We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

That Towering Blue

by James Wylder

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

1.
I Compliment You Fore Score and 17 Seconds of Bliss, just in our footsteps the American dream eyes cast to heaven our souls still below and the quiver of hesitation as We neglect holding hands
2.
Like Clock Work I wound my heart turning She slinked in her hand to move round the gears that rotate and Jam And as time wore on Infinitesimally small we only turned once or never at all
3.
Chicago 00:42
Chicago Food turns your mouth to droplets, your wallet to empty Poisoned water people come leagues to see Hands gripping rails without sanitizer If this is Rome, Then let Rome be, in Spring and Soot. Heads tilted down, provoking silence Swarm of Humanity, filling every inch with flesh Privacy in public, a murder of pigeons Gyre If this is Rome, Then let Rome be, in Spring and Soot. There is a great flutter And a twinge of smile As the bird takes roost On the flat brimmed cap
4.
Shot on Film 00:24
Shot on Film That’s the 9th time you've died today I wish you hadn't, mindless casualty Brains Blown out & guts spread thin you never see your wife again Bless me lord that I may go and meet that soul that died at Somme long dead, Name lost, and shown too long
5.
Cardboard Cut Out You may have drawn his face on me I'm happy he's alive and well and that his cells no longer curl up like Candy bar Wrappers I was a pleasant distraction when I love you, in retrospect meant you'll keep me around until god cuts off his death-      --before it can finish the thought—
6.
Strawberry Moon Half raised to the glass with my own strangeness crass to the gash that redeems my desire Cutting my Light on the mirror of a Strawberry Moon Silent and unhanded to kiss and kill on streetcorneers Unnamed to drink of this prohibited fire Half raised to the glass with my own strangeness Suckling Apollo for the silk sake of scorners we blaze out like might before midnight retires Cutting my Light on the mirror of a Strawberry Moon And I empty you to the grasp of mourners last king to the thought that ideas make sires Half raised to the glass with my own strangeness But I don’t give up hopeless, not like the forelorners, who angle their blades to string up their lyre Cutting my Light on the mirror of a Strawberry Moon Till it is a sky blackened by dying adorners filled to the brim in its broken eyed shadowy scarred pyre Half raised to the glass with my own strangeness Cutting my Light on the mirror of a Strawberry Moon
7.
Aristotle Makes Michael Bay Sad Boom! Boom! The Thundering Room Billed with Glory and filled with doom and flickering-wickering-Sawdust man       all empty and sour eyed       as a charity basket             outside the holidays
8.
The Master, Cheifly The Master, Chiefly, fire blazing day to Sew across a circle seam with footsteps Silent ordered back and called to accept Fierce and Furied angel disks caught spinning few Around a haughty Grecian valor in lieu Of mighty elephants holding great kept Stores of inching pride, diligent, that leapt Through horde and slayer, yellow caught with blue But what unhappy covenant does see Or feel, when the coast greendark ships do sail And what beloved arbiter does sit To see this trial? And what old enemy? And though you’ve lost your every friend, grow not pale! The fight’s great finish brings but cold night, lit.
9.
"Love can't save you Padme," he said, incorrectly I feel like a new Skywalker suffering under my own vice Swaying left and falling right and I thought I'd burn in Mustafar But in my own self indulgence I'm rescued from the Odessa steps Not a Skywalker, but a Frederson More German expressionism then American New wave I call out, "Maria!" And I find I've Caught up   With my own insecurities         and throw them in slow motion             - off the roof -             - into the lava –
10.
Japan, Oh God, Japan Japan Oh, God Japan Why is it When I type "tentacle" into Google I get not a happy Octapus but horrors I can barely comprehend Japan Oh, God Japan Even with your cherry blossoms I curl into the fetal position.
11.
Threads for Blood She has no Veins, only Cold, dry canyons Where Scavengers Suck the Marrow from her       and she lets them gladly Panning for gold in the last great dying
12.
Yours, in effigy I Willow tree, Redden me When deep in your branches You sound off the Morning with The cuk-cuk of the squirrels And the pip-pip of the birds Who hide their seeds in their bellies And relegate your hair ribbons to nests And the dying Morning calls to your Hands as you spread your spindly fingers Across the sky and call “Yes it is good!” Into a holy night Painted in tongue And rosy smirk II To Love a poet Is to love a moment To love someone staring at the wall Talking about caterwauling butterflies -leaving your soliloquy on the page My draining desire stretches out Like water pooling on scorched earth Till you turn and annotate Our drowning into the loam of the world III If I could write like you: I’d be able to make Sun-drops And the layer of rain on your