1. |
Locomotives
04:25
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Locomotives
Pictures flicker past in black & white.
I’ve witnessed men’s ideals grow old & die
like fruit picked long before it were ripe
or left to wither in the cold.
The billow & brume impede my sight:
the film & fog & cobwebbed sleight.
I’m forever damned to change my mind,
& I’ve forgotten every face.
But there’s destiny to manifest
like locomotives tramplin’ west,
a holy history the industry blessed
spewed forth from smokestack pipes...
another fragmented thought
I’ll try to sleep off tonight.
All the politicians who rubber-stamped
the sooty air, the stench of death;
the tycoons who heaped on poor folks’ backs
the fortunes they had made,
& then forgot the men who died to make
the means of progress’ tracks run straight:
that train of thought which always makes
its way back to the start.
Now my forehead pounds, my stomach aches:
the push & pull of pride & shame
& some trouble I can’t readily name,
but the future came & hovered, grey,
like a cloud. & though I’m grey,
I’ve got the red white & blues.
_________________________________________
Credit
Jacob Eli Goldman - bass guitar, organ
Noah Goldman - lap steel, electric guitar
Alex Mazzaferro - voice, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Wil Mulhern - drums
Tom Neeson - cornet
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2. |
Penelope
04:02
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Penelope
Each day, with resolve,
I build all things up,
& each night they are torn down
like Penelope
tearing stitches out
with the ease & patience of practice.
There’s smoke in my dreams
but light enough to see
the object of my affection.
At my bedside, I pray
the draft won’t blow us away
to some distant desert or ocean:
scattered like seeds on the ground at your feet,
& you’re left with that longing like poor Penelope.
The moaning machines, the pollution we breathe...
We’re always makin’ love or makin’ war.
When my brother was sick,
he called me to his side
& said, "Brother of mine,
I’ve trifled my time.
I’ve been swallowed whole
by the apple of my eye,
but now I see my sin,
so heed this admonition:
"If God’s been misquoted, just bid Him repeat,
& if you’re coming undone, start a fire in the street,
& burn your possessions ’till you suppose you’re complete,
& take off your clothes in arcane ecstasy
’cause life is too short to grow roots underneath,
to be stifled in slumber ’neath twisting ivy.
If you find love, hold on, but for wit’s sake grow wings
& fear only the sun; find the balance of things."
[It’s] no longer my own
like a garment outgrown,
a painted ship on a tumultuous sea.
It’s fickle & fleeting
like the sun or the seasons...
[Forever] makin’ love or makin’ war.
_________________________________________
Credit
Jacob Eli Goldman - bass guitar, piano, organ
Noah Goldman - electric guitar, effects
Alex Mazzaferro - voice, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, effects
Wil Mulhern - drums
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3. |
The Holy Ghost
03:47
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The Holy Ghost
Far below in the endless deep,
a monster lumbers half-asleep
& waking, rears its ugly head
& dragging tongue ’cross ancient teeth,
makes its way to the surface of me.
A sinking ship with rusted hull
battered by capricious tides--
I was burdened by my ticking thoughts
& howlin’ throat, eyes shootin’ sparks,
& flashing fits of trepidation.
Well, I’m not ungrateful for what I have:
my voice (a vice), my mind & medicine;
but this sadness descends
& there’s no describing it.
It’s as vague as the Holy Ghost now...
I’m suspended, still, like an even scale
between my sorrow & my joy.
With whispered precision [I admit,]
"I cannot tell the difference,"
[& the] colossus overtakes our vessel.
& I’m still stuck trying to make sense
of a mood that swings like a pendulum,
of two equal halves: my fear & my hope
that we’ll be sucked into the maelstrom--
the freedom of that great grey nothing.
It’s as vague as the Holy Ghost now,
& there's just no pinning it down.
It’s as vague as the Holy Ghost now...
_________________________________________
Credit
Jacob Eli Goldman - bass guitar, shaker
Noah Goldman - piano, electric guitar
Alex Mazzaferro - voice, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, organ
Wil Mulhern - drums, glockenspiel, tambourine
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4. |
Scarlet Fever
05:41
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Scarlet Fever
I dreamt my skin were red
by a bout of scarlet fever,
landlocked in my bed
like a prayer unanswered.
Just how’d it get this bad?
The furniture’s been rearranged.
I’m sweatin’ through the sheets;
my hands rusted, restless, writhing...
The barrow & the axe--
the labors I can’t make complete--
flashing in my eyes,
weighing heavy on my heart.
Yet you were in the room.
You cast open the shade,
tried to calm my boiling blood
& bloodlined name...
