Trance, Terror and Rebirth
A collection of EarthBound experiences from various points of view.
Download the spoken word / acoustic accompaniments:
Awful Shade & Meanwhile in the Zombie Lounge
Ain't Goin' Down with the Moon Brightening This Stand
Zombie Chick
After Death and Back Again

For the full experience I recommend listening to the mp3s as you read each poem, starting at the top. Enjoy.


Ness, in an Awful Shade

They said, "the grass is always greener,"
but I see a disturbed flower
spinning on its axis,
the petal'd madness,
of vacuumed redness...
the slow allure,
heavy hypnogogic
otherworld of my loved ones
sparkled by bruises...No!

I pass under deadness and
an old man looks to me,
cigarettes aflame,
his face buried by worry
and half-teared confusion,
explains, "my wife,
my kids, they won't speak
with me. I'm..."

And I don't know
that I can speak.

Meanwhile, in the Zombie Lounge... (point of view: zombie)

To be possessed, I have a motive.
My servitude extends all sense of power
previously sensed, Yes!
I follow a red smear wherever I go,
I go into caverns and grin
with all the marrow of my jaw,
dive into the spider's web
and kill kill the
lesser beings.

I am my own creator and son,
I am my weeping daughter,
my deprived wife, and,
everything, slows, down, I have
the order of time in arteries.
I am not a loser, I am...
simply... more, than, I... have
ever been.

Have you known the feeling
of sawblade soundwaves
decapitating the things you hate?
The endless incisions in
a long beauty of night.

My mates and I get along just fine,
just we have a snack of the weaker ones
when it's commanding time.
Our ballad goes slow and on,
and on I smell
the scent of ripe flesh
like jaded rainbow memories.

But what? ...There is a fresh thing,
that I must go to.
Thereisafresh thing
thatImustgo to.
There is a fresh thing
that I must go to.

Ain't Goin' Down with the Moon Brightening This Stand

Spoiled flood from
the trash land of
moldy men
fills my boyish lungs,
honey venom of bad bees
is introduced to my brain,
shadow's drunk
falling off my dust,
and a zombie
tongues across my neck,

colors re-synthesize,
music crawls away and
paula's sleeping face
was never this great.
Horror: but her shine
reaped from her chest.
Horror: like her blood
in my cap.

I see the darkened skies
and the Moon with her scythe,
reddened portals
on a star-filled tundra and
my spine floats away.

...

The graveyard soil
grows into me and
"Ever melting"
are my last
remembered words.

Alternate progression:

Zombie Chick

Girl, 'want your number
'Cause your thighs
they'n appetize in girth
with orbs your eyes
and soft your breasts
with little smooth secrets
locked in chests.
You're the queen
'cause I'm sliding
down your nectar'd throat,
'cause my eyes
like razor'd dimes
in darkness' coat.

Girl, your leather is
the oil down my spine,
I am Tyrannosaurus Rex
and you are my master.
O Chick-Lady
licker of sickness,
pour me my own
so we get on
with this
distance,
admire infections
from love dripped sections,
'cause you and me
are honey bees,
pollinate for
y'onder deeds.

You're the cold spike
in my Cerberus vein
'cause I'm cross-sectioned,
baby, magma panic'd...

    Hey Beauty, hey--

Girl, where you going
di'n't I ask your number?
You pesky flower,
you don't know my power!?
So here I come,
here I come
into your tower.
After Death and Back Again (point of view: ness)

I was once naive
and not in tune
with this world.
I was once innocent
and adventerous
when I took the sun
to my belt and always
said "let's go."

There was a time in my youth
when I died countless times,
a time when my father
tried to reach me
but I kept on dying;
told 'em "it was okay,"
he sent money to
his fallen son
and let me be
the way I would be,
and he would be
my far away dad.
But the world had me stay,
God, or the grass I layed in,
the air I breathed growing up.
Autumn always gave me
a warmth in orange light,
asked me a question
when waking up,
"Are you alive?"
and it was always her voice
washing up my mind,
Mother, oh, Mother.
I'll be home.