eyes Out of parenthesis And I would revel in what is Beyond talent, beyond the abrev. of love And I would sit below Your branches and catch the Leaves when fall comes Red,Red,Red Like a tide of the abrupt way We both die someday And I wish I could write like you IV Caterwaul! Caterwaul! Climbing up the garden wall I’m a child in your sweet aged smile Like a Vine and Nursery Rhyme In your beige and flower print dress You slit the stockings below the knees And I don’t feel good About how I hew pews from your branches Just to wait for your hymn V Your white limbs stretch over the horizon With too few branches to block out the sun Yet you complain about shadows And the pain in your corpuscles And though my sap leaks Into your very roots I just want to hear you scream And the drip- drip- drip As you loose your leaves.
13.
Bears 00:14
Bears The One bad thing about father was under his spectacles he was a bear hibernating his books and stretching out like dandelions   across the man cave floor
14.
Hospitals 00:23
Hospitals I did not understand Hospitals they were places to get better and I could not string her fears together with Doctor's smiles   and then I learned   I did not understand that Hospitals are sometimes the place you go for everything you know to wither in the waiting room.
15.
Orison to the Thirteenth Tick off the Millennium Scores of stars were sacrificed into the blackness sinking into the sky, while we look up at the blight of their absence   And from their ichor we dance as they bleed into the night black black blood that damps the light and fuels the fire dance dance into the night as the fire fuels our new delight   We burn the effigies of old and scream into the night foretold and laugh at all the things that never came about and kick the dreams that left unborn still fester in our brains We lead the masses hand by hand in daisy chains and build our lemonade stands up from ground control to lead to rockets to the glow and you can take me by that stone and dance dance into the night as the fire fuels our new delight   and make the lemons into oranges, apples even right the gorges of the bitter sour stinging lies and birth baktun millennial goodbyes to to all the things we can't abide and you would watch, and so would I the innocence we lost to "whys" and untold heads against our chest I'll wait for you by the night, when the singing stops and all we see is epoch, mountainous and bold thinking life is just the days of old and I'll wait wait unto our flight as the flame unfurls into the knife   that cuts away the mnemonic power that slits the past and burns the hours that paganous rite, a year anew we dance and burn and pray and brew and cry unto our new baktun millennial to cure the blues and if you wait, I'll dance and charm and we will chant unto the dawn as the fire burns wood into light we will dance and dance till we need no fight
16.
A Killer Sound, a Snap I couldn’t snipe at your sandals towards the castle on rocks you climbed towards up beyond the cairns where the kale grows and the long stroke of the sun imbibes not Up and Up rising into the killer hand that awaits your doors and by candlelight that hand will stroke the faces that smile and clench its fist on dreary dreams stranded on a cable, a snap away from downy sheets but always eye to eye within the autumn chambers of your concrete halls
17.
Cinnamon Sleeves the cinnamon of your sleeve or the filament of your robe is thread bare to its color and the shimmer of each walk the glass nodes under my skin, I run my hands along the wall towards your room-- where your fingers smatter the keyboard with long thought words and rise rise rise! Form! and I peer to see your synapses but can only guess at the incongruity between your words and the woman within who forged them silently typing with your eyes wide and focused like a scientific machine weaving worlds. the cinnamon of your sleeve and the filament of your robe is thread bare to the mind that somehow outpaces it’s flesh beauty soaked in dyes like a dreamcoat this isn’t the first time I’ve admired words nor a woman’s splendor and admittedly, I do so with the guilt of burdock and dandelion soda bitter swigs as the river uncurls beside me its waves asking me where you are, and why you don’t beautify its banks like a public works project you’d probably hate spending taxpayer dollars on that so I should invite you to sip soda by the banks again as a civic service admiring how the cinnamon of your sleeve and the filament of your robe is threadbare to the skin like an unwashed Halloween costume that still wins second place we dwell in second place, we write there and we will always be that overhang despite the fact that you always deserved the laurels and a single kiss on the forehead but with your words and your art and the pitter patter keys and the hair hanging down your eyes like a Japanese Horror movie I can only feel your breath like a taunt and imagine your kiss tasting like the cinnamon of your lips and the filament of your hair running through my fingers like a long satin sleeve
18.
J'Merican Boy (free) 01:17