But when I wake, the features fade
as swift as hours of a winter’s day,
till I’m left with bitter aftertaste,
anxious & harrowed as a weathervane;
the details too sparse to recall.
{Meanwhile,} back inside my head,
we burned our history books,
but by the heat I was much oppressed
as a blossom in December’s chill.
I find the bathtub has been filled
with currencies of {all origin} size & shape,
so we drew up twine & plug
& watched the fortune
spiral down the drain.
But each time I wake, the meaning’s changed,
dissolved into malleable, mutable grey;
& these guilt-red hands & this shake shake shake,
oh, the fever & fret, the ephemeral faces
of specters haunting like childhood days
then gone like soot yawning off in the afternoon sky
or the raven & the dove’s flight.
My sorrow grows of some dour dichotomy,
branching & forking as the limbs of a willow tree.
But I understand this dual necessity,
& dispute’s like tryin’ to research "death" in a dictionary.
See, I’ve caught you frowning at the struggle inside of me:
hemispheres opposed behind a visage of ruddy cheek.
But I won’t allow this fever to get the best of me--
I am the raven & you are the dove.
_________________________________________
Credit
Jacob Eli Goldman - bass guitar
Noah Goldman - lap steel
Alex Mazzaferro - voice, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, organ
Wil Mulhern - drums
Alex Syner - organ
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5. |
Hounds at Heels
04:54
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Hounds at Heels
I’ve seen Hell.
Hell is a pitch-steel structure
imposed before an alabaster sky.
Hideous thing--skeletal frame--
set by the overturned earth piled high
in the fields where I ran & I played as a child.
Oh, I’ve seen Hell.
Hell is the west wind gasping for breath.
Hell is a bare page black ink infection.
Hell is the inadequate alphabet:
a work-worn device to communicate with.
Hell is my ear to a glass to the wall
to a glass to your ear,
when not a hem nor a haw
nor wisp of bedlam or calm
is disclosed for the other to hear.
I caught a glimpse. I saw the truth out in those fields.
& now my fears they follow close as hounds at heels.
Oh, & my needle nerves, my wandering thoughts...
I’m up before the dawn,
putting on my coat & scarf
to escape into the fog. (I disappear.)
Well, I’ve heard the sound
of a death industry
a steady hum like a worry
or a colony of bees.
& pinions tuggin’ chains across:
the din that rattles endlessly,
the piercing panic static march
of a dozen TV screens.
I strained my ears. I read the truth in words you wield.
& now my fears they follow close as hounds at heels.
But when the drowsy lights & sheet of frost
are off me I’ll be free
to hear & speak & see & be
& bear the biter’s teeth--you'll see.
_________________________________________
Credit
Jacob Eli Goldman - bass guitar, hand claps
Noah Goldman - acoustic guitar, hand claps
Alex Mazzaferro - voice, electric guitar, organ, hand claps
Wil Mulhern - drums
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6. |
Flag & Crucifix
04:14
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Flag & Crucifix
Mile-marker, merit badge,
the pencil marks upon the door-frame that
your mother used to chart the growth of a man,
with flag & crucifix just hangin’ overhead.
& oh, Great Depression:
we need a Great War
to get us out of debt.
& oh, great invention:
writing progress
with a sword or a pen.
& oh, we were singin’ "hallelujah;"
& it sounded good enough to be true.
It broke my heart;
I grit my teeth.
In a padded room
I knot the sheets
& carefully descend
three stories.
Oh, oscillation:
just when I think I got it figured out
then everything changes.
But when played back on the tape, it’s
raging & pacific
like God’s star-spangled ocean.
& oh, how I’m floatin’...
just treading water
in the great seas of ambivalence now.
& I don’t know what’s wrong with me;
the sun’s coming up & I can’t sleep.
I’ve too many voices inside me,
so I sing...
_________________________________________
Credit
Jacob Eli Goldman - bass guitar, voice
Noah Goldman - electric guitar, voice
Alex Mazzaferro - voice, electric guitar
Wil Mulhern - drums
Alex Syner - Rhodes
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aeroplane, 1929 Springfield, Massachusetts
aeroplane, 1929 was a band from New England. Between 2005 & 2010, they released two albums & two EP's on Topshelf Records. The band consisted of Alex Mazzaferro (vocals/guitar/keys/lyrics), Jacob Goldman (bass/keys/recording/arrangements), Noah Goldman (guitar/pedal steel/keys), & Wil Mulhern (drums), plus friends like Julian Veronesi, Chad Jewett, Dave Van Witt, Alex Syner, & Peter Federman. ... more
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