ABSOLUTION
If I asked
If I asked for forgiveness
For all the sins
All the sins that I didn’t do
Would it absolve me
From the things that I did to do
What I did to you
For all the things that I did to you
What I did to you.
If I knelt
If I knelt before your altar
Take your breast to my mouth
Let me taste your holy waters
Move on south, looking up
Let me drink from your loving cup
From your loving cup
Let me drink from your loving cup
From your loving cup.
Wait.
If you could read my mind
You’d shudder at what you might find
What you may find.
Better yet
It’s better off that you can’t
Or you might find
Something you don’t want
Something you might want
Something you will want.
If you asked
If you asked for confession
For all your killings
And all of your inquisitions
Give me immortality
I’ll give you absolution
Absolution
Give me absolution
Absolution.
© J.P. Mortier 2010
ONE MILE OVER
One mile over till I am with you
One mile over till I am with you
I was in the fields working with the crews
When my brother told me the news
One mile over till I am with you
One mile over till I am with you
Race through the woods, crossing rivers blue
Prayin’ to God it’s all untrue.
One mile over till I am with you
One mile over till I am with you
Heading down the avenue
A crowd is gathered, I pull ’em through
Doctor, doctor, tell me it’s not true
Ain’t there anything you can do?
A lifetime flashes across my view
That’s my baby in front of you.
One mile over till I am with you
One mile over till I am with you
I was in the fields working with the crews
When my brother told me the news
One mile over till I am with you
One mile over till I am with you
Race through the woods, crossing rivers blue
Prayin’ to God it’s all untrue.
Preacher, preacher, man of virtue
Cast that devil all the way to Timbuktu
Is the saviour of souls just another voodoo?
Ain’t there anything you can do?
One mile over till I am with you
One mile over till I am with you
I was in the fields working with the crews
When my brother told me the news
One mile over till I am with you
One mile over till I am with you
Race through the woods, crossing rivers blue
Prayin’ to God it’s all untrue.
One mile over till I am with you
One mile over till I am with you
With the undertaker I travel to
The final place to bid you adieu.
© J.P. Mortier 2010
TANKER
Six days in the belly of a tanker
I have a picture of my daughter
Gave the man ten thousand dollars
For six days in the belly of a tanker.
Member of the Liberian merchant fleet
Will I walk with the new world beneath my feet?
Will I be sent back home in defeat?
With a member of the Liberian merchant fleet.
Six days in the belly of a tanker
I have a picture of my daughter
Gave the man ten thousand dollars
For six days in the belly of a tanker
Six days in the belly of a tanker
Six days in the belly of a tanker.
© J.P. Mortier 2010
COWBOY BONES
I ride where the cowboys all have gone
Condemned man executed at dawn
Mourning is the time to comprehend
My best friend is a traitor in the end
I felt it in my bones
This feeling when I’m all alone
And the pain that’s in my soul
Is something I can’t control, no, no
I felt it in my bones
Loneliness is like a drone
And the sweet sense of desperation
Is what I wanted all along
And the sweet sense of desperation
Is what I wanted all along, all along.
Only time turn the gullies into valleys
I find solace in the obituaries
Friends are left behind at the wake
Leave the desperate damsel at the stake.
I felt it in my bones
This feeling when you’re all alone
And the pain that’s in your soul
Is something you can’t control, no, no
I felt it in my bones
Loneliness is like a drone
And the sweet sense of desperation
Is what you wanted all along
And the sweet sense of desperation
Is what you wanted all along, all along.
I felt it in my bones
This feeling when we’re all alone
And the pain that’s in our souls
Is something we can’t control, no, no
I felt it in my bones
Loneliness is like a drone
And the sweet sense of desperation
Is what we wanted all along
And the sweet sense of desperation
Is what we wanted all along, all along
And the sweet sense of desperation
Is what we wanted all along, all along.
© J.P. Mortier 2010
DOPPELGANGER
He talks like me and thinks like me
He walks like me, stumbles like me
Made from spare parts
Like my own broken heart
But he ain’t me
This is not me
This is not me talking.
She moves like you, and looks like you
She loves like you and lusts like you
Made from your mold
So I’ve been foretold
But she ain’t you
This is not you
This is not you talking.
Harvester of bones
Farmer of souls
The cells you create
From the organs you donate
And the name that you stole
Can you make me whole?
Can you make me whole?
They live like us and die like us
They laugh like us and mourn like us
Trade individuality for immortality
But this ain’t me
This is not me
This is not me talking.
