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Mermaid Stew

by UUNO

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1.
Feral Smile 03:32
wasted whisper through the trees "why you following me?" but you weren't there and no one was and my feet were bare I walked along the snowy trails came upon an earthen tomb I crawled inside I fell asleep feral smile on my lips as spring bloomed in my brain we chase our dreams until all that's left is just blood and loose fur and the worst stomach ache you ever had and at our lowest of lows we heave up our hopes in the dark all alone 'til it's over when I awoke I found two dreams lying next to me one was you the other was the forbidden depths of the sea and she whispered to me "Your hopes and dreams are merely drops in the gulf of original sin a true believer'd dive headfirst in" Archaic smile on her lips as she turned into sand I fear myself I fear the truth of my nature 'cause without fear I might be a monster please keep grooming my fur and I'll lick all your wounds fight the wilds next to you 'til it's over 'til it's over I'll be true 'til it's over I'm with you
2.
A moonless sky and a fool’s fire the songs of spring on the frozen strings of winter’s lyre we gather to tell stories with the will-o-wisp trading recipes for rattlesnake egg omelettes with my band of desires they try to write it down but the ink’s run out an old daydreamer his fists full of sand crawled by me and my tribe on the trail I was pleased to see a familiar face but it was ashen and full of shame I asked him what had happened and without raising his head he said: "the ink’s run out" further down our darkening way the woodland’s arboreal band began to play from the sky and the trees the blackbird bade, alongside woodpecker turtledove and bluejay the soothsayers crooned, they sang doom’s swelling tune "the ink’s run out" on and on our feet turned the pages ink on my fingers shoulda listened to the sages as I crawled from my bed with your face in my head I scrambled for my favorite pen I tried to scrawl it down one simple word to lift my heart but the ink’s run out
3.
They ran through the dark from their village ablaze Big Sky carried the flame Morning Wind carried what little they'd saved: some utopia seeds for a happier day Sky whispered a joke but it clung to his beard alongside the moonlight and snow but Wind combed it free stretched it effortlessly over both of their shoulders for warmth while they sleep saying: Every night I will be here right next to you don't fear the abyss just give me a kiss under the moon we'll make it through the night They dreamed up the world they'd build when they were safe a rough sketch of a malnourished myth a moat full of sap for their pinecone keep with snow gardens, snow orchards snow valleys full of sheep The drums of the beast growled and snapped at their feet til they came to the river of life across lay the sun who could slay their abyss but Big Sky don't swim so he gave Wind a kiss saying: Every day I will be here waiting for you you bring me the sun make the world green I will be blue wide and true I love you and I know you know I do I love you and my love is as true as the big sky is blue
4.
Bowers 05:17
perched on the memory of childhood’s tomb of old-world love letters carved in bedroom runes a flawed translation of your eyes in the dark down the moonlit mountain to the ramshackle heart of this blurry old ark I hold dear perched on humanity bray and babel us heathens building a bric-a-brac model of a ruined teenage eden scrape the dirt from your hands and head home with the sun lovers kissed by lips like leather from your purse take the heather start over building our bowers again relic by relic we build the bower in the canopied trees of our mothers and fathers a primitive memory carries our wings over paradises lost to all the useless things that we cannot bring with us Perched on a second chance it’s the last one standing, in a forest of ash while a pilgrim sews tomorrow’s hopes in the aftermath in 50 years, the children build a tire swing while the bowerbirds sing a thousand more, the woods are blazing, as fanatics burn their way toward the pilgrim’s true meaning
5.
Settlers 04:02
We snuck in the back your purse full of the laws of nature and kiss me over the garden gate we stole the sandman’s silver watch, fled down the trail of moonlight dripping from it’s cogs I wrapped it round your wrist, it fit and we hid within a starless kiss You and I, we walk the streets at night our faces painted for war by dim street lights the sun came up our trail ran cold because the hunting hounds have all grown old but who have we become in the light of this new sun? we lobotomized and then set free the cult of Johnny Appleseed and our rabid pantheon of dreams can’t see the orchard for the apple trees "there, there" and "it’s ok" dance around your weeping face like we danced around the fires in our midnight masks all we are is our desire like ash is just the memory of fire I cover you from head to toe to hide you from all earthly woe walk among scavengers for just one more taste of amazing grace but to get out of the rain we’ll settle for a fire and a fairy tale
6.
It's Ok 05:14
In the dark I said "Here are my desires O monster of all monsters” I put them before you In a hope reserved for fools: that you’d speak; that you'd share the same tongue but you just laid by me in silence midnight’s funereal band swirling around us not from the songs that they played nor from the fears with whom I layed but something far away bubbled up through our charade and bayed "it’s ok" another night when I wasn’t alone Love’s pale face smiled on me I’d found home. but I asked her where she’d been in the twilit interim I asked her questions till the words made no sense In truth there’s nothing we can say but it's ok just place a kiss upon the eyes that at you dumbstruck stare keep breathing life into the timeworn love all humans share as you run one trembling hand through locks of ancient midnight hair and say "It’s Ok" an adult in the dark is no braver than a child both hold their own dim candles to the wild they may whisper different hymns but there’s no difference in the comfort they seek from them I wanna be able to say that it’s ok if I spend my whole life around fires on my way through your forest riches my love
