The Cover

 

image/graphic by jack hastings
 

1. Calliope Rising

 
William Fuller and Spencer Kimball

MP3 Audio File

When the showboat stops on that old riverbank
And I hear the whistling o’er the cold night air
I’ll be ready in the morning light
Pack my bag and say a prayer

Chorus:
Here toast to life again
Calliope rising, Calliope rising
There strike a higher key
Here sing the muse’s joy
Calliope rising, Calliope rising
There fly my heart to thee

When the wind dies down and the low notes play
And a voice calls out to me
When the high chords clear my stricken sight
And I finally break out free

Chorus

When you left I could not move
I could not hear anyone speak
Now a sound sublime echoes its cry
As I leap off that last towering peak

Chorus

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2. Merry-Go-Round

 
Jack Hastings

MP3 Audio File

I just want a painted pony
I just want a big brass ring
I just want to spin in circles
I wanna hear the calliope sing
I been still as a statue on a cemetery stone
I’ve been standing my ground in a six-foot hole
I’ve been lost, now I wanna be found
I wanna ride on your merry-go-round

Around and around in a circle
You love me and then you don’t
You raise me up and then you break me
It’s a crackerjack carnival show
Now I got me a ticket in my sweaty little hand
I’m coming on board and I’ll be damned
Though I’m getting pretty dizzy and I might fall down
I’m gonna ride on your merry-go-round

There’s a big bright light in the center
Shining bright behind the mirror
I’m finally getting closer
Your eyes are drawing me near
The ponies go up and the ponies go down
And we go round and around and around
The cymbals clash and the bass drum pounds
I’m gonna ride on your merry-go-round

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3. Diagnosis

 
William Fuller and Gary Sears

MP3 Audio File

Flying through the kitchen at a quarter to four
Joy and laughter stuck in the freezer
Thought we’d be together for a few years or more
Not struck with some unknowable seizure

Saddled with the screams that don’t make any sense
I’d rather be riding in silence
Standing on the verge of finally mending the fence
Then seeing it crash in the violence

Chorus:
Diagnosis
I just wanted the truth
Diagnosis
And now it’s for sure
Diagnosis
What they said was a lie
Diagnosis
And I will find a cure

Never thought my appointment would turn out so bad
What I was told was an awful disgrace
I’m gonna search til’ I can prove they were wrong
Take a blood test and get out of this place

Flying through the kitchen at a quarter to four
Joy and laughter stuck in the freezer
Thought we’d be together for a few years or more
Not struck with some unknowable seizure

The wind’s on fire,
The air is black
The tongues have wagged,
My life’s been hacked
The forests are burning
With a mischievous glee
No more phony doctors
Sayin’ what’s wrong with me

So what’ve we got, a few days, a few weeks
As we’re staring down the dimming of the light
There’s one thing for sure in this meaningless mess
Not going down without a helluva fight

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4. The Wayfaring Sandwich

 
Spencer Kimball

MP3 Audio File

Is this a train station, or the holy gates
If there’s no departure, I will wait
Take a seat on the bench, accept my fate
See what else goes on

Are these the winners, or a demon’s game
Or just the wanderers, and we’re all the same?
Do they have worries, do they have aims?
Give them a strolling start

So quick! Take the next step
So wait! Take the next step
So watch! Take the next step
Take it and see

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5. Wreck of the General Slocum

 
Gary Sears and Spencer Kimball

MP3 Audio File

Boiler deck, main deck, bow and stern
The parents watch the swooping of children and terns
It’s a fine day for a picnic, you hope they won’t learn
The worst lessons of the greed of business

Upstairs, downstairs, forward and aft
A child runs looking for adults that don’t laugh
He’s seen the fire, why do they not come?
Nobody can see the fate of the General Slocum

Left wheel, right wheel, anyplace in the plan
The fire touches all wherever they stand
The life rings are turning to dust in their hands
And the the lifeboats are not even firewood

Running, jumping, flying in place
The death and destruction move up apace
The only choice left is to burn or drown or play dumb
Can nobody save us on the General Slocum

Oh no no no
Won’t you please save us
Oh no no no
Somebody save us

Boiler deck, main deck, bow and stern
The General Slocum is sunk and no longer burns
The few who escaped it don’t know where to turn
As they dry on the muddy bank

There were grifters, fraudsters, shysters, and crooks
But only the captain ever got booked
And the shipping owners shoveled out hokum
As they buried the dead from the wreck of the General Slocum

