Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip – Repent, Replenish, Repeat

I first heard Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip years ago on Radio One. There was a feature Colin Murray used to do back when he was in control of the evening show where he would, basically, throw an hour a week open to whatever his listeners had sent in that would never normally get air time. Somebody sent in Thou Shalt Always Kill. I thought it was brilliant. But, not paying attention, I missed both the song title, and the artist name. Never mind, eh?
Fast forward maybe 18 months, and a friend whose music taste I have always rated was listening to the duo’s first album. Listening to it a lot. He never recommended it to me, as such, but I was, frankly curious. This curiosity got me listening. That album was Angles. It was sharp, clever, relevant, and made me question my previously unassailable hatred of Hip-Hop. At the time, I was a metal kid. This was a big deal.
When the bands second album, Logic of Chance, was released in 2010, I was too nervous to listen to it for the longest time. Angles was held up high on a pedestal in my head, and I was terrified that the new album wouldn’t meet my expectations. I was, sadly, correct in doing so. Logic of Chance seemed to have lost everything that made their debut special. It wasn’t as sharp, it wasn’t as clever. There were no long narrative lyrics. Instead, Pip’s lyrics seemed preachy, almost forced.

Repent, Replenish, Repeat is the third album by Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip. Since their last release, both members have released independent solo work, and they seem closer for it. Whilst Logic of Chance seemed fragmented, almost forced, in RRR the duo finally seem back on the same page – although not quite to the extent of Angles, which is still very secure in being their best work.

Le Sac’s input in particular has improved so as to almost be unrecognisable from his earlier work on Angles, and it serves to make me really want to get around to listening to his solo stuff. Here he is definite, solid, and accomplished. On some of the weaker lyrical tracks (Heroism, Entity) it’s enough to make you stick around.

The strongest tracks lyrically, however, are simultaneously the weakest musically. This illustrates what I believe is the biggest factor holding the pair back. In a recent ‘tweet along’ for the album, I asked Pip clarification on how the songs are written. It appears that it changes: sometimes a beat is delivered to Pip for him to write over, and sometimes lyrics are given to Le Sac and he works from those. The two don’t seem to write together. As such, there is rarely true unity between the two components.

Despite this disparity, there really are some great tracks on the album. Terminal is a return to the narrative tracks from Angles, a short, sad story about a drug fuelled night. Porter is another brilliant throwback, the only real track in which both components seem to match perfectly, and an interesting experiment on what seems to be a central idea: what if all the Disney princesses were just insane? You Will See Me is also a brilliant, if angry, introspective lyric.

Sadly, there are also tracks that almost beg to be skipped. Stiff Upper Lip is the most obvious of these. It’s loud, angry, and devoid of any real substance. In Angles, societal or political tracks were subtle, humorous, and effective because of it. Here, we just have bile – not helped by Itch, formerly of The King Blues, who contributes a truly unpleasant sound.
Gold Teeth is nowhere near as objectionable, but it suffers from having no real purpose. It seems like a track made solely to be a radio single, and it doesn’t seem like it should be a Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip track.

Repent, Replenish, Repeat is by no means a bad album, and certainly improves on the duo’s 2010 attempt. However, it still sits in the shadow of the pair’s debut, and while certain tracks strive to regain those heights, others conspire to drag it down further.

The Civil Wars – The Civil Wars

The Civil Wars write songs about love, but they do not write love songs. They write songs about unrequited love, they write ‘will they won’t they’, they write falling together, or falling apart, no longer in love or never in love. They tend to leave the happy in-between alone. They do this very, very well. The band, consisting of Joy Williams and John Paul White, released one other album, in 2011, called Barton Hollow. The album was one hell of a success, appearing on dozens of ‘album of the year lists’ – as well as being one of my own favourite discoveries that year.  This release is their second, and possibly last album.

The duo show insane chemistry, both live on stage and in their music. They must have spent far too much time over past two years fielding the dreaded “are you together?” question. Now, all such doubts have been shredded. Tracks from Barton Hollow, in particular I’ve Got This Friend  made the listener think they were together, made them almost heart-broken to realise they weren’t. Tracks on this album make you amazed they were able to even record this together. The duo are no longer on speaking terms, cannot play together live, can hardly bear to be in the same room.