J’Merican Boy I. J’Maple James J’Maple you. not like the syrup, far less auburn like the syrup you bring me Joyeux, though I still don’t understand the “x” II. Your hair billows as your Norman flag your foot on the prow raiding my shores and turning the angles to francophone wannabes crushing my halls and raising your castles who ever thought it was a good idea to teach Vikings French saw you in that helmet III. I am grown, in some ways, and you sold me on the precipice of “Le Grande Illusion” I asked a learned teenager what “woman” was J’words he replied he didn’t know you could be aged and your beauty cold but you’ll always be better then a 17 year old IV. as you parle vu le france and I non, non, non I amore you more and more but there is no end it doesn’t come You bat the bang behind your ear and I long to be your J’Merican boy.
19.
She Stares Like Oceans She stares in mirrors like oceans see the sun and finds herself not wanting paragon of the young the harpies scream of vanity but her interest can’t be blamed if you listed off her attributes that we’re pleasing to the eye then you’d be writing poems like me a most ironic rivalry but as it is the poet’s jobs to chronicle reflection impose upon it verse and inflection so when she sees she’s beautiful recall, she isn’t wrong.
20.
She is Silent Like a Songbird she is silent like a songbird when the wind blows through rightly and the trees shake their rattles with the notes she sings so absent there is no chorus but that which sits outside her longing to play the harmony to her twitter but the chitter never comes and the leaves lie dashed on the ground, and the clouds piteously bury them come December but she is silent like a songbird there are so few songbirds anymore so we wait for her they say without alley cats there would be more of her kind but I had forgotten the sound and mewing brewed with the scratching and the one eyed kitten killed for a yarn but where were the song birds now? dead or fled “come back” the wind billows the trees shake their barren arms for your sake you do not come and there is silence the saddest song you never sang
21.
Love Amongst Invalids she is waiting away like a hospital bed and a batch of fresh flowers hiding her books under her pillow and head and biting her lip tilting down her hat brim to force the future into her too cold palms
22.
Let’s (Shadows) Dance I shimmer and shake and you move and howl as you silently shift and your hair moves with you and you lock eyes with me like always and the world keeps thinking we’re going to kiss Lets dance, I dance with your shadow, my arms wrapped around your outline on the wall my fingers intertwined with your imagination I dance with you in my dreams because if I could in reality I would but we both know that as much as we long to twirl across the tiles and to let your skirt spin and my feet move we have other obligations your fingers dance across the keyboard like my hands across your body if we could dance my words tango across your lips and make them smile like your lips would to mine if we could dance I samba, and shake, and you foxtrot to type but I am not so naive and you aren’t so unburdened and we can only let our eyes do the dancing our hands perfectly spaced apart we could be in an Bollywood movie because we are the masters of only almost kissing.
23.
Dust to Snow 00:34
Dust to Snow this is where the dust settles and the cold men in frayed jackets come to smoke their cigarettes you see it all from the comfort of exposure the diligence of a nap in a thunderstorm yet no one is snuffed more than you hidden under your bushel locks you have become the sole source of bastion Midas of reason in your ice cold hand
24.
Paean to the Last Girl Expected for Recess These were the days of Jesus Christ who sat under wilting fig trees, consecrating the dynasties of France and the alcoholism of America with free handouts at Cana These were the days of witchcraft like the buried baby, knocked into the river by ruffians and high five with beers afterwards as we war-paint watch through bushes These were the days of Pagans with hair like scrolls of wisdom and the blood red sunset who looked me in the eye like heathens as I read the Acts of the apostles by halogen These were the days of Christians curled in the corners by computers who gave us warmth listening to the sermons of madmen and the cockatrice that chimed thrice These were the days of Angels and Demons These were the days of God and Gods These were your days and my days And I consecrate these days to you and each moment passes that I wait like a furnace to light your sacrificial fires and paint ourselves like Delphi while I drip a bit onto my crucifix and I long for the color of our lips to meet and for Lord Jesus to watch with anticipation as we make peace through pantheons and I pull you tight against me for Easter and Solstice and rise again in the ashes of old These are the days I sacrifice sins at your alter, and wipe myself clean No more a God then a man, and no more a man then a catalyst To make myself that which you deserve: the impossible because every moment you wait is a day we sacrifice anew
