Insomniac Folklore

WELL
Wine may be a mocker and beer maybe a brawler but we are all fools.
Wine may be a mocker and beer maybe a brawler but we are all fools.

It’s useless, useless, all of this is useless!
Useless, useless, let’s chase after the wind.

You may be a banker and I might be a bard. You might be a lawyer but weall got it hard.
What does all this mean anyways? What does it mean in the end?

I have planed the biggest of plans. I laid them all down so carefully.
What does all this mean in anyways? What does it mean in the end?

When youwake up in the morning and I’m not around
Don’t you look for me because I won’t be found.

I am living off the highway. My companion is the road.
Don’t you think I’ve forgotten my way back home.

You don’t need to worry. I packed my clean clothes
and now I sleep when I’m hungry and play guitar for my cash.

I ran away.

You got the lust to wander off so wander off you did;
Always wondered ’bout the things inside, all the things that you kept hid.

Please don’t be long, you’ve got somewhere you belong.
Sleep in your car.
Sleep in your car, Sleep in your car.
Please don’t be long, you’ve got somewhere you belong.
Sleep in your car.

Troubled heart and a troubled mind, we all know the things you did;
Why don’t you just come inside and we’ll welcome you home kid.

They may not have loved you. They may not have cared.
But I love my sister and I want her to be well.

She’s beautiful.
She’s beautiful.
She’s beautiful, but she’s wasting it.

Life may not have been easy, no one said it would be.
But she’s got decisions, and I want her to choose well.

There she goes, there she goes, there is no way out she says.
She’s beautiful, powerful, completely empty.

My eyes are thirsty, Lord. My eyes are thirsty, Lord. My eyes are thirsty Lord.
No one knows my thirst but you and me.

My body is weary, Lord. My body is weary, Lord. My body is weary, Lord.
No one knows how tired but you and me.

My mind has wandered, Lord. My mind has wandered, Lord. My mind has wandered, Lord.
No one knows how far but you and me.

And I can’t go home until we’ve made our peace, my Lord.
I can’t go home till we’ve made our peace.

If you can make rulers of orphans,
If you can bestow your blessings on bastards,
If you can make the prostitute lovely,
O Lord, then
what can you do in me?

And if iron sharpens iron,
Then we might have a problem because
Bullshit don’t make things sharp.

Lord, O Lord, oh how I need you.
What can you do in me?

Truly no one is worthy
and the least of which is me.
I deserve human rights
human rights are
death, hell, and the grave.

My heart is dark and scared
My mind is dark as a tomb
You can resurrect these bones
You can bring peace to my soul.

My heart is a whore
My body corrupted
My soul longs for thee.

What can you do in me?

This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel? NO!
I’m gonna let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? NO!
I’m gonna let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? NO!
I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Don’t let Satan blow it out,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Don’t let Satan blow it out,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Don’t let Satan blow it out,
I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Once you gave me a candle
Once you gave me a candle
Once you gave me a candle and I never let it go.

Sometimes I don’t know what to do
with this flame you gave to me
If it were alright with you, this is what I might do.

Burn down the building, let free the body
Burn down the building, let free the body
Burn down the building, let free the body
Burn down the building and let your body go free.

Your body is a glistening light -
A multitude brandishing torches to the sky!
If it were alright with you, this is what we might do.

Mankind keeps letting me down
and nature, she decays
This I know ’cause I’m doing the same
You pulled out the nails, let’s get on our way!

Sometimes we care more about the place than the people or the peace
Sometimes we care more about the place than the people or the Prince of Peace.

Jesus, Light of the World, sometimes you’re the only thing that flickers in this heart -
Jesus, Light of the World, sometimes you’re the only thing that flickers in this heart.

Well a virtuous woman is so hard to find, more than diamonds, more than precious gold
I will protect you and you will defend me from them all, and through it all.
I would work for your father for seven whole years because you are worth it.
I would work seven more.

We will love each other, give ourselves to each other freely
And we’ll stick together like an oath to our God until the death of days.
Late at night when we go out to shows we will share one set of earplugs -
I on the left, you on the right and then one day when we both get old we will make one good set of ears.

Though this body may not hold up I will never grow old - I will pass from life to life.

La la la la la la la, La la la la la la la, L’chaim, l’chaim, to life

Though our bodies may not hold up, we will never grow old, we will pass from life to life.

Ah, I see you there, and there, the ghastly and the ghostly, creeping in from the shadows, at the edges of vision mostly.
Come in, come in! There’s blood enough for all of us.
Hello rustling, hello slithering, hello rasping, clawing, pawing, coiling, roiling, scuttling, shuffling, lumbering, lurching, leeching, sucking, suctioning, and our succour is yours, our succour is yours.

