Taser

the neighborhood were blazing
in the shadow of the prison
we heard all of the yelling
our annual hope and suspicion
charnaled and taser'd
we grow up to be
liberty is a risk they say
it's you and its' me

blood type in tear gas spray
cameras crushed in election
attica grows up quiet these days
inside of the maximum prison
disappeared and taser'd
convicted and then to be
juries are a rish they say
for you and for me


some say they see the silhouette
with its back bent chained to another
a chain gang to heaven being met
by the sound of rain and thunder
forever beat and taser'd
angels carrying the heat
swinging mutilation in time
swinging at you and me


- Chris Mansel

Brimstone

they said the mentally defective
couldn't be hanged
so they added a chair
it didn't take them long
to understand the needle wouldn't
mess up everyone's hair

mother gave up her child
at the grave the deal was made
it must have been obscene
naked to vice a scaffold for sin
broadsheets declared
he had the criminal gene

as far back as 1520 it was said
a man was as bad as he was today
as a victim his murderous woes
could never be disclosed
the blood from his wounds
were on his victims clothes

chorus

brimstone, rain like alcohol
never seen misery grow this tall


- Chris Mansel

She

slowly terrifying she rounds the breath in the mirror
closes the medicine bottle and lets it fall into the sink
her beauty was closer to disintegration than terror
before she slept across the razor blade soaked in ink
she thought she'd write her suicide note today

she stands in front of a Matisse and listens to a child
crying
she's young herself and decides that she's really
dying

she undressed for nostalgia and in the shower she sang
her heart beating against the tile it opening and closing
guitar strings across her windows tied to bells that clang
she stares and she sits but really she knows she's moving

she stand in front of a Matisse and listens to a child
crying
she's young herself and decides that she's really
dying

- Chris Mansel

(pull the worst) From My Head

I've carried the rotted fruit to throne
wooed the poor from the steps of my home
sought the mechanism of bloodletting to blood spilled
raked the rough ground for my own hole in the field

an excessive foreign pain I must free in me
that grew a long time ago within you I see
I kept growing but you held the torch to my head
I lit nothing but you read by my light in your bed

my nightmares were made into walls and ceilings
prayers were heard my thoughts trampled, feelings
burnt through a open window I'm not only a mist
darkness and convulsion, I am hallucinating this

chorus

serpents with an angels head
glassine with an ivory seal
pull the worst from my head



- Chris Mansel

Goya's Penitentiary

My shadow is on my face and its a darkness that I inhibit whenever I can. I find it personal and it is something I can't share with you. Not since I burned my clothes so hastily and proclaimed myself free of the mincing fear of myself have I been so confident. It all began in front of a statue of Goya. I turned to find myself a bandit, a driver, a male drawn too late. In a chapelI was Osiris, my clothes wet and by no means an August body. Unable to recuperate my precious breath, my body roaring. Discriminating. I hold no intimacy, I hallucinated an image of my soulin the background. Flung open at once, oil on a brush, tincture of a animal skin. This inevitable dying horse drug across my flesh, the position in my eyes was struggling, burning of my infection. I was in the painting wide awake. Forty three point eight by thirty two point seven.


- Chris Mansel

My Woman

she burned her shadow in my face
she burned her shadow in my face
even when it rains my left keeps dry
my right eye keeps moving tired

my front porch is rusty can't hold a step
my front porch is rusty can't hold a step
my windows won't look in won't even break
she just left and took all she could take

my excess won't stay down the drain
my excess won't stay down the drain
blood all in my steak and my beans
I never known a woman to be so mean

the devil stutters past my door
the devil stutters past my door
says he won't haunt me no more
grabs his throat and blood pours

Chorus: aching pain in the knees
my woman turned against me
where is this evil coming from

- Chris Mansel

Weighed Constraining

But its only the beginnings of insanity that interests me. The shadows of snow blowing across the roof. Rain blowing horizontal across the the lawn. The sky erupting in a fiery charge sending glass into the air. The milky exchange of a petal and a bee. As long as the ear can hear what is not there. As long as Hamlet can continue to die, the blood signifying the march of an invading force, and the love that has died. Ophelia burning in hell.

- Christopher Mansel

The Pineal Eye

running from the earth
like a diamond in reverse
same as nature its heard
the front seat of a hearse
get the bad weather first

nothing is so divine
as the pineal eye
from a lizard to a king
from Lorenz to Laing

syphilitic through the vein
the ship's sails of intestine
sailing under another name
misguided as Charlton Heston
signal fire spelling out fear

nothing is so divine
as the pineal eye
from a lizard to a king
from Lorenz to Laing

its just a merciless suicide
to touch a child who's died
waters swollen from the tide
screaming till laughter cried
the hearse hits the pole first

nothing is so divine
as the pineal eye
from a lizard to a king
from Lorenz to Laing

- Chris Mansel

I'm No Good

mama took up your shotgun
load it with railroad steel
mama take up your shotgun
load it with rainroad steel
shoot me in the mouth mama
so I'll never say another cross word
about another living soul

mama fry up some fish won't you
fry it up in some good hot grease
mama fry up some fish won't you
fry it up in some good hot grease
throw it in my eyes so I'll never
look at another woman again
just this last time I want to look at you

take my dreams, take my screams
shove them under my bedtake my dreams,
take my screams shove them under my bed
turn the knife blade the other way
cause the pain ain't going away
I still can see, I still can speak

Chorus: I'm no good, like a seed on the line
like a fire in the pale mama
leave me by the tree covered in lime
I'm no good to you mama, anymore


- Chris Mansel

Bodhicharyanatara – The Reincarnation of the Peasant Buddha

Irrational pubic descent, I remember waking with the taste of gasoline in my mouth. I knew I needed a change of clothing and I hadn’t eaten in a few days. Pubic bone severed my spine. A hair fetish overcame my companion and we spent the day at sea, the vagrancy sutra repeating in my head.

Helter skelter on my forehead, helter skelter in my hands. Blood is causing the boat to sink. We’re on the shore and there’s music. Tribal incantations to remove my spinal column, baptisms of urinary fornication. I am brought to a boil in pools of excrement and force fed the pages from my writings.

My companion dead now bobs up and down beside me, she died quickly before they could ask her anything. My vertebrae is removed and used as a drum by the shaman who tells me he can make me well. When I awake it is three years later and I am crawling the shore retching up blood and watching as the drops construct the Sistine Chapel in the sand. I collapse into the crucifixion.


- Chris Mansel