25.
Victory Anthem for the Death of Emperor Julian Pagan Days and Pagan Nights and a Milena and a half ago we were on opposite ends of the world tree with you lighting brilliant Beltane fires and me a simple candle now the Easter lights scorch the night and you wait up by candlelight to tell your Gods they aren’t forgot while my One reigns Supreme and hot Allah, El Shaddai, and God      Jesus, Moses, Mohammad      Abraham, and maybe Zoroaster      Calling out to God above While Julian bleeds out on Persian Sand Maybe when his eyes did close he saw you and knew his Gods did not yet die, and gained some peace from your fiery head the last great Pagan of Rome, was dead So, here we are, my Christians won our victory comes at the expense of the sun And now we kill our fellow believers over ichor for automobiles
26.
Cascade 07:52
Cascade Like the River to the sea something just meant to be like a clash on fervent waters albatross in stunning colors like analogy foretold like you like you like you fold you splendidly drop off the face of the earth before I could mutter a single protestation into the depths of murky dismay and your eyes make zig zag swirl and spiral away like the jag of a jaw and the gin of a gurl there’s nothing that matters when you've vanished into the cesspool of Cincinnati there was a church we sang and rang the bell in again the electric chimes from keyboards implanted in the fervent grass of our own mp3's and the last lost lingering lingerie of the never born child we never created and the listless longing lacerations that limbered down your face like a Sunday stroll and a tidal wave. and there was no one but you and there was a torrent of behind the back glances and she danced with her boy and watched me o'er her shoulder and I crusted my glass and I thought of you bloodiest and remembered and I was castrated and cuttlefish at a Chinese buffet and she was listless, again, and her long hair was radiant like the death of the sun under the yawning horizon and she died again and again and so did I across that room as we danced with her eyes and I regretted being tee-totaller for just a moment to dream a dream of drowned whisky and the cat burger cutlass kindergarten that you cultivate out of stealing the days from the calendar till the year has slipped by into another and you take over the cesspool of Cincinnati and fold it into your braids and the smell of Cajun food and chocolate we shared like a combined correlation of all those momentary moments you mentioned never remembered like the brick of blood from your head and I stared into the aether and I closed my eyes and we danced together before the cesspool and before the black black longings and the tyrant cried across the land that strong was strength by ripping and gnash, and that to ruin and burn was the mark of a man and I stood my ground and screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and stuttered and fell and cried and yelled and got up and spit in your face, life, spit in your brutal ruin and and your tortuous tormented titillation. And I buried my hatchet in your skull and went on. Like a Native American, from Mound Builder to Casino builder, I watched the imbiciles ruin the good I had slathered across the ground, and use its bricks for toilet paper. And I'm still shadowed by specters. Inspector's spectacles were not keen enough to keep off the rolling plunge that riddles rancid rancor over our mouths and we blocked off the roads with candy bars and watched the cars rip through them with four wheel drive and we wondered where we had gone wrong if only we believed more but we didn't and the last light lingered a bit too long. Like the end of a flower strewn aisle you never came along. Long ago, before the tides swept in, I was but a courier of dreams Old dreams, mainly, new dreams, yours, and the dreams of worlds unseen and unwhispered Mightily I made my rounds, and sat by candles, fountains, streams, and wove those dreams above our heads like hats, to keep the cold and rain from the dent of our faces but dreams were never enough against knives and they cut the shields to rag weeds and left our dreams violated on the ground. Like a riptide of tears, and a cascade of all your deepest fears and it was deeper then deep and darker then black and when we opened our eyes no one could dance because you couldn't even walk 1 specters not talents 2 Define that please? 3 Sorry, I wasn't aware this was annotated 4 Your mom is annotated. 5 You are all but the wasted words at the bottom of a page, left forgotten except for the book nosed scholars that dream of Britannia and Normans and rogues. Roses, like arose, at the words of long dead men, who slept in the beds of long dead girls whose lips were as crimson as 6 Your mom is annotated. 7 A reasonable debate is 8 Pointless. 