Yet, the songs are still sung, for the most part, as if one lover to the other. The chemistry is still powerful, still present. In Dust to Dust, it’s still beautifully, longingly tender. In others, it’s there, strong, but… harsher. Save the duo’s almost signature ‘southern gothic’ lyric (The title track in Barton Hollow and Devil’s Backbone here), the songs are the already mentioned ‘not really’ love songs – always made more powerful, more real, because of the pair’s chemistry.

Musically, the album starts out strong, and remains there, with a very few weaker tracks, until the end of the album. On the whole, however, the first half is stronger than the second – despite a cover of The Smashing Pumpkin’s Disarm  the duo have made completely their own, and the brave inclusion of the entirely French, but still clearly evocative Sacred Heart.

Eavesdrop is one of the album’s stand-out tracks – a lover pleading “don’t say that it’s over”. The lyrics, the delivery, imply it isn’t. The discordant guitar toward the end tell the real story. One of the many stop and shiver moments that make The Civil Wars so exciting, so interesting a band.

The Civil Wars is more darkly melancholic than the duo’s first release, and in a way this suits the pair’s sound. Williams’ breathy hush carries the sad weight of the sound effortlessly and beautifully.
Despite this, my single favourite track is Dust to Dust, which seems to deal in the same ‘why aren’t they together?’ vein as the first album. I can only assume that is more attuned to my personal headspace than the ‘falling apart’ theme of the rest of the album.

A strong second album from a band that I wish would keep going for many albums yet, but, sadly, for my money, not a patch on the third. Save a few stand out tracks, the majority is slightly reminiscent of filler – and now matter how strong a filler track might be, it can never quite live up to the potential of an artist at their best. Suffered, I think, from the couple’s falling apart – maybe a few more weeks of united effort could have lifted this above the average.

Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn – Lucinda Ding and the Monstrous Thing

I was going to do a full Latitude 2013 review, and I probably will, at some point. For the time being, however, I really need to talk about Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn. And the 45 minute poem/show they performed. It is called Lucinda Ding and the Monstrous Thing.

I first saw Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn together at another Latitude, in 2010, with another show –Stories For The Starlit Sky. That show was 3 stories, one a night, about an hour long each, and, without hyperbole, it changed my life. I’ve forgotten a lot of what made it brilliant, now. To my immense disappointment there’s no recording of it available – be it textual or audio or anything else. So I’m just stuck with fading memories of how beautiful it was. How life affirming. How it served to justify my existence. How I somehow felt a better person just for being there and hearing it. I went there a Gavin Osborn fan, and left a devotee of Daniel Kitson as well.
When I saw the line-up of this year’s Latitude, then, containing both – individually and as an act, I was almost beside myself with glee, and I knew I had to make sure to catch them. In particular, the partnering. And so I did. And it was, again, life affirming.

Despite dealing with pretty depressing themes, despite ending in a double or even triple hit of tragedy, it maintains an odd beauty throughout its entire 45 minute running time. It’s the most calming thing in the world. The performance took place in Latitude’s Spoken Word tent. It was full to the brim with people, sitting on bean bags in the middle, crowded and on their feet near the entrances. As always, the tent was full of a respectful, reverential silence. If you close your eyes, it becomes a personal, intimate thing. Almost as if it’s just you in the room, being told a story. And, damn, Kitson can tell a story. If you see one of his shows, he will make you think. He will make you laugh, and sad, and angry, and contemplative. If you hear one of his stories, though… They are heartfelt, real despite the subject matter, beautiful. He feels it, and he conveys it. His voice – although faltering when he speaks alone – is quick and clear when he is telling. Quick, clear, and quick to laugh. Emotive and feeling and inclusive and friendly and eminently, impossibly easy to listen too. The kind of voice that could have been made to tell stories.

Gavin Osborn trades in emotions habitually. Laughter or feeling is all he knows, and all he bases his art around. You will feel something when hearing a Gavin Osborn track. Here, he is meshed perfectly with the story. In previous Kitson collaborations, Osborn has been only an occasional influence, popping in here and there with a song. For this show, his guitar is a permanent fixture. Refrains and repeated tunes appearing throughout. Osborn’s actual song interludes fit structurally rather than just thematically. They are another story fitting directly into the main story’s chronology. They are, of course, well done. The refrains will be stuck in my head for days.

