“For the Workforce Drowning”: Falling from the top floor, your lungs fill like parachutes, the windows go rushing by. The people inside, they're dressed for the funeral in black and white. These ties strangle our necks, hanging in the closet, filed in the cubicle, without a name, just numbers on a resume, stored in the mainframe, marked for delete. Please take these hands, throw them in the river, wash away the things they've never held. Please take these hands, throw me in the river but don't let me drown before the work day ends. 'Nine to Five' and we're up to our necks drowning in the seconds, ingesting the morning commute, lost in a dead subway sleep - Now we lie wide awake in our parents' beds, tossing and turning, tomorrow we'll get up and drive to work, in single file, with everyday just like the last: waiting for the life to start, it's always just ahead of the curve…just keeping making copies, of copies, of copies, when will it end…it will never end, until it gets so bad that the ink fills in our fingerprints and the silhouette of your own face becomes the black cloud of war. Even in our dreams we're so afraid the weight will offset who we are. All those breaths that you took have now been cancelled in your lungs. Last night my teeth fell out like ivory typewriter keys, and all the monuments and skyscrapers burned down and filled the sea. Save Our Ship, the anchor is part of the desk. We can't cut free, water is flooding the decks, the memo's sent through the currents, computer's spark like flares–I can see them but they don't touch me. Touch me, please someone, teach me how to swim, please don't let me drown.

“Between Rupture And Rapture”: In the veins of the ultraviolet light, the phosphor is starting a fire, shooting up in the iodine; it's turning on. Rupture the wall around my heart. I feel so lost, I've been shaking, you can't save me (forget what the doctor said). Every bird in mid-flight is calling out your name before it hits the window and sings the rapture. Without a second opinion, the chemicals saturate to counteract the code. Through the double-helix we are twisting (too scared to let this go). Someone call the head nurse. She's coming to the capitol to wrap us up and throw us in the dirst with a dream that's turning off. We are coming to the Capitol. The distance between us will rupture. In our hearts the disease won't touch us. Love, now it's too late to turn this off. Alone is all we are, even when we feel this close, it's just a lie we believe…these are the words that escape from our lungs, rupture the wall I've built around my heart. I've been shaking. You can't save me, I'm turning off. We can't find a way out of this moment. We're lost in a dark hallway.

“Division Street”: Lights out on Division St. and all the hate that rises through the cracks in the pavement as the temperature falls (this is where it hits the ground). Lights out on Division St. I'm repeating 'goodbye' to the memories, the fever that will not break. The night is pouring down, it's not enough to put this out. I'll burn up before I wake up on Division St. This is serious, this is serious. If this is serious I'll hide my heart in dark parades. Lights out on Division St. I held you tight like an empty bottle but the glass broke and the poison spilled from your mouth: hello…Hello…Is anybody there? The house turned black and sat in silence while a mockingbird sang: “lalalalalala listen to yourself go on and on as if you spoke to someone else…” If this is serious I'll hide my heart in dark parades, to dance between the scissors' blades without getting cut. I drew an X on your city's name. Lights out. Black out. Blow out the candle again. Spin the room around. Fall down. Pass out. Get up. I can't keep repeating. Between the footsteps I hear crickets in the trees, a silent army marching with me through a swarm of bees. A needle dragged across a record, slowing down. Along Division St. the lights were dying out. Endless rows of houses stretched on for miles and miles and miles…turn the windows black. Lights out. Turn the windows black.

“Signals Over The Air”: This is what you see when you look in my direction: incandescent corsets draw eyes tight, like wires. This is how it feels, calling out but no one even hears the signals that we send over the air. When you say my name I want to split it from your lips and hide like whispers in the rain. When you say my name, I want to stop it in your lungs and collect all of your blood to put it in the radio. Is this how it feels when you don't even fit into your own skin? And it's getting tighter, everyday I'm getting smaller. If I keep holding my breath I'm going to disappear. There's nowhere to hide. They stole the love from our lives to put the sex on the radio. If I keep holding my breath all of this will fade away. If you keep driving we'll be lying in the wreck, changing the shape, folding like an envelope to keep each other in shattered glass, broken looks and mascara gets washed away by windshield wiper blades. That's where we hide the love and lies and sex, on the radio.