© J.P. Mortier 2010
COME BACK TO ME
Come back
You’ve stains on your dress
You’re down on your knees
You’ve blood on your hands
From trying to please
Getting a thrill
From all you can seize
Come back to me, my little tease.
Come back
Cracks in the sidewalk,
Grass on the lawn
Stones in your pathway
Battle lines have been drawn
Attack of the enemy has not been withdrawn
Come back to me, my little pawn.
Come back
Falling to the fever
Your words become griever
Inject me, infect me and push it in deeper
Ignoring your healer
Make me feel cheaper
Come back to me, dear grim reaper.
Now my life is standing still
I’m addicted to curing your ills
But I have been misled
To an empty bed.
© J.P. Mortier 2010
KNIFE GENERATION
Beneficiary of a poisoned will
Heritage of all your broken dreams
We can’t savour flavour till they’re extreme
Drink up the chemicals from the blackened stream.
All of us kids in this knife generation
We ain’t got, we ain’t got no home
All of us kids in this knife generation
We ain’t goin’, we ain’t goin’ home.
I don’t know how to stop when the hormones are kicking in
Drop me off at the daycare with a dose of Ritalin
Can no longer tell which feeling is genuine
Give me the hammer and I’ll show you discipline.
All of you kids in this knife generation
You ain’t got, you ain’t got no home
All of you kids in this knife generation
You ain’t goin’, you ain’t goin’ home.
All of you kids in this knife generation
You ain’t got, you ain’t got no home
All of us kids in this knife generation
You ain’t goin’, you ain’t goin’ home.
© J.P. Mortier 2010
OMNIVOROUS
My baby said to me
Why are we here
We’re all alone and we live in fear
My baby said to me
Why are we alive
All we seem to do is merely survive
Baby said to me
Why do we love?
Is this all we’re capable of?
I said to her
Isn’t it obvious?
We’re here because we’re omnivorous.
My baby said to me
Why are we here
We’re all alone and we live in fear
My baby said to me
Why are we alive
All we seem to do is merely survive
Baby said to me
Why do we love?
Is this all we’re capable of?
I said to her
Isn’t it obvious?
We’re here because we’re omnivorous.
© J.P. Mortier 2010
HAUNTED MAN
Black poet, I’m a slave to my words
I’d say that I’d love you but my ghosts would have overheard.
You see, I’m a haunted man
I got the conscience of a clergyman
In your eyes, this gentleman
Could not stand to be a charlatan.
So I stay alone and alert
Not say promises I can’t keep
The way I feel, I dare not speak
My emotions run too deep.
For my life’s a shipwreck stricken sea
From the relations of which I’m a refugee
I’ve got the realism of a divorcee
And this future, I cannot foresee.
It’s the price of experience
Not to lead you to treachery.
© J.P. Mortier 2010
BELT
Some people are looking for fate
Some people are looking for a mate
Some people need to think
Some people need another drink
Some people are looking for a belt.
Some people are looking for a purpose
Some people are looking for themselves
Some people are looking for wealth
Some people are looking for health
Some people are looking for a belt.
Some people are looking for trouble
Some people need a little t & a
Some people are scoring for drugs
Some people are searching for God
Some people are looking for a belt.
© J.P. Mortier 2010
ON A TOWER
I’m on a tower watching the other
Behemoths under a perfect sky
Wind in my hair, the breeze from the Atlantic
Autumn seems like a distant cry
I call on my baby, tell her I love her
When a distant point seems to catch my eye
I’m on a tower watching the other
Watch the other.
Have you heard the news, listen to warnings?
There’s a threat coming from the east
Show of strength, muscles flexing
The tiger lunges like a beast
The poor and the jealous sharpen their knives
When not invited to the feast
I’m on tower thinking the danger has ceased.
But there’s nothing, nothing you can do
There’s nothing, there’s nothing you can say.
Under the tower, I’m assembling the sculptures
That awaits the spectators in the mezzanine
When a thunderous noise, sudden chaos
We run out to check out the scene
Shrouds of dust, clouds of debris
And people falling from the sky
At the foot of a tower, looking up, wondering why
And there’s nothing, there’s nothing I can do
There’s nothing, nothing I can say.
I’m on a tower watching the other
Perfect morning under a perfect sky
Wind in my hair, the breeze from the Atlantic
But winter is sharpening its scythe
I call on my baby, tell her I love her
As I see what’s coming from across the sky
I’m on a tower watching my brother go down.
© J.P. Mortier 2010