Artists: Cinema Strange
Year: 2006
Number of tracks: 13
Approximate runtime: 1 hour
Label: Trisol
N/A
On a crooked, cobblestoned and ancient road I briskly strode
when two men wearing bowler hats, curled moustaches, all in
black, on a tandem bicycle went this way, that way till they fell
beneath a coach-and-four
When I was just six I was rather curious regarding paternity.
Just who could my father be? I think he was skeletal and I think he
knew mother, well, controversially
Then some time much later on, during breakfast Aunt Yvonne
choked upon a bacon rind. She sang backwards, nearly died.
Then there was my friend from school whose dog turned rabid,
mad and cruel, and ate his master up
I would need more fingers than are given upon either hand to
count up all the sea-choked screams, calcined whispers,
rendered seams, pudgy-pretzled baby limbs, punctured lungs
and altered hymns I've seen and heard today...
On thin carpet there squatted
a child born unlovely.
He festered 'neath the table
and the dinner guests swore that he ate a beetle
and then smiled, "But, oh, that's nonsense!
He's never eaten any insects...
though his chin is agleam
with drool and many-jointed legs..."
On thin carpet each guest stood
and they lulled the little larva
- but reluctantly so ugly!
And he smelled like rotten codfish!
And besides, he squirmed and writhed
and in a sudden fit of tears
he took the Colonel by the ears
and bit him on the nose
and grunted!
(Blood on his crooked lips!)
On thin carpet each guest shrieked
and coattails and lace
unceremoniously recoiled from the
unlovely lullaby baby.
And to the carpet he did plummet
each guest did watch him hit
and saw how his small skull did split
and out crawled broken beetles
and a surge of crimson froth!
(Blood on the thin carpet!)
(Blood on his crooked lips!)
(Blood on the thin carpet!)
"Shall we withdraw to the parlour for the aperitifs?"
"Yes, and my nose needs a bandage..."
"Well, I find the present support for the workhouse reforms disturbing."
"I have a cousin in Marshalsea..."
"Sunday or Monday, we're leaving for Retchingstead."
"...No, I don't think I'll ever have children."
"...No, I don't think I'll ever have children."
"...I don't think I'll ever have children."
"...I don't think I'll ever have children."
"...I don't think I'll ever have children."
"...Don't think!"
"...Don't think!"
"...Don't think!"
"...Don't think!"
"...Don't think!"
"...Don't think!"
"...Don't think!"
"...Don't think!"
N/A
In a house of sticks
sat a marchioness
and two of her maids.
They went there Sundays
Isolde had to be
a fancy lady.
She had a manor
specially built for tea
Polly was a doll,
Wendy a felt horse.
They sipped with
their pinkies up, of course
Isolde's friends would say,
in a candid way,
her society
was improving, most days
Isolde in her hidden house,
off in a copse while mother slept.
Father gone in a pinstriped suit
and a governess hanging clothes, singing Irish
Isolde had a dirty cheek;
blackish loam smeared on pretty white birch bark
and because of the low light,
stinging, not seeing, 'twas a splinter buried...
In the dappled shade,
spinney leaves will fade.
They hid behind an old wicker chair-seat front gate
She must drift outside;
dainty, lilting strides,
and by fairy craft
give her teahouse eyes
Isolde wants window light!
She dislikes parasites!
Open the walls and
oh, my dear,
well that smells lovely!
But do you hear the sound
of a dead and wood bone cracking?
There's a foot upon the ground
without
and the birds have left off laughing!
Stay within thy castle
and mute thy ladies' thread and cotton tongues.
Their songs, if sung,
would bring the broken stick foot hither!
Another step draws near!
Thy ladies shake with fear!
Don't make a sound!
Tendrils run along the ground,
they're searching, searching!
Is it alive or dead?
Does the footfall have a head?
Is it a face with eyes,
and has it spied Isolde small and pale with dread?
And then sepulchral breath
slips past teeth all wrong from death.
That crooked air won't linger there,
it drips and drops on Isolde's hair...
Isolde tumbles out and away,
gone from the woods and into the daylight.
She will sip her tea with the governess
and listen to mother sleeping!
Isolde doesn't need a special secret wooded teatime retreat!
There's nothing restful about a parlor
rank with rot and loud with needlefeet!
Deep down in my cellar hole I craft bulbs that grow, grow, grow!
No one sees and no one knows. In this I act alone!
Wilting down those wooden stairs I poke and prod at botany!
Exhalations in the yellow light, my fingers creak and I sing out!
Deep down in my cellar hole I go…
No one sees a thing so no one knows...
...
No one sees a thing so no one knows...
Deep down in my cellar hole I go…
...
No one sees a thing so no one knows...
Deep down in my cellar hole I go…
...
No one sees a thing so no one knows...
No one sees a thing so no one knows...
N/A
N/A
N/A
I can make fire breath.
I learned it as a lad.
My master told me I had prowess no one ever had!
I could conduct the light...
I'd look away to her...
She'd match my spit with spite;
I don't know what her reasons were
I fell in love with her.
My tongue is purple-black.
