you say you won't but you will aren't you the righteous one when the big terror comes as it will surely come and the dogs let themselves off their chains all your dry language scorched earth gritted teeth sweet release you’re only trying to survive the moral market scrambling to the top of a sphere stampede in the court house caught in the trample caught in the rain one day you in uniform
8.
Dumb Forest 03:53
what other option is there than to give your head away or take the one that’s given away or give away your stuff to your friends but they don’t need it either in the snake pit you are but the snakes you fuck and not the other way around I believe that you touch yourself in the dark and think about nothing it’s some way to spend your time if two rivers down a mountain never touch what does it matter to you what does it mean to you if you cared the future would look different a thousand pine needles glowing red hot if two trees in the forest never touch can you still see it snakes become your friends and flog you to death for your secret sin on a thousand steel needles glowing red hot what is another horseless cowboy that knows no dirt that knows no rope or brownish sunsets supposed to think standing in between two rivers close enough to only see one river and touching themselves in the dark I knew a cowboy once and he hit me in the gut so hard I bled inside and I carried those guts with me forever the strange smell of misplaced guilt ever since then hit me again the corrugated face of the elephant the arctic smooth of the gun the face of the gun the substance that bridges the gun and the elephant to you on the other side of the world unknowing but on your back just the same wondering your connection to them the face of the gun the arctic smooth of the gun the face of the elephant and the substance that bridges the gun to the involuntary silence of things after they’re done being things for now you don’t know anything about silence for now
9.
Amends 03:56
and we sang death to those above us but not our deaths from those below and we sang death is for ourselves on our bizarre terms only choking on the calla lilies laying in a pool of your own phlegm I wish to make amends but I will flail and not attend to what is real and we sang punish me a little though this guilt is bittersweet but painfully uncool choking on the calla lilies laying in a pool of your own phlegm I wish to make amends but I will flail and not attend to what is real and we sang can you just look away for a second while I loosen my belt I lived my life like spilled milk and all this genuflection and all this flagellation are no consolation is no exculpation there's no vindication no overdue salvation no patient parent waiting to tell you you're just doing fine
10.
you won’t need to go swimming to save me irony of being something is not lost on me maybe do you think your life has meaning convince me dusty past and a crude future make for unforgettable dreams is it me or are we changing into things we can’t see crazed and starved from the sunsets can you remember your dreams talk about the blood inside you as skin is bursting the seams close your eyes and think about what you will never be which future haunts you the most which words bite you in the rain the condensation inside and I can see this face in many faces is there hope big enough that can warm me enough when I thought that you could change me that you’d break this stone uncertainty sinking me like animals in the trench without any eyes ready to dredge every color of blue plaster casts of it all in the skin in the skin winning is an obsolete thing and the roads are narrowing the thousand years of hell aren’t real only a few more here which future haunts you the least which words help dull the pain the condensation inside and I can see the passing of many faces there’s no trough big enough and if happiness writes white on the page find a dark pit and throw me in feeling yourself in the ravine it’s either wet and cold or unparalleled in majesty

about

STILL LIFE WITH RIND OF CHEESE, CAN OF BEER, APRICOT, AMULET, CANARY, TWO DEAD RABBITS, PITCHERS OF LEMON WATER, CLIMATE CHANGE, LAPSING THOUGHT, FACE REMOVED, APORIA MORNINGS, DEAF FALCONS, IDIOT SONS, STRETCHED OUT YELLOW ROPES, COLOSSAL RUPTURES, IMPENETRABLE SMOG, RAW HAUNCHES, INDECIPHERABLE WAGES, ATONEMENT, SLEEPING CAT, SYSTEMS YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD DEPEND ON, JACARANDA STAINS, STONES INSIDE, COLLECTION OF WALLS, TICKING CLOCK, A SKULL OF COURSE, RAPTUROUS SPIRITS, LAVENDER HANGOVERS, FUNEREAL MOTORCADES, CROOKED TILES, YOUR OWN PROPAGANDA, EMOTIONAL CURRENT, HURTLING FORWARD, REELING BACK, THIRSTY BLACK BOX ROBOTS, SOBRIETY, SCREAMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS, SEVERAL PIG HEARTS EACH WEIGHING THE SAME, FORGOTTEN PASSWORDS, GRAY FIELDS LIKE FACES, ESCALATIONS, MANY ANIMAL GHOSTS, DEEP DISTRUST, EARLY WARNINGS, THRILLING BACKSLIDES, SATIRISTS, SMOKERS, COMPLICATIONS, KARLS, SMOLDERING OBSESSIONS, SONGS ABOUT THE DARK TIMES, TREMORS, TOURISTS, PEARLS, PEAR, ROSEMARY, NUDE, HORNETS, SAPPHIRE, CRASHING, JESTERS, GYRE, ITCHING, REVELATION, AND SPIT

credits

released July 19, 2019

Mixed and mastered with Samur Khouja at Seahorse Sound Studios in Los Angeles, CA.

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Wreck and Reference Los Angeles, California

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