9 The last thing he said before the sip of smoke suckled him into the parlor, and the invalids stared to greet his crippled skin and skeletal footwork. Like a mummy from Kokomo, where the cars hit the green lights, and the Stillwell starers wait for a sign to cross the current of cars. and all the cars pass you by on the street corners and everyone glares with the threat of yanked hair and tumbling headlines down a dead road where only the willow trees go and their knots and knobs turn the black river red seven seven blackbirds sitting in a pie waiting for the teeth hear them never never cry the river runs by and the king is hot and opens his robe as he feasts on the lot seven seven blackbirds sitting in a pit all they are now is one with shit we wade. There are tides amidst our feet cold like milkshakes in our toes and the sand is dark like thanksgiving filled and content, as our hands touch between the rocks but there is nothing so transient as you and you were always a blackbird There are nests of birds throughout the world the bright and brilliant fuckaloo and the soft and tender songbird the broken winged blackbird and the star sworn nightingale and I wander their eyes through the sky like hummingbirds and they are no worse for the feathers they drop all the better for the songs they sing like an eternal albatross we sing for you like a record we stick the needle gash in your eye and in your arm and ask you if it feels alright to curl up in your nest to the falling circumstance of what could have been a better flight building up twig branches for the sake of weaving your hair Into the fibers that hold up your bed and let you sleep away the stars in your eyes till the sun God crests the morning and tells you dreams are worth the shit you waded through for a chance to fall from the branches to the nickel lined ground like a puddle of wish drops of a father to his unbelieving daughter like you always become Songbird breaks the silence finally, and rises to her own action when the chords break the morning, and she never had the mourning anyways, so she lifts up across the dawn like a linger Blackbird builds new nests and writes her beak along the dust inscribing new worlds and draws the line in the sand. Decades of months later, she is only her own memories, lost amidst the loss. Nightingale blesses the morning and puts on her noir feathers, and brims her hair down above her hair and as she walks the night becomes her lantern like an echo of footsteps. and there is a flock and I am earthbound till perhaps I stand in the tides again, my talons soaked in the icy cascade and screech at the world and batter my wings against the foam and alift myself to the pinpricks of God and style myself Ichorus never born to bird but born to spit at the Sun and rise again till I perpetrate a fitting wax recipe till the shores become not torrents but drifts below me to which the Birds of night and day may flock to singing of the lost lands, and the new lands and the open sky far below the towering Cascade of God
27.
The Maw Tree 02:39
The Maw-Tree “My cat’s in that tree!” The fireman lit a cigarette and shrugged. “Not our business anymore.” “But it’s my cat.” “Not my problem.” “I’m not going to sit here and wait for– for—just get it down now!” The fireman tapped the ashes off his cancer inhaler. “Then you get it down.” The man just stood there, and lowered his head slowly. “That’s what I thought.” The man, whose head was shaven, per fashion, didn’t move in the darkness. “He shouldn’t have let his cat out, he’s just asking for it.” Another woman nodded, but the third shook her head. “You can’t blame him. No one wanted this.” .... As the word spread, lines of pairs of headlights streamed down the concrete like mechanical salmon. Spawning out the doors, gathering around the yard as the cops struggled to hold them back, some threw their own cats across the fence hoping to increase the spectacle. None of the cats climbed the tree though, and they started running around the yard, rubbing upon pleasant objects. .... The man just stood there, head down. .... Soon the TV news crews were there, the crowd chanting at the top of their lungs, an anchorman cutting through their lines trying to shout questions to the man in the center of the yard. The cat meowed, covered up by the cacophony around it. “Why’d you let the cat out Mr. Hendricks?” “Did you get it to climb the tree Mr. Hendricks?” “How does your family feel about this?” They were inside; his wife was hugging their children. Behind a pane of glass they cried into their mother’s bosom. .... The cacophony continued, a man passed out small bells, another tried to hawk stuffed cat in tree toys, the chant continued. One man made it through the barrier, and was promptly tackled. .... Chanting, hawking, tearing, leering, Chanting, hawking, tearing, leering, Chanting, hawking, tearing, leering! .... A vast gap opened up in the night sky darker then black and a disembodied mouth like a thousand mechanical spiders reached out with tendrils of arms of teeth of tongues and as the cat’s pupils widened it froze. Only too late did it think to leap from the tree as it was enclosed in the unimaginable. As it swallowed, the crowd cheered as the sacrifice was complete. .... The man bowed his head in deference to the darkness. .... Two blocks away, a pair of men were walking when they saw the brilliant flash of shadow. “Cat got ate again” The other shrugged. “That’s why I keep dogs.”