Together, the two are so charming and comfortable that even the fluffs are endlessly endearing. Osborn, brilliantly childishly mishears “testiness showing” for “testicles showing”. His giggling temporarily stops the show. He is chastised. The show continues. Later he misses his cue – his only spoken lines in the entire enterprise. This time he is merely rewarded with a glare until he realises. This becomes an excuse to laugh, to humanise, to interact. It becomes a feature rather than a mistake.

I immediately wanted to listen again. It’s something that will stay with you. Both times I’ve seen a Kitson and Osborn collaboration, it has permanently affected me. Sometimes, for no discernible reason, art can change your life. Not in a big, dramatic, bullshit way, but in a small way. In a “how can things still be going on as if that didn’t just happen?” way. “Don’t you know what exists in the world? Don’t you understand how you could be feeling right now? Stop acting normally! I’m having a moment of introspective re-evaluation here.”

But that’s the thing. These shows, these collaborative efforts, are, in a very real way, exclusive. They are performed a mere handful of times, and that’s it. They’re not recorded anywhere, in any way. I wish to god they would be. Because they are beautiful and it can’t just be for the night. Something this good… it deserves to be immortalised. It needs to be immortalised. Otherwise only a select group of people will ever know about it.
I know that both artists are in the habit of googling themselves – or at the very least writing pieces about googling themselves – so there’s a slim chance they will see this. Unlikely, but just about possible. If they do, I hope there’s some possibility of their thinking about it.
Even if it’s just a little pamphlet containing the stories. Even if it’s limited print and therefore ludicrously, hilariously overpriced. Somewhere it needs to exist in a physical form.

Either way, without a doubt my highlight of the festival. If anybody ever, ever has a chance to see these artists, alone or, particularly, together, take it. And if you ever have their ear, wheedle at it incessantly. At the least, they need to perform together far, far more often.

Fuck Buttons – Slow Focus

Fuck Buttons were first introduced to me in a very interesting way – the artist of a webcomic I follow listed Tarot Sport as one of his albums of 2009. It was described as electronic music, but with melodies the author would find himself “randomly humming patches of”. To me, electronic music was something a certain type of person listens to in a certain type of club. It wasn’t my thing at all. But something about the idea of electronic music having hooks you’d find yourself actually humming? It captured me. And so I listened to the album.

My god, did I listen to the album. It was my gateway to electronic music, and even ambient music. It even got me into minimalist classic, as odd as that must seem. I introduced it to anybody I thought would listen. It remains, to this day, one of my favourite albums.

The wait between that and this has been far too long. It has been agonising. It is, very nearly, over.
Slow Focus is the name of the new album. Its sound, immediately, is aggressive. Tarot Sport was light, energetic. Led by its synth. Slow Focus is the complete aggressive. For the most part slower, more ponderous, heavier. Percussion led and thoughtful, with less momentum – nothing immediately leaps out and embeds itself in your head. The first time I heard Tarot Sport, I had difficulty discerning the individual tracks – it sounded like a continuous mix. Slow Focus is the exact opposite. Each track is a clearly different approach on the same darkly apocalyptic theme.

The link between tracks is still there, however – but much more subtle. Much more thematically interesting, in fact. The album starts of deeply, heavily, percussion driven, with Brainfreeze. It ends, with Stalker and Hidden XS, with a heavier emphasis on the melody. Each individual track mirrors this slow change, most noticeably The Red Wing and Sentients. In true Fuck Buttons style, the progression is so slowly done, so subtly realised, that it’s often impossible to notice whilst it’s happening. Only after, in hindsight, will you realise anything has changed.
The continuing thread, then, is rhythm. First percussive, then oddly melodic. Listen to the stand out beauty of Stalkers. Although the term is becoming somewhat cliché, the only description that fits is “towering synths”. Seriously. Listen right through toward the end. See? I told you.

For me, on first listen, the album only really came together in the final quarter. The darker, more aggressive, percussive sound turned me off and made me dream wistfully of Tarot Sport’s catchy melodies.  However, as I’ve lived with this album, I’ve realised I had it wrong. Fuck Buttons haven’t gotten rid of their melodies in favour of percussion. They’ve just integrated stronger percussion into their melodies. Listen carefully to Sentients – can you hear it? Repeated listens bring it out further and further, bringing the two – percussion and melody – beautifully together.

To me, the album is not the perfect, energetic powerhouse that Tarot Sport was. But, after 4 years, it’s still worth the wait. And, even better? I’ve caught myself humming melodies and tapping out rhythms. Fuck Buttons are still a powerful example of what the genre can be.

Slow Focus is released by ATP Recordings on the 22nd July 2013.

At the time of writing it can be streamed legally from  http://pitchfork.com/advance/161-slow-focus
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The National – Trouble Will Find Me

Atmosphere. Emotion. Raw feeling.
The National are a shortcut to emotion. They leave you feeling empty and used – but absolutely thrilled about it. You get a feeling of turmoil, of regret, of lost times and nostalgia. And it’s so present, so completely there, that somehow it becomes cathartic. Freeing.

The first time I listened to The National, I was underwhelmed. I couldn’t understand it, nor why everybody loved them so completely. I filed it away, and assumed that was that. But they never stopped popping up. Over and over again I’d see people raving about them, although they could never quite explain why. I listened to High Violet again. And this time it completely hit me, and it never quite went away. But I still couldn’t listen to the older, more acclaimed albums; Alligator, or Boxer. I still didn’t get those. The turning point was at Latitude 2010, standing in a field, hearing Secret Meeting. And it was like I was hearing it for the first time. In that place, surrounded by fans, seeing the band, I really felt it. And I saw everyone else around me, really feeling it. And I understood that was the trick to this band. Feel the tracks, properly, just once, and you’re in. It becomes effortless. You’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. And now here I am, trying and struggling to explain it myself.

About two minutes into Trouble Will Find Me, that familiar feeling is back. You fall into it, comforting and familiar. The National aren’t breaking any new ground, but they are retreading the same ground they have been for the past three albums. And at this point, they have really gotten rather good at it.

The band’s sound has always been one of an impossibly complex minimalism, driven by Matt Berninger’s understated yet booming baritone. Berninger’s range has always caused detractors to label the band ‘boring’ – discrediting or outright ignoring the almost orchestral sound created by the rest of the band, and the emotion this gives Berninger’s disparaging tone. The emotion created by Berninger’s lyrics, straight out of his “medium-sized American heart”. The emotion which serves as the soul of the bands appeal.

Bravely, Trouble Will Find Me has done nothing to alleviate this complexity. The band has always been on a slow burn, only recently starting to enter the so-called ‘mainstream consciousness’ with 2010’s High Violet, after over a decade of recording. It would have been easy to capitalise on this by releasing a ‘gateway’ album. In fact, Trouble Will find Me is probably one of the least accessible albums the band has released. It is less charged than previous albums. The hooks are less obvious. There are no lyrics that cause you stop and think, ‘Wow. You’ve got it. That’s the definitive description of that feeling. Everyone else can stop now.’ Instead, we have an album that is probably the most carefully put together release from the band. Everything is crafted beautifully and deliberately – but possibly to its own detriment. Nothing stands out. It still has that atmosphere, it still has that emotion, but it’s not expressed as completely. Compared to past releases it’s implicit, not explicit.

But it will still grab you, if you give it the chance. It will still grant you that melancholy happiness, if you’ll let me use a musical reviewers cliché.  And if you’ll do that, I’m sure you’ll let me use another: Trouble Will Find Me is beautifully bittersweet. If you never let me use those clichés again, let me use it for The National. Because, more than any other band, they deserve it.

This has been the hardest review I have ever had to write. There is something so completely undefinable about the band and its appeal that in trying to quantify it I nearly gave up. Several times I nearly gave up. I’m happy with what I have, however, and hope I have managed to convey at least something.

Frank Turner – Tape Deck Heart

Frank Turner is, simply put, one of my favourite artists making music at the moment. Turner’s last album, England Keep My Bones, was my favourite album of 2011, so his follow-up Tape Deck Heart had a lot to live up to straight off the bat.

Sadly, however, it cannot quite make it. My first thought upon hearing the album was “Well, Damn. It’s another Poetry of the Deed.” I could probably leave this review here and Frank Turner fans would know exactly what I was saying, but I shall continue. Like Poetry, Tape Deck Heart is not bad album – in fact it’s a very good album – it’s just not the quality or style expected from a Frank Turner album.

Tape Deck Heart is a departure from Frank Turner’s previous work in that is an intimately personal album, concerning itself, by and large, with a broken relationship.  And that just doesn’t seem Frank Turner. Sometimes, in fact, it sounds almost frightfully Coldplay -listen to the first third or so of Broken Piano, for example. This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, but it’s not why we’re here. Four Simple Words is why we’re here. Polaroid Picture is why we are here – Tape Deck Heart’s versions of Poetry of the Deed‘s stand out tracks. Four Simple Words is proper Frank ‘That shouty one, you know, the punk folk guy?’ Turner. Nostalgic for DIY punk, and a perfect moment of Zeitgeist.

This is not to say that all the break-up songs are weak, however – the country sound of Tell Tale Signs works beautifully, as does its bitterness, along with that of the wonderful Plain Sailing Weather. A lot of the criticism I am failing woefully to quantify comes from the albums lack of unity as a whole – something even more obvious when the album is inevitably compared to Turner’s last album – the beautifully constructed and coherent England Keep My Bones.

Turner’s song writing harks briefly back to previous albums and inspirations on a couple of occasions -T.S Eliot gets a mention in Anymore, and Arthurian Legend is an inspiration in The Fisher King (a track that may also have some Led Zeppelin somewhere its birth, judging by vocal melodies), something that may suggest a desire to get back to his ‘roots’, leaving the land of broken romance behind. Which is no bad wish – as harsh as it is to say it, as mean as it feels, heartbreak does not suit Frank Turner’s song writing. Even if nothing else, the album suffers from scheduling. As spring finally seems to blanketing across the country, Frank Turner brings out a melancholy heartbreak album. A winter album.

I do not mean this to be a negative review, however – if it seems so it is only because my own expectations were, if I’m honest, unrealistically high. Tape Deck Heart is a good album. It has my complete approval. Turner’s melody’s are as brilliant, as almost perfect, as ever, and certain tracks – Four Simple Words, Plain Sailing Weather are absolutely outstanding additions to the back catalogue. I have compared Tape Deck Heart to Poetry of the Deed several times throughout this review – a comparison that is really hardly fair to the new album, which is significantly more coherent and improved than the 2009 effort.
I would recommend the deluxe version of the album, as the bonus tracks are arguable better than some of the ‘filler’ tracks on the album proper -if, in the case of Time Machine, more Foo Fighters than Frank Turner.

In the punky Four Simple Words, Turner, singing about the scene, asserts “This is my culture man, this is my home.” Whilst an undoubtedly good album, Tape Deck Heart is often a departure from this home, and suffers for it. Having said that, watch out. This will be a definite grower for those who doubt it originally. Trust me.

Edit: I recently wrote a follow up piece to this review, with the benefits of a month of re-listening and a bunch of hindsight. This can be found here.

The xx – Coexist

Reviewing a second album from such a well-known band can be difficult. For a first album, a reviewer is, as much as anything else, reviewing the entire band. This is the second album from The xx, and you all know who they are. Reviewers must, instead, bulk out their reviews by mentioning that they can no long bulk out their review. We can’t take up too much space doing this, however, because The xx’s second album gives a lot to write about on content alone.

The album opens with Angels, which is frankly gorgeous.  Breathtakingly, shockingly gorgeous. As an album opener, it’s up there with the best.

Coexist is still The xx, but warmer. More melodious. The vocals from Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sims dance around the music and each other as if they are in love. By the end of the second track, Chained, you’re back in The xx’s spell and it is as if they never went away.

Croft and Sims are still unafraid to showcase silence, and they still make it beautiful. Missing in particular is masterfully confident song writing – the silence just long enough, on first listen, to make the listener believe something technical has gone wrong, but not long enough to be awkward – before you move to fix it, Jamie Smith’s synth kicks in again. Almost magically, this creates one of the strand out points in the album.
It is still hard describe The xx without simply lapsing into wondrous profanity, and in this they have kept their essential brilliance.

The xx continue to lovingly craft songs that are strangely bitter-sweet – heart breakingly beautiful, soft, and lovingly destructive. Coexist seems softer and more melodic than 2009’s debut, progression that is impressive, seeing how polished and mature the first album seemed.