By the looks of you, you have been lying with Leviathan and bunking with Behemoth, with what creeps in the deeps and sleeps in the depths in heaving heaps. I see some of you are all bones who’ve misplaced their flesh, and others cover their lost faces in exo-skeletal mesh.
Well, we won’t wince at pincers and we find mandibles wholly understandable.
Each of us to our own. None of us the same. All wild. That’s how the Family goes.

Welcome, welcome, each one, each daughter, each son, every stranger a new strand. I shake your hand: I feel snake coils, I feel crow claw, the touch of a talon, I felt the pelt and the paw, each creature a feature of the Father’s feral nature, every monster a teacher of the world’s full stature. Each of us to our own. None of us the same. All wild. That's how the Family goes.

Well, some got wings and some got stings or sundry other indefinable things. It’s just the grotesque gift that each one brings. And a gift given will not be riven, though the raven roves in murder droves. When the blood is plenteous, the blood is copious: it was meant for us, there’s always hope for us. So feel no shame for your horns or hooves or other outgrowths of monstrous loves be they curved points or spiral, cloven stamp or uncloven, each aspect is viral and each one woven.

Your forgiven fang and your cleaned claw are all He saw (She saw, We saw). So come on, come in, there’s blood enough for all of us. With our chests ripped open we’ll have a real heart to heart. Yeah, with our skulls cracked clean it’s a real meeting of the minds!

For in the deep, dark woods of the world’s neighborhoods broods broods of bruised brides on the insides of their hides each one bides and hides, but gathered in the clearing is the Gathering of the Cleared, each one frightful, none to be feared, for delightful deviation is design engineered, each etched wretch re-stitched redeemed by what seemed so ugly at the time of its repugnance. So come, come, step up, there’s blood enough for all of us! Your forgiven fang and your cleaned claw are all He saw (She saw, We saw).

Gather in, chilling children! Amass apace, be willing to stop killing for a space, and I’ll tell you the story of Horror Boy, how he collected all the freaks from strange lands on his weary way home in eerie joy, tucked each safely in his leaky, creaky open mind and all saw in awe the offhand monster band trailing off behind... How Horror Boy brought all the creatures into his study and turned his lofty old library into a bustling beastiary, a mad menagerie of mystery-begotten amalgamations, and supra-subterranean sub-creations, made houses and homes for hundreds of beast-selves among the thousands of tomes in his cupboards and bookshelves. He was lying with Leviathan and bunking with Behemoth. Loath to lose their livid love, instead he fed each fearsome head a firey froth, yes, in a time of skeptic moths and cynic rusts he busts the iron icky idols sticky-stale reductionism-mechanisms with a boiling broth of ghost-brains and angel-brutes, scalding the scabrous-scaly skin-lords in an ecstatic stroppy chop-wrath to blaze-blast a path of rift-resistance tearing straight from his biblio-bestial study-stable off into the dim distance!

And they say when it’s late, strange praises emanate from behind the door and under the floor the thumping and bumping of hoards under the floorboards! To my aghast astonishment and surprise, when each ghastly voice is raised and sings, my brain is of a sudden covered in eyes and my heart grows three pairs of wings! A holy flaming serpent leaps up in my soul and lets ring seraphic worship of autoethnographic worth shining! For There is a Kingdom and there is a King. He gathers in each grotesque and feral thing, for He delights to hear each strange voice sing and what awful sound each one will bring, for There is a Kingdom and there is a King.

And why is that, child, tell me, why is that, child? Because the Rule gives room for good things to run wild, yeah, His Rule gives room for good things to run wild!

Each of us to our own. None of us the same. All wild. That’s how the Family goes. So step right up, come right in, there’s blood enough for all of us! Your forgiven fang and your cleaned claw are all He saw (She saw, We saw). When the blood is plenteous, the blood is copious, it was meant for us, the only hope for us.

Finally, I leave you with the testimony of Brother Raphael Aloysius Lafferty:

‘There is a holiness in a whole person or a whole world... The veriest monsters inside us may be sanctified. They were put there by Him who is “Father of Monsters” also. What right have we to cut them out of us? Who are we to edit God? We cut strong things out of ourselves and suppress them, and the rocks and clouds will give birth to them again. We dry up our interior fountains and they gush out again, exteriorly and menacingly. We cannot live without monsters’ blood coursing through us. Only to the whole person is life worth living and death worth dying. Here... we must be whole or we must be nothing.’

And all God’s misfits said:

AMEN and AMEN. World Without End.
AMEN and AMEN. World Without End.
AMEN and AMEN. World Without End.