28.
Urban Legendary (Monologue from the play "Cryptos") ADRIC In the next town over, just far enough away you can’t bother checking the facts, but close enough the shadows seem at your doorstep, two teenagers went into a dark house. They did so on a dare from some friends, but of their own will from curiosity, and because they wanted to make love, but also because they were chaste. No one seems to nail it down right. As they climbed in through the cracked and shattered windows, they found a home untouched from the great depression till that moment. Plates were laid down for dinner, shoes empty of feet sat by the door. They searched the house, and finding it empty of scares, left the way they came, and were run over by a car as they crossed the street. The girl died in the hospital the next day, while the boy was crippled. The end.
29.
On Cryptozoology (monologue from the play "Cryptos") ADRIC The key to making people believe in animals that never have and never will exist is simple, appeal to the instinctual part of their brain that says, "that makes sense." Tell them complicated science, about the vibration of strings and the inner workings of the sun and how it doesn’t actually burn and you’ll get blank stares. Tell them there are giant bears in Russia, sea monsters in Scotland, and ape men in the woods, and they’ll all nod along. Tell them it doesn’t make sense, and they’ll blot you out. So, you indulge them.
30.
Nov. 5th 00:57
Nov. 5 Did your hand turn gunpowder black? or was that the gallows with carrion hawks? When the King Shored up the rope and its slack.. Old Guy Fawkes With his trump and his mask Did your hand turn gunpowder black? to spit at a king to whom freedom was pox the Devil and God both gave you the task When the King Shored up the rope and its slack.. Shifting in shadows through Parliament locks arm buried deep an in infernal grain cask Did your hand turn gunpowder black? had you any clue that while this crowd mocks that future ones might call you a hero and bask When the King Shored up the rope and its slack.. Kingdoms would rock with your face on their vox waiting and cheering and screaming to ask Did your hand turn gunpowder black, When the King Shored up the rope and its slack?
31.
Blastoise 00:26
Blastoise Water guzzling milk drinker blurping out gallons of gazillions of wet wet wild waste installed from birth titanium supersoakers clearly rust proof makes me wonder about God in Kanto Our God cleansed the world with a flood theirs built turtles that could shuck out floods with their shoulder blades
32.
1.1 An Unearthly Child She was so distant like hands and inch from holding her gaze on the circumference of molecules and the voodoo of Circe wrapped up in her palm only almost in contact like a fiber selected off a cloth for analysis or witchcraft she hurtled through my birth and death and chuckled at my protoplasm taking lunch with Darwin and tea with Moses on a casual Sunday and tomorrow she slipped through our fingers unable to be grasped/out of reach but never once out of time
33.
5.2 The Abominable Snowmen And we sing our darkening hymn born of pasts that couldn't begin lord of memories, thoughts, genetically nothing is there at all. Yog-Soggoth, mind to be hear these halls eternally cough your ledger, gnash your pleasure horrid my mind, soon to be chanting on, though monster and climb Himalayas, Yetis, or time sing orb praises still amazes burning our thoughts to dust Yog-Soggoth, mind to be Great Intelligence, tis thee tear our heads off, scream our leisure slaves of your path are we
34.
5.4 The Enemy of the World You're so full of your own intent sunning on rocks by the riverbed I thought I'd return the compliment somehow I see you with imminent faces but the looks don't mask the depths of that head you're so full of your own intent Chernobyling notions with hunkering bases such a clever man for so many dead I thought I'd return the compliment but how many sleeves shave how many faces can you keep the world or your own mouth fed? You're so full of your own intent the world is far more than a long list of places begging to be led I thought I'd return the compliment so have this gift of infinite spaces spiraling out in the stars till zed you're so full of your own intent I thought I'd return the compliment
35.
6.2 The Mind Robber Memory lies on the face of pages where we open up to curl into corners with Gulliver and friends climbing Rapunzel's hair into the white nothing only we can fill with ink and a dream
36.
10.2 Carnival of Monsters Bottled and Corked in every conceived vintage they stir and crumple and writhe waiting in miniature to take bites out of moon and take up the moonlight into the glowing belly of television monstrosities
37.
13.3 Pyramids of Mars Set aside in the Eye of Horus we watch the red soil for something Set cast into the end of time climbing up their sides like Israelites and breaking into the tomb
38.
Kinda 00:13