The band have always given of a feeling of minimalist composers such as Arvo Pärt – not necessarily because of the sparsity of the music, although that could be a comparison on its own, but because minimalist composers have to carefully and deliberately place each note exactly where it needs to be. Smith, like the best minimalist composers, has this skill to a mastery.

Coexist is so much warmer than the first album, warmer vocals, warmer production, warmer subjects. Some may miss the cool detachment of the debut album, but most will welcome the evidence of the bands progression, and The xx’s new definition of subtlety:  Coexist.

Yeasayer – Fragrant World

  I was first introduced to Yeasayer when, in preparation for Latitude 2010, I asked a friend for advice on which bands I should listen to. Yeasayer were right near the top of the list, and Odd Blood blew me away. I never quite got into All Hour Cymbals the same way, and I fear I shall never listen to Fragrant World 12 times in a row at 3 in the morning on a Tuesday, either.

Fragrant World is another strong album from the band, but to me it is is missing something, some spark, that made Odd Blood such a good album.

The album is already known more for it’s Pitchfork review than it’s sound, so I’ll get that out of the way now so we can all move on. Pitchfork’s Ian Cohen reviewed the album, and gave it 5.4 out of a possible 10. Read his original review here. This, to quote Douglas Adams, made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. Indeed, the fans of the band on Twitter exploded, raining down hate on Pitchfork in general, and Cohen in particular.
Both sides overreacted. The album is not work such blanket criticism, but nor is it worth such vehement defence.

When I do these reviews, I first listen to the album 2 or 3 times, doing literally nothing else but jotting the occasional notes, pros, cons, context points I know, anything else I think of. I then listen to it again whilst I place these notes into something approaching prose, and try and organise my argument. Then once more as I write up the final piece. I’d expected, based on my notes, to come very close to blasting this album, before calling it a slow grower and stating that it contained the occasional moment of genius. It turned out, however, to be more of a grower than I had previously estimated – I now find myself in the unenviable position of needing to ignore the majority of my notes and write my draft on the fly.

Fragrant World is still oh so definitely Yeasayer – Keating’s voice still stands out against an electronic and percussive soundscape, and his vocals are still fantastic, but it is a new Yeasayer. A quieter, almost low-fi Yeasayer. The melodies which so made Odd Blood a success are still there, but they have migrated away from the vocals and into the instruments in a way that is almost reminiscent of ambient rave bands – Fuck Buttons come to mind.
Conversely, however, parts of it also seem reminiscent of electropop acts such as Röyksopp – which again is no bad thing.

The album really begins proper with Blue Paper, which is the first track to showcase the minimalist direction Yeasayer appear to be heading in. Yeasayer do this low-fi minimalism fantastically, and it is in the tracks in which it is showcased where the album stands out the most – Blue Paper, Henrietta, Damaged Goods and Glass of the microscope. It is a shame, therefore, that the rest of the album does not live up to the promise created by these few stand out tracks.

The rest of album is, at it’s worst, a mess. The percussion on Devil and the Deed is a bit all over the place, which sets the scene rather well for No Bones, which is actually slightly painful. If ever you have accidentally played two contrasting songs or soundtracks over one another on your laptop, you will be painfully familiar with the sound achieved in No Bones. And probably you will have no desire to listen to it again.

All in all, a good solid album, but disappointingly lacking after the bands last effort. It will be interesting to see if Yeasayer build on the promising foundations created in some tracks of Fragrant World in their next album. Fragrant World seems more a conglomeration of an E.P of new, stylistically diverse material; whatever B sides they had left from Odd Blood; and some tracks that should never have seen the light of day than it does an album, and this is a shame.
Had they released the “E.P” part alone, it would have been lauded.

“I write…”

I write this one on a letter,
always trying to do better than what I have.
Knowing there is little to save
but what I’ve already lost,
knowing that the cost
is already to high, and not
caring but a single jot.
I do this not for ability – I have none,
nor for the lingering sense of what I’ve done,
but instead because I feel
the choice is not mine to make,
somehow it’s not real,
I feel like a fake,
a sheep in wolf’s clothing, made
true again and again in a crusade
of ink from my traitor’s hand,
flowing from the corrupt land of my mind.

“I pass…”

I pass these days
in a dusty haze
of all the ways
this life dismays.

For life is grey
and ends today
unless your gaze
takes me away.