“Marches And Maneuvers”: This is a war we live and the sides are drawn. We're all wrapped up in fatigues and they wear us out. There is a storm at sea. If we fly a white flag, under a black and blue sky, will the red sun rise? (the taste of your kerosene lips burn me up) The glare from your enemy sights make me go blind/blinds divide the sunlight into thin strips, the size of a blade, in this trench that we dig for ourselves. Fourscore and fade. Glare with the enemy heat of the bodies in the bed. There's no retreat. This is a war we live in. Now we're up in arms, with our heads pressed against the wall (and it's wearing thin). These are the screams we swallow, if we fly a white flag under a black and blue sky…This is our war. Administer the pill before the cell divides (keep marching–keep fighting) and we'll both go down like toy soldiers. Threats and picket lines are forming around our beds and the landmines in our chests will go off in time. If we trip each other into this, do you think we'll find a way out? We've synthesized a compound to treat their conscience. It's: one part loss, one part no sleep, one part the gun shot we heard, one part the screams mistaken for laughter, one part everything after, one part love, one part stepping out of the driving rain, one part parting ways. In the cold apartment, don't look back, just keep running down the stairs. Do you hear the footsteps? Do you hear the voices in the traffic communiques in the attic? They say, after time, all this will heal, we will rebuild and these broken arms will mend themselves in our embrace.

“Asleep In The Chapel”: Three chalk outlines in the dirty street and in our beds, under the sheets, they're the halo of guilt hanging around your neck, next to the rosary you count, falling asleep and we're praying to treat the symptoms of letting go of all our hope. Since we can't compete with martyred saints, we'll douse ourselves in gasoline and hang our bodies from the lampposts so that our shadows turn into bright lights 'white light, white heat' We'll make as we're blacking out in the center lane, we swerve to the beat, spill all the ink. No revisions. Do you hear the church bells ringing? Wake up!! Wake up in an outline and try to speak with the shattered voice of the lives we lead…have we slept too long between the bullet holes in a stained-glass window state? When we repent, we fall on the page (read, in the margins) We are the symptoms of letting go of all our hope. Someday we'll be complete like modern saints, baptize our kids in gasoline and hang our doubts up in cathedrals so that they turn to faith in the colored sunlight. 'Red rain, red rain' we'll make as we're blacking out in the center lane…Do you hear the church bells ringing? They ring for you. We woke up this morning to a street filled with a thousand burning crosses and what we thought was the sunrise, just passing headlights. Still the choir girls sing, 'oh lord, can you save us? Oh lord, sing hallelujah' They are the symptoms of letting go of all our hope…we're falling asleep with open eyes falling asleep inside the chapel falling asleep in chalk outlines falling asleep as the headlights pass us by…

“This Song Brought To You By A Falling Bomb”: Do you hear the jet plane yawning miles across the sky? Do you hear the garbage truck back down the boulevard, setting off the car alarms as it passes by? Do you hear the static of one thousand detuned radios? Shut the window, love, keep the world outside. I don't want to think about anyone but the footsteps are getting louder, drowning out the sound of the rain, as it knocks on the windowsill. I'm not answering the phone - let it ring. Lately I've been feeling like a falling bomb. The ground is getting closer and the sky is falling down. This song has been brought to you by a falling bomb.

“Steps Ascending”: Steps ascend to a loaded gun. The scent of matches hangs in the air (a lit one flickers out in a heartbeat). We don't want to see this: a flash of light that's letting go of an empty bullet case, by the time it hits the ground, he's out of reach. Let go. The wolves are closing in. There's no room left to make amends. Do you remember when we'd fly that kite so high? All the time we've wasted, spent fighting, will burn in the fire our regrets all the time we've wasted, spent fighting, it's blood and it's running down the stairs. Freeze the frame between the gun shot and the hole it makes. A spinning bullet waits in the middle. There's no way to stop it, it will surely hit its mark. You can try to understand but I'm giving up. The synapse fires, it's right on time. I'm giving up. This should always stay out of reach I ran down the stairs and into the garden, put both my hands into the soil, in the spring, you will bloom, like her heart, through the blouse, in the back of the ambulance, as it turned and turned in the streets (just one more turn won't you come back to me) As it turned on its red lights, you were turning into red roses but I'm not giving up.