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6. After Life

 
Jack Hastings and Spencer Kimball

MP3 Audio File

Don’t suppose I’ll serve in Heaven
And I ain’t gonna rule in Hell
No angel wings or pitchforks
Or eternal fire, as far as I can tell
Just one foot in front of the other
Hoping for a step to the side
Just trying to squeeze a little closer
To the warmth of the bright blue light

Chorus
Come closer and tell me a story
Of love or laughter or tears
If you tell me yours, I'll tell you mine
We're all Shakespeares and Scheherazades here

I don’t remember how I got here
Somehow it just slipped away
Seems like my mind is otherwise occupied
But by what, I’m not sure I can say

One time I got pushed near the shadows
And the things with claws and their fangs
They tried to draw me into their darkness
I put my hands on my ears and I sang

Chorus

So on and on I am marching
Just one among this army of wraiths
Lifted up by the kindness of strangers
Carried on by faint hope and slim faith

No angel wings or pitchforks
Or eternal fire, as far as I can tell

Some people say life is funny
The flipside, I guess, not so much
And I won’t know ‘til I get to the ending
If I've finally walked far enough

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7. The Carcinoma Angels

 
William Fuller and Jack Hastings

MP3 Audio File

(Hats off to Norman)
At the age of nine the world was mine
Baseball cards were my thing back then
I bought ‘em low and sold ‘em high
Made a fortune by the time that I was ten

A few years later made a lot more than that
Drugs and gambling and a quick social climb
Never got burned, started doing real good
Left my footprints in the sands of time

Chorus:
Money will solve almost everything
Win me love, buy me friends, smite my enemies
But it couldn’t help me beat the Carcinoma Angels
And cross those deep red seas

Got the wretched news when I turned 40
Not much time left on my clock
Tried chemicals, radiation, even prayer
Sometimes I hid under the nearest rock

The final fight came down to one last stand
Mixed a cocktail of moon dust and morphine
Benzedrine, mescaline, and some curare
Took that shot and flew into my dream

Chorus -- [SFX Bridge]

Went deep inside my body and down into my mind
Started driving that blood vessel highway
Soon saw their black leathers and gleaming bikes
Red the eyes that looked to end my days

I beat back the hellions like the hero I am
At the end there wasn’t any doubt
But now I’m stuck inside this battered body
The Angels are gone but I can’t get out

Chorus

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8. Memory Leaves (And Turns Out The Lights)

 
Jack Hastings and Gary Sears

MP3 Audio File

Falling Autumn leaves from the wind in the trees
Have something written on them, that once belonged to me
Like the music of your laughter when I said to come on in
Or the sound of satin sliding, across your velvet skin
And the color of the sky when the cold wind blows
Or the blue of your eyes and the shape of your nose
No matter how hard I try to hold on to the past
It’s like a snowflake on your tongue or your breath on the glass

Leaves mock me in their dancing as they spin so fast away
Knowing I can’t ever catch them in their lunatic ballet
They steal away fragments from the temple of my mind
Leaving only mirrors and moondust and quicksilver behind
And me, I only know that something serious is broken
It’s a never-ending sorrow for the saints of the awoken
And if I could look back to the times I have forgotten
The tears would flow like deluge over all the misbegotten

How empty the avenue appears, the trees at last stripped bare
There’s someone I can near recall who once walked with me there
With gentle amputations, my past has been excised
It’s the shadow of a ghost, of the echo of a life
A burden has been lifted beyond all of my regretting
I only hope the ache is the absence of forgetting
I don’t know what forward is but I cannot go back
Just like Neil said, "out of the blue, into the black"

Coda
When memory leaves, it doesn’t leave a thing behind
No breadcrumbs, calling cards or clues to the crime
No forwarding address or a shred of evidence
So pack it up and leave it, and move on to the next
I guess they’ve taken everything, not much that I can do
The only thing I wish I had was one last thought of you
The only thing I wish I had was one last thought of you

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9. Don't Boil The Klypee Player

 
William Fuller and Spencer Kimball

MP3 Audio File

Crazy Ray Jenkins was a klypee man
Played for folks on the great Steamboat Sally
Was the king of Sally’s hurricane deck
As she floated through the Mississippi Valley

Play Beautiful Ohio! the crowd would yell
And Crazy Ray would be happy to comply
But the hot steam rose round his burning fingers
Every day he thought he was gonna die

Chorus:
Say a prayer, sing a song for Crazy Ray Jenkins
He gave it everything he had
Stung by sparks, burnt by steam, he played from the heart
Till the day his boiled body went bad

As each performance came to an end
Crazy Ray would grab a tall cool drink
Red of face, bloodshot eyes, he needed relief
And off to the bar he would slink

Blistered fingers holding the icy glass
Our poor pickled and parboiled friend
Every day a nightmare just like the last
How many klypists met an old drunkard’s end?

