+ Bush Mama Blues

The bulls poke their horns in the hive
Just to hear the buzzing
They live just to see you writhe
This city’s being muzzled

It’s a slow motion ethnic cleanse
Clean out the gutter
Keep the lines red and the rubbish in bins
Now everything’s the right color

Make sure they’ve cleared a route
That they’re free to roam
They turned a prison inside out
And they call it home

Suburban Sykeses and Picots
Tyro-Cartography
Blood-full-belly mosquitos
The Haussmanns of the beach

Every time you raise your fist
The ceiling just gets lower
As soon as you need something fixed
The system just gets slower

They just won the racial raffle
Petty colonizers
Still have the nerve to be baffled
When the rabble rises

Don’t dare call it an uprising
The Man’s gonna call it a riot
No one else finds it surprising
When the kids set this shit on fire

Every time you raise your fist
The ceiling just gets lower
The sooner you need something fixed
The system just moves slower

Hey!
Behind the gate
All locked away
See what you did

Hey!
Don’t turn away
Look what you made
These are your kids

+ The Resort Beyond the Last Resort

You're prized in your circle for old-fashioned ways
We can't see the ceiling; your boot's in the way

The Twentieth Century ran by your rules
The Twenty-First looks like it might follow suit

You just itch to get the job done
You're expedient and foolish too
Kill and a man and claim the war's won
Back in the shadows where we can't see you

You wither in the open
You shrivel in the sun
To you negotiation
Is the barrel of a gun

Left with a choice between reason and rhyme
You've made it clear you'll choose rhyme every time

You know what they say about history and farce
But your tragedies were a farce from the start

You stumble into situations
You couldn't recognize the right track
Your shortsightedness is stunning
Always a step behind the blowback

You wither in the open
You shrivel in the sun
To you negotiation
Is the barrel of a gun

+ Straight World Problems

Who’s gonna save you now?
Now all of your gods are dead?
Who’s gonna save you now?
When it’s off with your master’s head?

You were thrilled to see them go
Now it’s you who’s in control

But who’s gonna heed you here?
You didn’t think that far
So who’s gonna steer you clear?
When you’re the one driving the car

You operate outside the ring
Wake up to find you’ve been roped in
So who’s gonna save you now?

A new era
Is upon us
So why’s it feel just
Like the straight world?
The past ain’t past, man
It’s there to taunt us
It’s there to haunt us
From the straight world

You cradled this young epoch
Swaddled in lamb’s clothing
You told yourselves there was no top
One even plane for all men

There’s no way to win this fight
Success guarantees your loss
As soon as the end’s in sight
The new boss becomes the old boss

You were thrilled to see him go
Now it’s you who’s in control
Who’s gonna save you now?

A new era
Is upon us
So why’s it feel just
Like the straight world?
The past ain’t past man
It’s there to taunt us
It’s there to haunt us
From the straight world

You set yourself apart from the start
You were never gonna be like the men you hate
You got yourself a feel for the part
Now you’re hanging heads from the city gates

A new era
Is upon us
So why’s it feel just
Like the straight world?
The past ain’t past man
It’s there to taunt us
It’s there to haunt us
From the straight world

+ THE CAT LOOKS AT THE KING

A man stares down a tank
And the cat looks at the king
An officer breaks rank
And the cat looks at the king

Motionless in Taksim Square
The cat looks at the king
While Europe burned,
in the Cabaret Voltaire
The cat looked at the king

Black and red in Catalonia
The cat looked at the king
For a moment in Makhnovia
The cat looked at the king

Behind the makeshift barricades
The cat looks at the king
The corsairs and the renegades
Those cats looked at the king

In Rojava, in the midst of hell
The cat looks at the king
Some cats they just won’t be compelled
The cat looks at the king

Easter rebels reject the crown
The cat looks at the king
Sendic going underground
The Cat looked at the king

On the riverbank at Stono
The cat looked at the king
Sick of pigs at Stonewall
The cat looked at the king

+ Common Cause

You make common cause with kamikazes
To you everyone’s a fascist but the actual Nazis
Seduced by your enemy’s enemy
You reduced the world to simple binary

Look who’s marching next to you
They got blood on their hands, man, blood on their shoes
They might be on the right side today,
But blood is blood and not fade away

You make common cause with kamikazes
You call everyone a fascist but the actual Nazis
Seduced by your enemy’s enemy
You reduced the world to simple binary

They used your speech, man, they learned your moves
But they don’t want the same things you do
They’ll use you, man, in the name of love
But they’d have you dead push come to shove

You parsed the issues, picked your sides
Assaulted reaction, laid waste to bromides
Lured by a cheap solidarity
You examine, man, but you forgot to see

You make common cause with kamikazes
To you everyone’s a fascist but the actual Nazis
Seduced by your enemy’s enemy
You reduced the world to simple binary

+ Tired Blood

Life ain’t fair
But it should be.
‘You can’t touch
What you can’t see’

So we’re told;
But ask the blind.
We’re all grasping
In the night.