I lit a blueish rose...
She carved a curse into my back!
I lit a blueish rose...
She carved a curse into my back!
I dance when beauty's near.
I hop to taunts and jeers.
I sought out stony glens...
Lovely ladies don't come here
I paint the rock with flame.
I burn and bruise my feet.
I spit, I'm naked, ever-hungry, I forget to eat
I stamp out flowers and
I fill my ears with mud.
That way the birdsong will not stir and agitate my blood.
That way the birdsong will not stir and agitate my blood.
I stare at ugly things.
I suffer cuts and stings.
It's been a happy, hopless, curseless ten-years hermitting!
But then I smell the air
and see her shrivelled there...
And though my blood begins to jump and boil, I don't despair
The curse is breathing flames
that I could never name.
I ask her, shaking, quaking, why the bloody hell she came!
I ask her, shaking, quaking, why the bloody hell she came!
She does not answer me.
Her eyes are withering!
The wind begins to bend her...
Now my muscles start to sing!
I clasp her desperately,
and we jump fifty feet!
Am I the very toad
that used to hop along her street?
I fell in love with her.
My tongue is purple-black.
I light a blueish rose
and heap the flames upon our backs
I light a purple rose
and heap the flames upon our backs
He collapsed into fists, and his fingers burned
He spent shadows growing tall and thin
He had hardly lived, was only just a man, when he was consumed
He might have smoked a briar pipe, might have worn a monocle, but instead he ATE
He never dreamt of teeth, he never dreamt of molars, growing where they should not be
He crafted knots using miles of throat
He screamed with chipped enamel, blistered airways flecked and sprayed with digestive juice
He fingertips, he broken lips…
Whoa-oh-oh and so forth
He wasted memory, his smallclothes eaten...
He fashionably undone, his crepe-covered family
She phoned… we rush through milk and mush.
We laugh… make swords from old tree-house boards
Outside, there's Fred and his sister, two sets of twins...
We've got skinned knees, unusual stones, and lately, him...
His buttons are coins from faraway archipelagos.
He winks; our slingshots hurl screams and tiny things with wings!
Hanging dripping shirts and sheets,
a washerwoman hears our feet
a-stomping by and when we cry,
"Midsummer's here!"
she blinks each eye.
And then we sing the song he taught;
we buzz like bees and howl a lot!
She withers into five years old;
hands on hips, her stance is bold!
She joins our marching army, laughing,
waves a stick, afraid of nothing!
(lala lala lala lala...)
(lala lala lala lala...)
(lala lala lala lala...)
(lala lala lala lala...)
And he's fun to follow!
He points and Mary-Ann's grown a tail!
And his eyes are gleaming!
And Mr. Tucker, there are hoof-prints on your tiles!
And he never tires!
He could dig to China hunting worms!
And he chats with saplings!
They laugh and sway, say he speaks archly!
Many wars, many battles... by noon-time we're hungry!
Didn't know, under bark, under stones… you can eat those!
Many fins, many wings... Many bites and many stings!
Didn't know; under petals... they'll tell tales 'ere the flowers fold!
And on towards night his beard turns white, his eyes are dull and he says,
"My voice is a cobweb wisp; we're a toe towards snow but I'll live again."
I'm sitting slowly, I'm bending my knees.
Cold granite touches my skin where the veins are close,
stealing the warmth from the back of my legs...
I lay down on the stone seaside and wait for waves.
When I am damp I will see my first friend
and he'll laugh at my hair floating far, far behind me.
I know my toes are inadequate undersea tools
but my first friend will help me to be...
Quite simply I'm sinking and thinking of times
in the past where bouancy marked my adventure.
I know that the darkness is partly to blame
for the fact that this sensation has not a name...
My tiny child was killed by a car
and my twin brother lives so far away.
First friend has working gills!
My last love took all of her pills!
My friend, by the way, is green in the gills
and on an average day can swim millions of ways.
About the nails and scales he is a silvery blue,
and it's not that he swam, but rather, he flew!
My friend, by the way, is green in the gills
and on an average day can swim millions of ways.
About the nails and scales he is a silvery blue,
and it's not that he swam, but rather, he flew!
I thought it would be dark like the space
between dreaming down here but I can see a half-moon above me,
elusive, yet mostly sub-orbital...
see how my friend splashes wildly!
He coats every drop of the moonlight
and sends it in swirls past my face in the cold, salty water.
He has no idea of the pain that it causes
to fight the temptation to follow it down!
My friend hasn't noticed I'm blue in the face!
He's just not aware that my man-lungs need air!
But I'm loathe to swim up towards the surface where headaches
and car-battered children will clutch at my brains...
My tiny child was killed by a car
and my twin brother lives so far away.
First friend has working gills!
My last love took all of her pills!
And if you ever ask if I can fly,
I'll tell you, "Yes, I've died!"
The wings that form post-mortem
ebb and flow with every tide.
Skin and tendons fall away,
but I shall glide forever fey,
and nails and scales in the dampest depths
shall lead me far away...
lead me far away...
lead me far away...
lead me far away...
lead me far away...