19.3 Kinda open up your eyes ----Like a kiss to venom and the power of the shake of your hips
39.
22.2 Vengeance on Varos Channel 1 Today we have the murder of two children via electrified teddy bears the news at 8 Channel 4 With Jennifer out of the running will Kylie switch out Anna's Mascara for acid? The News at 11 Channel 5 Seven strangers all compete for who will not get to pay child support the news at 12 Channel 6 The President will face torture again to see if his policies pan out that actually is the news
40.
24.1 Time and the Rani Rani means Queen and a Queen is a Queen with Green skinned work shifts like Efalba in spades digging your sand castle hives Rani means Queen and a Queen is a hive with all your faces faltering like a former best friend wearing the clothes of your roommate and Mel is a way stinging the Bees with honey and bitter belief as you barter brain-stems Rani means Queen and a Queen is still a Bee with all your hopeless buzzing like a paper crown wailing to the long truth of irrelevance
41.
1.7 The Long Game Oh poor Adam! You really did try to march right up to that box in the sky you thought that adventure would be in your lot but really just Rose thought you were hot now every day you fear that you’ll snap and you hide in your home with your mom like a sap and someday the Doctor will fix up your head? Nah, he forgot you, you’re better off dead Oh poor Adam, you really did try now you’ll stare at the stars till you sigh.
42.
2.4 The Girl in the Fireplace I was just a girl before a real mademoiselle circumventing the heating system with fairies for chimney sweeps who rolled away into the future on clockwork hands now I am a Pompadour and Circumstance still wound around fate Annette weight on your heart of the warmth I waited for around an empty hearth you should have inspected again
43.
2.8 The Impossible Planet Before lies there was only the ideal of dust to aspire to and the clomping of the long driven hooves of severed exploration into the mists reaching out your hand to touch beyond your blood flow and clasping at coals you freeze into the improbability of something coarse past your brain cells like a shard of glass in a prayer 2.9 The Satan Pit We made stars to crack the silence ™ A low flat eternity ago we roped horned heresy dumping it past the event horizon into assembly line Hells a veritable office party for the lull in forever forged in cracked stars to hush the silence of the darkness with the screams of witchcraft Hail, Lord of Lows the idea of your eyes scream fountains into the pit black of dynasties Lucifer of unknowable segments of torn tatters angel wings that cannot fly wrapped around lingering doubt in the carnal heave of carnivorous Time Lords ?(Time Gone Fly out and about in the wild and darkness shadowed by choler eclipsed by the motion of time rotors geared gizmos unable to weep for 1,000 dead sisters)?
44.
3.1 Smith and Jones A Judoon Platoon on the Moon? why did you assume that would be a boon only a loon would attune to the goon that harpooned Doctor Eun and its not even noon in June to Harpoon with Judoon on the moon! So soon! Don’t listen to a tune on your Zune, I know I make you swoon across this lunar dune you’re a Doctor? I am too! Fate like runes! bandits together like raccoons leading to our Judoom Smith and Jones to the rescue then to assume the doom Judoon will zoom into the room and entomb us like a womb with a boom on the moon we’ll weave this all up like a loom, this doom and then no more Judoon will harpoon in platoons on the moon I assume?
45.
3.2 The Shakespeare Code Blue Boxes bade the borrowed night to past self sure to unDonne sorrows which he masked to which a witch would wish he sandwiched fast between the plays unmade and brews uncasked his words were fire so lit his temper tasked no bards could better build than Will to mind undue respect, a million pens were asked and idiots said that he twas Marlowe’s kind or Oxford, picking noses ‘snot to find one trace aside from Shakespeare’s wit and words the not meant only witchcraft came where signed a cure by TARDIS only from the nerds so they undoubting, they whom think it true will find in Shakespeare, Love and Doctor Who
46.
Gridlock 00:10
3.3 Gridlock Trapped on a turntable round and round we go with Sally Calypso
47.
3.9 The Family of Blood There is no wrath like an angered god who grants our wishes with storm cloud trod drenched in kindness, his cold heart swells dreams written down like the book of Kells till Morpheus affirmed the end to peace with nods there is no wrath like an angered God who lives without that wedding dress or Bells A field of family he will never sod drenched in Kindness, his cold heart swells when friendship dives away your tells and all you meant was to spare the rod there is no wrath like an angered god shivering stageplay humanity along the dolls a fake Englishman to bring our screams inside our pod drenched in kindness, his cold heart swells a family slit by blood to bond in hells our slumbers Heaven’s chains to make us odd there is no wrath like an angered god drenched in kindness, his cold heart swells
48.
Blink 00:21
