Bugolgi Apparatus

  The Ghost of Phil Ochs I think of Phil Ochs staring down America   holding a promise it never kept   I pick up a guitar   I hear someone else   into these chords   as if they could help how short is a lifespan   what can be done with it I’ve never felt god the cemetery didn’t help   neither did the ritual trip and other circumstances   when I play guitars when I sing to myself   ghosts aren’t that far something tries to help   new york city keeps changing new york city might care   rubbing money in faces   a stranger hands me a kleenex   feeling the world   done up in plastic   vomiting on the stairs   keeping it moving with ourselves

  Vows everyone’s crazy   some hide it some parade it   all suffering with it   a few monetize it   everyone’s crazy   just give it three months   for the masks to drop   and the moves to run out   that’s when things get interesting   that’s when things get real   we acknowledge the three-sixty view   and then we start to deal   that’s when we start living   that’s when we know the freak partners in this business   held together by love and fear

 Exclamation Points Don’t you  know  who I am  I write poems and  then go to bed  like no one else can  I stand up  then take a bus  seen by dozens  I post photos  and release songs  listened to  and commented  on  more than once  and who  are you how dare you be so young  and beautiful  without being  clever

 Our initials  I wanna believe everything  without discernment  travel the universe  of your moods  I’m just so happy  not to feel alone  even if this feeling  is made for fools  we flatten initial  differences  digging them as friction  that finds a groove  we intake  all these indulgences  knowing full well  they’ll be paid in full

 Mechanical Bull you know how it goes it just goes to show  entitlement blinds you to its outcomes  oh the ride  doesn’t stop you  thrown again into those  special circumstances  remixing old strategies in a way  that flatter you  riding on fumes  back home  reworking scenes in your mind  until you’ve won  while a hope  for tomorrow   pleads for  another shot

 The ideas  where do they come from  where do they belong  inside out upside down  wrapped around and around  you get attached to them  you blow them out of your head  some people get buried under them  others throw up their hands  do you take them out to examine them reconsider them or just replace them  are you wedded to your opinions  will you fight for them to the death  or just leave them for someone else  take my advice as I can’t use it 

 Lonely men record collection  these are my records of seduction  those what’s left from the divorce  there are a handful  from my childhood bedroom  mixed with some that  just arrived in that box  I’ve carried these crates  through stints as a deejay  there are many that I can’t spin again  I’ve sold half several times over  then I think  there are many worst sins  I don’t need your condescension your pity or your uninformed views  I just ask if you have the time to listen There are many things I’d like to play for you