Chorus

So don’t let your babies grow up to be klypists
Let ‘em pluck lutes or bang bells
Keep them away from the devil’s thirty two
The instrument straight outta hell

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10. Burnt Sugar, Blood and Hot Motor Oil

 
William Fuller and Gary Sears

MP3 Audio File

A loopy headbanger called late last night
Yeah it turned out to be my only friend
She started screaming ‘bout some deal gone bad
Said she needed one last ride round the bend

I picked her up at a quarter to three
Everything had gone wrong
She was covered in burnt sugar and blood
I thought I might be friendless by the breaking of the dawn

Chorus:
Burnt sugar, blood and hot motor oil
Gonna be the death of me
Gotta find my way thru the devil’s maze
And make it to the deep blue sea

The ice cream man had sold her some stuff
He said it was a cure and couldn’t miss
We took a break at a stop and go
Bought some coffee and shared a kiss

We could see a Cadillac in the distance coming fast
So we buzzed out of the lot like angry bees
She said she had a skiff waiting at the dock
I made the sign of the cross as I heard her shriek

Chorus

The motor oil light is taking my attention
The guy driving behind us is way too pale
This lonely dirt road is wrecking my engine
Got the reaper and The Carcinoma Angels on our tail

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11. One More Walk Around

 
Spencer Kimball and Gary Sears

MP3 Audio File

All that stuff you worried about
All those people you could do without
It’s not what you thought, but no need to pout
You got to take one more walk around

Were you saving time or saving cash
Now there’s not a penny, there’s no stash
Seems like the whole plan was just a hash
As you take one more walk around

There’s some light, there’s some dark
and you still see a spark
Of what made us all human to start with
so make your way along

The stories are all the song
In a place like this nobody’s wrong
So you can take one - more - walk - around

Move along, move along, move along, move along
Everything to see here
Take a look take a look take a look take a look
What you see is all you’re going to be here

All that stuff you worried about
All those people you could do without
It’s not what you thought, but no need to pout
You got to take one more walk around

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12. Feathers and Tracks

 
William Fuller (piano) and Gary Sears

MP3 Audio File

I’d follow the feathers
Float into the black
I’d fly with the wind
And follow the tracks
Catch the canary
Dance with the finch
Forget the past
Never flinch an inch

I’d send you a sonnet
All covered in stamps
Hear Calliope rising
Hear Calliope rising
By her soft lit lamp
I’d swim through waves
Of the feathers and tracks
Be together coming back
Coming back

After love, after death, after life
Feathers and tracks in the dimming of the light
Of the light

If it means
One more day with you
Bringing you back
Painting you blue
Forget the lies
My heart takes aim
Strike the thudding guilt
Singe the scalding shame

I’d send you a sonnet
All covered in stamps
Hear Calliope rising
Hear Calliope rising
By her soft lit lamp
I’d swim through waves
Of the feathers and tracks
Be together coming back
Coming back

I’d follow the feathers

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13. Is This It?

 
Spencer Kimball and Jack Hastings

MP3 Audio File

Is this it?
These circles of not quite strangers?
That might walk but never sit
That no longer fear any danger

They’ll have things to tell
But it won’t really matter
They may ring the bell
But still be mad as hatters

Are we there?
Eternal rest of the prosecution
No gate but just blue air
And no case for absolution

We’ll try to move along
And come back to the start
Though we won’t call it wrong
We just don’t have the heart

Bridge
There is something that we need to do
No, we’ve forgotten
and you must have too
No, I’ve forgotten
and we must have too
No, you’ve forgotten
and I must have too

Are we done?
What do we say, what do we think
We wonder if there’s still a sun
Bright enough to make us blink

We’ll try to move along
And come back to the start
Though we won’t call it wrong
We just don’t have the heart

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14. Honey and Rust

 
Jack Hastings and Gary Sears

MP3 Audio File

When time started slowing
And I forgot where I was going
You were the one, the lost and lonely sun
The only one that could make me undone

When the light started fading
And the music grew grating
The gears started grinding sprung and unwinding
I couldn't quiet the howls and the crying

I tried to search the shadows
In the chapel of your heart
I looked for you in places I can't name
I climbed the bitter mountains
Of our broken memories
But I lost the whisper of the light of your flame

The light you gave was golden
I tried so hard to hold it in
But it was gone with the dying of the sun
You took away the honey and left the dung

Round and round the whirlpool
Dizzy like a drunken fool
Bobbing like a cork on a sea of storms
A victim of the god of the malformed

Some say all things must have an end
And chances are it's not a win
But the outcome's not important as the play
And all of us will have another day

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15. Crazy 'Bout The Light

 
William Fuller and Jack Hastings

MP3 Audio File

I’m light
I’m like a feather
I’m Doctor Light and
They can’t keep me down

You think I’m sad?
‘Cause I’m so light?
Who wants a piece of
This grinning frown?

Chorus:
I’m cra - zy about the light,
I’m cra - zy about the light
On faraway shores I’ll give you sight
Float like balloons to soaring heights
Shine like the stars in the coming night
I’m crazy … about the light

I’m light
I’m like a beacon
I’ll bring you hope
When everything’s not right

You think I don’t
Just want to help you?
I’m by your side
There in every fight

Chorus

Bridge:
In the crazy bout ‘tween dark and light
The night is fierce but stand your ground
The blows may come, but now it’s right
Just dry your tears,
the dark has been knocked down

Sometimes I think
That I’m so light
I need an anchor
Or I’ll float away

Sometimes I shine
With blinding light
I’d share this light
With you on any day

Chorus

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Afterlife - A Story

 

"Here from the dead let poetry rise up,
O sacred Muses, since I am yours.
Here let Calliope arise..."
- The Inferno, Canto II, Dante Alighieri

He felt no passage of time, no transition, no tunnel with a light at the end. One moment he was fading into death, the next he was in a vast, columned chamber walking slowly in the midst of an immeasurable crowd of people. Considering their numbers, it was strangely hushed as if everyone spoke only in murmurs and whispers all merging into a background that was almost song. The light grew brighter on his left and faded to shadows and darkness on his right. Men and women, young and old, wore clothing and costumes from all times and places. They spoke softly in a thousand different languages and he understood them all. Religion seemed to play no particular part in this experience, no matter how hard a few of the wayfarers tried to sandwich it into their ultimately irrelevant beliefs.

At first, he felt the loss of his life keenly. Wife, children, friends - all the world and its wonders and curiosities. All of his pleasures, appetites and cravings. At the same time, he felt lightened of its burdens and cares. He turned to a woman walking next to him. Her clothing was dark and heavy; old fashioned. Unprompted, she told him of her death. Quarantined on North Brother Island on the Hudson River, she watched in horror as the excursion steamer, General Slocum, engulfed in flames, ran aground there. Convinced that her child was one of the hundreds of children on board, she threw herself heedlessly into the flames. Without time, the only measure of change was the hourglass of story and the sands of memory, stories drifting in, often in snatches and fragments, as memories slipped away unnoticed. He no longer remembered his death, what killed him; how old he was; all the details had simply evaporated as he told stories of his life to others as they told theirs to him. Like the story of the Pakistani girl who fled her abusive arranged marriage; escaped, though terribly scarred, an attempted honor killing by her family; ran to the arms of a brutal terrorist group; finally made it to Britain only to die, suffocated in a human trafficker’s abandoned trailer. And there was the astronaut, still suited, helmet in hand, who spoke dispassionately of burning in agony as he fell screaming through the atmosphere. He gave the man his helmet but it turned to dust in his hands. As the stories flowed over him and through him, and his story flowed with them, he began to know things of this place where he found himself although he doubted that he would ever understand even a part of it.

He knew that they were all walking in a vast circle around a great orb of brilliant, blue light. Those who walked nearer the center were somehow more vague than the others; those out toward the periphery, sharper and more disturbing. Nearer the orb, their clothing was simpler, their features less distinguishable, their memories nearly gone, their stories nearly enfolded into the multitude. The orb sparkled as those closest faded into its perimeter. Although he did not know how progress was measured in a place without time, it did seem there was a limit, a point where a wayfarer was in some way expired and so was spun off from the procession and into the shadows beyond, their ultimate fate unknown. They were the ones who would not let go and would not listen. But not the man. The man walked on. The stone, the grain and the chaff all at once.

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Willie de Sacra

 

The four members of the Willie de Sacra songwriting collaborative, Wm Fuller, Spence Kimball, Gary Sears and Jack Hastings, have been performing in various combinations for a large number of years. *AfterLife* is their eleventh FAWM project.

In alphabetical order:

  • William Fuller
  • Jack Hastings
  • Spencer Kimball
  • Gary Sears