“War All The Time”: Standing on the edge of the Palisades' Cliffs in the shadow of the skyline it seemed very far away like a lightning rod that couldn't pull the storm from me - when I was five years old, my best friend's older brother died, he fell from these cliffs and the river washed him away, the current pulled him downstream and our lives float in the headlines. So we park these cars in our parents' garage to listen to the lullaby of carbon monoxide: war all of the time in the shadow of the New York skyline, we grew up too fast now we're falling like the ashes of American flags. If the sun doesn't rise, we'll replace it with an H-Bomb explosion, a painted jail cell of light in the sky like three-mile-island nightmares on TVs that sing us to sleep. They burn on and on like an oil field or a memory of what it felt like to burn on and on and not just fade away. All those nights in the basement, the kids are still screaming, “on and on and on and on…………” and we're blowing in the wind. We don't know where to land so we kiss like little kids - we used to be very tall buildings but we've been falling for so long. Now your eyes are a sign on the edge of town, they offer a welcome, when you are leaving. When the pieces fall it's like a last-day parade and the fires in our streets start to rage so wave to those people who long to wave back from the fabric of a flag that sand love all of the time.

“M. Shepard”: The stage is set to rip the wings from a butterfly. The stage is set. Don't forget to breathe. Between the lines if the whole world dies, then it's safe to take the stage. These graves will stretch like landing strips —– hospitals: all dead museums. We won't have to be afraid anymore. The crowd is growing silent with the gathering storm. When the curtain falls and you're caught on the other side (just trying to keep up the act). We'll lie in the back of black cars, with the windows rolled up. Joining the procession of emptiness. If we say these words, it will be too late to take them back. So we hold our breath and fold our hands, like paper planes (and we're going to crash). We don't have to be alone ever again. There's a riot in the theater. Someone's standing the aisle, yelling that the murderers are everywhere and they're lining up, carving the M in your side. Pull the curtain back. Kill all the houselights. Pin the dress lotus flowers. The silk is spinning around and around, with the ceiling fan. I'm disappearing into the spotlight. I'm on display, with the butterfly and the scarecrow, with smiles like picket fences. You tie us all up and leave us outside. “That voice is silent now, the boat has sunk…” We're on our own but we're not going to run.

Tomorrow I'll Be You”: In the circuit, the frequency's breaking up. The speakers can barely move this is not a test tune to the broadcast, witness the jetlag. Adjust the V-hold shatter the lens. Pull our the shards. Choke on her words, caught in your throat. How long can the wheels maintain a spin, at this velocity? On every block, a reminder: you can't stop this intersection. At every turn, dead forests of tenements rise like antennas. The miles are adding up and the days are counting down. Cut the jet black from my hair before we're bathed in the dawn of New Year's Day. I will change back to myself in the flame. We burn like the paper hearts of dead presidents. We're too lost, to lose hope. Maybe the night seems so dark because the day is much too bright for us to see that we are cured. (shatter the lens, pull out the shards). We are cured (choke on her words, caught in your throat). That's the sound of music from another room the piano player hangs from piano wire but the player piano carries on. Sit back and tune to the broadcast. This is not a test. Shatter the lens. Pull out the shards. Choke on her words, caught in your throat. As the language dissolves and the sentence lifts, a slow alphabet of rain is whispering, “aahcttipachdefg…” Since I replaced the I in live with an O, I can't remember who you are…but tomorrow I'll be you. Just pick up the phone. I'm calling from your house, in your room, in your name, lying in your bed, following your dreams. I listen to your voice get caught in my throat as I sing, “This Is Just A Dream” on New Year's Day, we will change back to ourselves. In the flame we are cured. We are cured, we are cured.