7.
Mermaid Stew 02:05
you swing all mystery as if it were a bat a bat marred with the clay god used on the fateful day when he made man but do you play ball? no, I don’t think you do. but I think that the cruel unfaithful boyfriend you beat to death with it used to I want to taste the pantheon that burns within your diamond skin all we know of you is what you’re not a whisper from a shadow You’re the Atlantic Yeti priestess of a UFO cult but it’s just a shitty day job, you’re pure novelty and wisdom incarnate at night you ride penguin-back under the stars dive into the sea where man throws all his misbegotten monsters I want to swim in pas de deux a heathen to your sinless blue as the mouse-wheel of a world I knew vanishes from view I want to drown in search of you I never want to find you
8.
I stow my fetish for human bravery in the rickety basket on my bike it's so damn heavy but I pedal steadily on down the road they said'll lead me home it's paved in midnight on top of midnight will my road end where it began in a lemonade sunset on cornfield sea I'd ask the moon but it's been muted by a nocturnal halo my cherubic blight made of midnight making love on a park bench eros and medusa moaning cthonic delights while psyche watches, heart-broken in the bushes and as I pass by them I can hear her cry they're all made of midnight when I get back I'm climbing into bed with you and kissing your lips until mine go numb you'll become just an eyeball and god in your smile just out of sight and made of midnight
9.
World Tree 05:02
here they come the songs of spring lookin’ stupid hand in hand with “I give up” and “I love you” their bags are filled up bursting at the seams with the sweetest melodies in full bloom they hide the graves, softly erasing all the dreams and the love and the lives it cost us to sew them in the first place it’s little consolation to be sleeping in your leaves if we’re unable to retain the memories that would’ve helped us believe the smell of fresh cut grass squirming underneath my lamp I ask “In 1996 were you with me at summer camp?” but it just turns back into sand on a beach in Michigan whispering “It’s ok” that my childhood is fading no longer scares me what truly hurts is that it no longer scares me i’ve grown so numb to so much since then in order to make it to “the end” but what happens then? 20 years from now can I still feel my lovers skin? still love her like I love her now remember why I loved her then can I hear the blurry melody that built this life for us up in the world tree that our dreams are not lies is our holiest magic and if we’re really fools to the end then how can the end be so fucking tragic? It killed me when I heard your mother say on her death bed "It’s all going too fast" edelweiss never lasts our bags are gonna burst as our towers turn to flowers the kingdom’s gonna crack ripping up our life-long bowers as the refuse of our lives withers and fades like fresh cut grass around the world tree dance with me around the world tree
10.
Handbag 06:35
she pulls on a string “shall we depart?” red velvet lips sing in the key of a child’s dream her smile like some ancient wordless drama written for kings lost children surround her smiling and nodding they listen as she speaks glass chimes ring in a foul wind “the port-town called Homeward has work for you all it’s in the Candlelight Lands where night never quite falls its bridges stretch high above the gull-mottled sea where ships big as whales can take you anywhere you wish to be the streets are a labyrinth no, you’ll never see it all but there’s a shop on every corner with something wondrous… and novel to show” with threads of twilight, romance and magic she quietly sews their way through the darkening woods the kids blindly follow In love with her wide and unblinking eyes Like the light of the moon Seen from the hopeless depths of a violent sea quicksilver drips From her inhuman face Like some Mad jack’s collection Of baroque picture-frames That the cannibal artist Gave the puppeteer king Who nurtured the features Till he broke all his fingers His lifelong ambition, Was to make a real face With conviction, wisdom, elegance, With beauty and grace the flame of her wildlings’ allegiance grows brighter each day as the never-ending fable takes them away first Johnny grows fangs and he bites Michael’s tail who screams in black flames its lucky Lucy’s grown scales some children are winged, others writhe in the dirt all fur, spikes and horns some have four eyes or more no laughing or screaming they just growl and roar and their queen, she is singing knocking an arrow to her wild hawthorn bow what’s underneath? Some porcelain thing sits broken, her puzzle pieces hang loose with wire and string sneaking out from the cracks in her red velvet lips she sews while she sings the wild heather sways in the breeze that blows from the sea it’s made out of leather and by nightfall it should be complete

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released December 9, 2014

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UUNO Japan

Ramshackle rock, with psychedelic subtleties and acoustic accoutrements.

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