3.10 Blink Here and not in tears past the start we lay down so our young hands can wither to the music of raindrops
49.
3.12 The Sound of Drums I’ll break the world beneath my thumbs You’ll hear the noise that I’m its Master This pounding, pounding, sound of drums And you think yourself their savior factor But you just make me tear skies faster I’ll break the world beneath my thumbs Can’t you hear the boiling drums, listen Doctor hear their song. Are they the choir, I the Pastor? This pounding, pounding, sound of drums And this girl you march on warring vector She’ll walk the earth, but I’ll in time out last her I’ll break the world beneath my thumbs While you for thousand years were just reactor I call on eons, command death, the castor This pounding, pounding, sound of drums This world will burn as Troy, with you its Hector Called from the depths with “Hastur! Hastur!” I’ll break the world beneath my thumbs This pounding, pounding, sound of drums.
50.
5.10 Vincent and the Doctor Flowing whirls and swirls color pearls formed at moonlight each dab exonerating light mooring the sundials of the sky to architects craft the world in oils as it was dreamed and as it soared petty definition be damned for flowers are more than the vein of a petal and a face holds a soul under rotting skin a beaming pulse in canvas smeared sky brights stars that dim candles beneath the black cloak that courses through, soaring out in blue, red, gold and twisting in time to choreograph our astrology and the geography of the matrimony of our feet to the soil with the slight slick strokes of a magician’s brush
51.
6.13 The Wedding of River Song You always told me with your eyes that I was something special when I’m not I’m nothing like an unblinking drool lipped pantheon of one for hedgehogs burrowed in the dirt till you can’t make name nor tail of me because I deserve to suffer under shutters so stop telling me I’m worth it and tearing the hands of clocks off to hold me tighter than I deserve stop it till you flow into my heart like the untempered stream you are and I don’t deserve you and who cares if I want you but you love me and every star in the sky stutters to tell me that again.
52.
7.1 Asylum of the Daleks I was a Ballerina tight and twirling before I was canned like beef hash and sworn into pieces Moloch in a tutu gown I was a lover so was she and our fingers used to touch before they were cut off and replaced with toilet cleaners I was a human and they called me Oswin of Alaska now I am a tin shell and a puddle of tears with no tear ducts and we are human
53.
P Night of the Doctor (#1) So good to see you again and say goodbye to all the days you only spoke of drinking a cup of Hurt to end the long drought of those wilderness years
54.
To the Daleks I never liked you. You talk really slow. Get better spaceships, what is this, Martians attack? Flying Saucers? Come on Daleks! PS: You sound funny and your noses are your eyes does that bother you?
55.
That Towering Blue Mercy Me, and mercy to you Ten hail Mary’s Veil of TARDIS hue You ain’t got shit I’ll tell you High on the mountaintop In that Towering Blue Praising Paul and praising Pain Putting down a needle on “Aladdin Sane” You can’t drawn blood Not in this vein Mining for ore Bleeding Vampire Stew High on the Mountaintop In that Towering Blue I can’t open and look Without smothering you High on the mountaintop Brewing a Fool The Helix is crushed Under snow boots of Yule Casting out stars In a deafening rue I think you would If only you knew High on the mountaintop In that Towering Blue Didn’t it seem like these dreams Could breed broods? Didn’t the world say you understood? Didn’t the night time roll Back in your head? You’re built up a world In a lone bitter mood Singing an anthem With Lyrics entombed The magic is ending The wind scars your view High on the Mountaintop In that Towering Blue
56.
Factoid 00:08
Factoid Its not a love poem to just say “you’re pretty” but you are

about

The poetry of James Wylder comes to life in his first spoken word album, “That Towering Blue,” featuring poems from his first 3 books of poetry (“Cascade”, “An Eloquence” of Time and Space”, and “Blackalope”) as well as monologues from his play “Cryptos”, and a story from his collection “The Dark and Splendid Diary of Danielle Simpson and Other Tales.”

Containing fan favorite poems like “Cascade”, “Japan, Oh God, Japan”, “The Day of the Doctor” and “To the Daleks”, as well as a whole new poem created just for this collection, “That Towering Blue” brings an elegant audacity to your eardrums.

credits

released May 1, 2016

Written and performed by James Wylder
Produced, recorded, and cover photography by Joshua Cramer
Art Design by E. N. Hempstead

license

Some rights reserved. Please refer to individual track pages for license info.

tags

about

James Wylder Elkhart, Indiana

Author of "An Eloquence of Time and Space", "10,000 Dawns", and "Cryptos."

Learn more at jameswylder.com

contact / help

Contact James Wylder

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

If you like James Wylder, you may also like: