method of loci

image/graphic by jack hastings

MP3 Audio File

There's an old school teacher and a hell fire preacher
Marching down the haunted boulevard
There's a pretty lady with a smiling baby
And a man with a deck of tarot cards

Then a tableau with a backyard swing
And a clothesline held by a giant and a dwarf
They're singing a duet about a Lionel train
That went out of control off a rotting wharf

Chorus:
They almost seem like they're here just for me
Down the street in a forgotten parade
When they see me they smile and reach out their hands
But I don't recognize them or know their names

The next one looks familiar; I've seen her before
But I just can't make out that face
She gives me a look that turns suddenly sad
Then turns around and dances away

Miniature cars with fez headed drivers
Doing figure eights and terrible spins
A scowling taskmaster with a stopwatch in hand
Begins shouting in a furious din

They almost seem like they're here just for me
Down the street in a forgotten parade
When they see me they smile and reach out their hands
But I don't recognize them or know their names

Then when I see him, the next one brings a tear,
The son who rode off so long ago
But it can't be him; he swore he'd never come back
When he left for Absalom Road

So I turn to leave as they pass me by
These phantoms, these strangers, the almost gone
But I'm confused and just want to go home
Comment ne puis-je pas me souvenir qui ils sont?

They almost seem like they're here just for me
Down the street in a forgotten parade
When they see me they smile and reach out their hands
But I don't recognize them or know their names

(Thanks to mrwolf at looperman for sympathy-drums_0)

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She was walking, floating right towards me
Like a gorgeous cloud drifting through the sky
I even saw her reflection in a window
And I thought I heard her cry

I remember well when we were together
Her sweet calm caress and loving way
It's been so long since I touched or held her
Or maybe it was just yesterday?

Chorus:
Then she was gone gone from the haunted boulevard
She was gone, never really there on the haunted boulevard
I say her name on the haunted boulevard
Nothing but air right there on the haunted boulevard

I recall how my mother used to talk to me
Long ago, so many years away
There was a time I stopped listening and lashed out at her
To my everlasting shame

Then last night I saw her strolling down the street
She came back and I was filled with joy
I wanted to tell her the things I never did
About her spiteful angry boy

Then she was gone gone from the haunted boulevard
She was gone, never really there on the haunted boulevard
I said her name on the haunted boulevard
Nothing but air right there on the haunted boulevard

Nothing but air right there

I took a walk on the avenue late last night
And saw my father there drinking a beer
Inside a pub with some of my friends
But when I walked in they all disappeared

I lay here still though I try to move
I swear I saw them: the ones who cared
I want to move; I want to fly to the ones I love
But there doesn't seem to be anyone there

They're all gone gone from the haunted boulevard
They were gone, never really there on the haunted boulevard
I say their names on the haunted boulevard
Nothing but air right there on the haunted boulevard

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In my town there is a street
Dying lawns and withered trees
And on my street there is a house
Just this side of falling down
And in my house there is a room
Quiet in the evening gloom
And in my room there’s a green door
I don’t open anymore

Chorus
And behind the green door
Where my old memories are stored
All the love I’ve thown away
Every mistake I’ve ever made
I’ve had heartaches by the score
Hid them all behind the door
Put them all out of my mind
I’ve locked the door, left it behind

They say there’s no such things as ghosts
They must be those who’ve never known
Deepest heartache, sweetest pain
Of love gone wrong and love in vain
Of chances lost I’ve had my share
The wrong footsteps, the wrong stairs
I can’t live with these regrets
There’s only one way to forget

Chorus

MP3 Audio File

From the synapse bag I’m gonna take
A coast to coast trip
VA has the bucks and that's a Richmond ship
The ship is a beer can floating in the Puget Sound
And there can be no doubt that it's Olympia bound
From WAh to Weh to Wii to why-oh why-oh why-oh WY
Can I never get my stupid Chey-brain to fly?

Chorus:
Mnemo, Mnemo, Mnemosyne, give me a call
In the first place, Zeus won't pick up,
And the muses only stall
In the first place got no picture,
In the second got no name
Can’t remember the answer…
Memories burning in the flames

What Man Ate Ten Lasagnas standing on his feet
Spent Easter Sunday crying, "don’t want no more meat!"
Bet it was no African, or Casbah efrit;
Not Ramesses II or Nasser or some gambler from Crete
But Nick he never dealt the Tarot in Chi-town
And I still can't recall the population in my town

Chorus:

Outro:
Animal the muppet banging sticks on a Drum Set
    (the second house collects all the things not bought yet)
Foxy bouncing a pumpkin like a Basketball
    (for him it's recreation, for Nick it's a fall)
Little Gollum chasing a flapping fish fillet
    (exotic travel what a joke, the human parade)
The Librarian peels a Banana again
    (he's got something to start but it's really a pain)
round figures stark naked in their stockinged feet
    (And the Pope is way too busy to put out a tweet)

A rhyme, a dime, a stitch in time, a distant boom
And lucky little Lucky resumes, and resumes

(thanks to NeilG at mnemotechnics.org)

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I have a transfer
I have a transfer
It gets me to Post St.
I have a transfer

I pull the cable
I pull the cable
It drops me at the stripjoint
I pull the cable

The bus is leaving
The bus is leaving
It goes on up Kearney
The bus is leaving

(thanks to avidlife at looperman for a-dog-that-will-worship-133)

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He would never be wet, he would never be large
His ten inches never noticed on a garbage barge
His owner's regard only fleeting and spare
A passing thought on the edge of nowhere

But in the barbershop mirrors in somebody's mind
The visual echoes send shivers though the blind
An ocean of thought
The world I forgot

This whale on the ledge
With a wail at the edge
Under sail once again
We missed the big blow

A globe nearby, the colors describe
No place he'd ever care to hide
No location where he could swallow me
No ship approaching to force him to flee

But in the barbershop mirrors in somebody's mind
The visual echoes send shivers though the blind
An ocean of thought
The world I forgot

This whale on the ledge
With a wail at the edge
Under sail once again
We missed the big blow

He will always swim at the edge of my mind
He will always call back the memories I find

I will never see him at rainbow's end
And the storm will never push him onto land
Under sail once again
We missed the big blow

This whale on the ledge
With a wail at the edge
Under sail once again
We missed the big blow

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Hoy hoy hoy hoy!
Dahk dahk dahk dahk!

To hell with the mad'leine!
This gives me a shudder
One sweet lick
Set my heart a flutter!

Goin' all the way?
Or leave a little for later?
Gonna take a ride
On the sweet train freighter

Chorus:
Ride ride ride ride
The wild regret
Ride ride ride ride
The wild regret
Gotta take that one last bite

Hoy hoy hoy hoy!
Dahk dahk dahk dahk!

Anticipate
What's left over
Don't block me, bub
Move over, Rover

Bite bite bite bite
Taste ringin' a bell
Sniffin' out the memories
Just love that smell

Chorus:

It's dahk
Dahk dahk
Dickie dahk dahk dahk
Deep and dahk

Hoy hoy hoy hoy!
Dahk dahk dahk dahk!

Inside my mouth
On my tongue
Feel it melt
Taste it melt

Not leaving any
And I don't care
When I wake tomorrow
And no more's there

Chorus:

MP3 Audio File

There beyond the last horizon
The night fell with a shower of stars
It's not like I never knew you
Or don't know who you are

It's not the words that I wrote for you
That no longer come to mind
Or the way you seemed so bitter
When I was left behind

Chorus:
It's the fog every morning
The scribbling on the wall
The questions I can't answer
The friends I'll never call
It's the broken wish on every star
The touch beyond my grasp
The barely sung forgotten note
That shining, twinkling gasp

I remember walking with you
Many years ago
And even what we talked about
In the lightly falling snow

But were there other walks in other years?
I hope there were a lot
It's not the ones that I can think about
It's the ones that I forgot

It's the fog every morning
The scribbling on the wall
The questions I can't answer
The friends I'll never call
It's the broken wish on every star
The touch beyond my grasp
The barely sung forgotten note
That shining, twinkling gasp

So if you think about me
Many years from now
When everything about our lives
Is gone, I hope somehow

You'll know that I cared
But there was nothing I could do
And that you'll think about me fondly
But I won't remember you

It's the fog every morning
The scribbling on the wall
The questions I can't answer
The friends I'll never call
It's the broken wish on every star
The touch beyond my grasp
The barely sung forgotten note
That shining, twinkling gasp

MP3 Audio File

An absent bloom
An empty room
Just across the border
The endless gap
The fading map
Of a once strong memory hoarder

I look your way
You try to say
Your prayers and give your thanks
Take my hand
But understand
My memory gun is full of blanks

Chorus:
I take a walk with Tick and Tock
Through my mausoleum
Getting desperate, I break a sweat
And dig away at the floor
But the memories are buried deep
Much too far below
And the green door will not open
There is nowhere else to go

Lost in time in the time crypt
Changed by time in the time crypt
Fading away in the time crypt
Forgotten and alone

Memory chips
Then I slip
Fall down to my knees
Water drips
I lose my grip
Not knowing what to believe

Dripping holes
Anoint my soul
Where favorite memories hide
I feel the cold
The fear patrol
I struggle to abide

Chorus:

MP3 Audio File

Went to see you today
Went to see my wife
You said I must be wrong
As you held his hands tight
He mumbled something soft
And you laughed a bit
Like you used to do
Just like you used to do

Later that night
I sat in our home
Hearing the way
You used to sing
And I thought about the day
And how you had laughed
A bloody funny thing
Such a bloody funny thing

Sometimes I don't know
Whose world is real
Where you are
And where we were
But I cannot forget
And you cannot remember
It's a bloody funny thing
Such a bloody funny thing

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I'm damned if I can make heads or tails
Of the dream where my memory fails
Where the circle with the red #2
Shows the time I made love to you

But then there's a pink #3
Where I just want to eat everything I see
But before I can swallow or laugh
I've gobbled up your whole lower half

Chorus:
In my dream of the damned pair of fools
And their film of the Fiend's power tools
And the things that they just couldn't face
And the lives spent in quiet disgrace
Leaves me at the deep end of the pool

The #4 door opens wide
And I try to grab all that's inside
But then I find out it won't work
Since you've pulled it all back with a jerk

It seems like we go back and forth
And we cuss our way out of the fourth
Til the time we get sucked into five
And we're yelling too loud to connive

Chorus:

It's the Graduate scene once again
But I'm pushing the cross in your brain
And just as I've gotten you dead
The sixes are on your forehead

The numbers peel off and I'm screaming
Now they're sevens with screws, blood is streaming
But still I want to see more
But why do I need all this gore?

Chorus:

Pretty soon you're not dead once again
And I'm plotting to cheat your new swain
But why don't I just cheat you too?
Circle nine, it's the least I can do.

Chorus:

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There's people outside with nothing to eat
I've got too many friends with nowhere to sleep
Some are rotting away in their own filth and slime
For being poor in the wrong place and at the wrong time

Best not flash round the latest of your tech hoochie koo
Especially in here where we know what you do
Stop your pompous bluster; someone might remove ya
Down here a level of tact just might behoove ya

Chorus:
Forget it, don't take it from me, just forget it
Forget it, just put down your smartphone forget it
You can post it a hundred times, tweet to your friends
Tell 'em to do it again and again
But there's really no reason for you to click send - forget it.

When the money dries up and your heart busts down
And you say that it's broken and you fall to the ground
When you're pleading for help somewhere round the bend
I'll ask if you tried turning it off and on again

So a curse on the hedge funds, techies and bankers
The gentrified spaces, the sick lousy wankers
For the price of promotion and a soul to sell
May they and their glasses rot down in hell

Chorus:

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How red the wound on her fair skin
Like a rose upon the snow
How blue her slightly parted lips
Never more to know
A lover’s kiss or a sudden smile
Or a whisper, soft and low

He was a beast, a twisted thing
Though fair of face and form
And he eased himself into her life
With flattery and charm
But behind his eyes a wolfen gleam
And soon she grew alarmed

She didn’t see the savage blade
But she heard it call her name
And she thought back to her childhood
And remembered a perfect day
Where the sun shone on the open fields
And the wind blew soft and warm
And all the world was her own true love
With no hint of future harm

Too late does knowledge come to us
Too late the sense of doom
Yet the ending of it all
Comes very much too soon
And as he smiled his toothy smile
His breath smelled of the tomb

She didn’t see the savage blade
But she heard it call her name
And she thought back to her childhood
And remembered a perfect day

(inspired by the poetry of Jane Hastings)

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If I can't remember
What I thought was real
If you think I'm unsure
It's no big deal

The tube of the past
Has plenty of stories
I'll squeeze out another
Filled with tears and glory

Chorus:
Memory here
The drought and the flood
Imagination there
The body and the blood
I do not choose
Which one is safer
The difference between them
Is the width of a wafer

I swallowed your words
Like I swallowed the host
At first I felt blessed
Then you seemed like a ghost

I last saw you standing
Like I just heard you sigh
I muttered some words
But I got no reply

Chorus:

I took some of the parts
From my broken down dreams
And gave them to you
In between the screams

Threw caution to the wind
Didn't care about the danger
Till my friend disappeared
And I woke up with a stranger

Chorus:

In alphabetical order:

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