Tired blood
Tired blood
Blood... blood

+ Deep State

The deep state, man, it ain’t even deep
You barely have to squint to see it
The deep state, man, it ain’t even deep
You hardly have to squint to see it

We’re both looking at the same damn thing
You see a kingmaker, I see a king
You see a board room, I see a chess board
They’ll protect the royal court
under threat of the sword

A missed encounter with the real
Them towers falling didn’t change the deal
They just pulled the fuckin’ curtain back
Now they act more brazen with a lot less tact

The power’s in contracts, it ain’t in Congress
CSPAN is theater, man, no more, no less
On everything important there’s broad consensus
From the hacks to the pols
to the bosses they can sense us

Getting restless, but man they couldn’t care less
We’re screaming in a vacuum: ‘transparency and fairness’
They tell us they’re with us, their condescension’s regal
No conspiracy their hegemony is legal

And that’s the fucking thing that keeps me up at night
Power builds a force field, hides in plain sight
The deep state, man, it ain’t even deep
And to these motherfuckers man your life is cheap

The deep state, man, it ain’t even deep
You barely have to squint to see it
The deep state, man, it ain’t even deep
You hardly have to squint to see it

From the motherfucking beltway to Silicon Valley
From Langley to Bluffdale, Wall Street to Raleigh
Data analytics, high frequency trades
Financialization, privatized highways

Sacrifice zones left to wither on the vine
While shareholder pockets just keep getting lined
A minor offense: disenfranchisement
While monumental theft
gets you a slap on the wrist

Internal colonies just swept to the side
While urban Babylon grows higher and higher

For generations the injustice piled on
Redlines, white mobs, black blood smiled upon
The GI bill, the new middle class
And swaths of black veterans left out on their ass

Coercion automated, the illusion of choice
Locked into systems in which we have no voice
Fodder for ad-men, grist for the mill
We’re all willing dupes at the mercy of shills

The deep state, man, it ain’t even deep
You barely have to squint to see it
The deep state, man, it ain’t even deep
You hardly have to squint to see it

+ Years of Lead (Are Back Again)

A laugh at your sick joke
Is enough to get us both choked
Since when?

A strategy of tension
May be worth a mention
Again

Apocalyptic fury
Dispensed with the jury
Surprise!

But calculated hatred
Awoken like the undead
Will rise

They’re bound to say it’s different this time
It’s still men with guns and big ideas
One man’s hell is another’s paradise
And both are fates that we should fear

Wait 'til the smoke clears
It’s worse than your worst fears
Trust me

You know it’s gonna backfire
We’re due for a quagmire
You’ll see

All your points of reference
Won’t help you mount your defense
This time

They speak a different language
The language of anguish
Pantomimed

You really think we want the same thing?
You underestimate the other side
You talk of freedom but don’t realize
How bad some people want to die

You really think you’ll find utopia
Somewhere outside your fevered mind
Your workers’ paradise or their jannah
Your bullets won’t bring them to life

+ Metaphysical Cops

For David Kato

From Lake Forest pulpits
To the Dark Continent
They’re speaking of culprits
Of will and intent

My love makes me holy
With this laying of hands
My desire turns slowly
To a prayer for this land

Your theology crumbles
For it’s God we appease
You know you can’t stumble
When you’re down on your knees

Your law and your justice
Are ordained in your mind
You don’t know what lust is
It’s a law more refined

They fear to go to sleep for they fear bad dreams

If you’re losing it here
Take the fight overseas
With a new ship to steer
And a new flock to feed

‘Human rights’: a tautology
It stinks like a corpse
It’s the stench of the colony
And it’s come back in force

There’s sin in their semen
This laying of hands
Casts out the demons
In a prayer for this land

Our sex makes us humble
My God, we’re eager to please
You know you can’t stumble
When you’re down on your knees