One day when he is almost finished he turns around and the hill behind him opens, it opens up and looks straight into the night sky, a giant eye, milky white, a half inch of The Subliminal History of New York State:
CHAPTER 1: UNDER ISLAND/Roosevelt Island
21 Songs -> mostly written by Carrie, help from Jesse and some by Sxip (noted when needed)
1. CLIMATE
molded by glacial erosion
many thousands of years ago
Blessed that with temperate climate
Rivers of clean water fresh
Sheltered coves, adamate tide
deep water harbors and access
inviting human habitat
come share with this luscious glore
molded by glacial erosion
many a thousand years a go
Bless that with temperate clime
Rivers of clean water fresh
adamate tide bay of shelter
deep water harbors and access
Charm lure our mortaless core
share with this great luscious glore
2. ROOSEVELT ISLAND
I am island like any land
I live and breath beneath my trees
Twist a turn inside a river
betwixt the shores volcanic gores
Manhattan East
there is a beast.
I am a land like any land
My lives, my breath
beneath your trees
betwixt the shores
volcanic roars
Twist a turn inside the river
Manhattan East, I am the beast.
3. UNDERWATER
In the underwater deep
Turbines blow and circumvate
Flood a washing feet beneath
Tickling sides do breathlessly
Harness powers of control
Lights can glow and toilet flow
Kissing fish and oiled algae
That you find beneath the sea
4. MAPS
I am the land without maps
Exhausted and uncharted territory
Harness my fault lines and paths
What you find will be revolutionary
To build on the back of a beast
Replacing my organs with yours
A progress that will never cease
But never is never too near
lack list Islands have no maps
as we know and as is found
This is Isolation land
watchful people often drown
I am the land without maps
Exhausted and uncharted territory
touch me and you'll find my plan,
What you find will be revolutionary
old bones of the body forgot
if ever twas land without plan
sweep black blankened space, with no place
the library gone no-thing found
tear its organs with our own
progress seems to cease to cease
phantom path of city street
building backs atop the beast
I am the land without maps
Exhausted and uncharted territory
Harness my fault lines and paths
What you find will be revolutionary
5. FOR SALE
(from original 1700's advertisement)
For Sale, that pleasant, agreeable situation Island, known by the name of Blackwell's Island, on the East River, about four miles from this City. It is without exception one of the most healthy situations in this state. It is remarkable for the number of fish and fowl that is caught here in the different seasons. There is on the premises two small dwelling houses, a barn, bake and fowl house, cyder mill, a large orchard containing 450 of the best grafted fruit trees, such as Newton & Golder pippins, spitsinburghs, peirmans, bow apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, etc. There are a number of the best stone quarries ready cleared to begin breaking immediately.
6. AWAKEN
Something slumbers sunk
mid the tunnel mud
Utterance arouse
Lumps begin to show
Tintinnabulate
cite the air aware
forge a fort of tude
Planetary ship
Something hovers deep
Down the tunnels go
Utterance ascends
Lumps arise and blow
Pebbling stones erupt
Tiny trances sing
Fortitude has built
Planetary ship
8. THE AGE OF INSTITUTIONS
husband send their wives to die
peaches pears and spittenburgs
chains arise their colden thighs
the quarries set for breaking
penitentiary is shown
aloof to all that enter
million windows cover stone
gaining billion innards grown
awake to do the bidding
tremble inner voices seep
into the dreamy minds of men
and once again they set creep
once and only you could tell
if how many people fell
let they listening only to
estranged voice of one or two
the Doctors they require boats
came to come so very close
loads of people did not care
bring your poor, unwanted here
eventually the fires set
burn the evil had beget
lies they told, to cover it
submiss island up to quit
The age of institutions
has passed but not so past
on this day this very day
a new octagon is built
9. DREAMS OF THE AWAKENED
Dreams of the awakened
Wives are sent to die
Sleepwalkers do bidding
Consciousness sucked dry
Resting on the crescent
I cannot be free
people build their buildings
All a top of me
10. NORTHERN PLANE
Just below the northern plane
A building houses the insane
Underneath it lies the brain
A twisting heart can not contain
All that lives and all that breathes
Hha Reaching forth and touching breeze
lighten streams sift down from high
palpating light in patients eye
11. OCTAGON MOON
The brain submerged
beneath the moon
You octagon
become my tomb
The brain above
Oh Merge with mine
Harken back Be
ginning of time
12. FIRES (ANTHEM) (text: sxip shirey)
The year the beast groaned in it's sleep was the year that the fires overtook the island. Hundreds of blow-holes whistled a noxious and flammable gas into the air.
The shells of the dead institutions burst into flame.
The Octagon, Alms Houses, The Nurses Quarters all burned.
You could see the orange glow and smell the stench from Manhattan.
For the first time the people of New York where afraid.
An army of fire-fighters where sent in,
quelling the fires, cementing over the blow holes and oddly enough singing.
A thousand fire firefighters singing in unison,
attempting to lull the beast deeper into sleep.
13. THE MEAT DREAMS (text: Sxip Shirey)
The meat dreams
he is a monkey,
So moves like a monkey
So he is a monkey
The meat dreams
he is a man
So moves like a man
So he is a man
We are the dreams of meat
The kind of stuff you eat
for lunch is you
And that is meat
All meat must dream
all meat must eat)
The beast dreams it is a beast
14. LIGHTHOUSE (text: Carrie and Sxip and historical marker)
John McCarthy does not sleep anymore. He is building a fort. A fort at the tip of the island. He is sure the Brits are going to invade and he is going to stop them. He is sluicing clay from the rivers edge with his own bare fingers. He is shouldering scraps of stone from the quarry. He has found catches of teeth in the mud that he shoves into the crevices of his crude masonry.
One day when he is almost finished he turns around and the hill behind him opens, it opens up and looks straight into the night sky, a giant eye, milky white, a half inch of
opaque sludge covering it's surface.
The eye is blind. It takes forever to shut. When it does John McCarthy is gone.
The man who stands in his same body calls himself Thomas Maxey. Thomas is a much more simple man and doesn't worry about the Brits or eyes blinking out of mountains.
This work
Was done by
John McCarthy
Who built the light House
from the bottom to the Top
all ye who do pass by may
Pray for his soul when he dies
15. NO CEMETARY
hospitals do grow
children they do die
noone is born here
and noone shall die
There is a south end
And a lighthouse north
An east side main street
And west tram new york
16. SOUTH END
30 acres solid land
parcel gift to south end tip
aching joints growth spurt benign
phanton limb of the divine
17. BATHROOM STAIRS
(Pizza place closed down)
escalators stairs and slides
stepping spiral toward my center
two dollars for a subway ride
you'll find a basement bath to enter
sound it dins, and blowholes shrink
kempt sores crank out buckets of teeth
dungeon dinge and dogs gone dark
empty hollow below peoples park
18. Fountain
Southern tip of the south end
Crawling through the rocks to find
Burning cities shit for fuel
Water fountain pretty sight
For these united nations
If only their neumatic pumps
Take me to my destination
Water fire fountain pit
A driving force to forward
Push a massive pedal go
Burn the cities excrement
19. AVAC
You have torn my innards out
Re placed them with your own
Why can I not swallow food
I am not your home
Metallic tube akin spine
Compacts the trash 5 more times
Whips it in a centrifuge
crafting prepatory fuel
Water fountain pretty sight
For these united nations
If only their neumatic pumps
Take me to my destination
20. Devastation
Sluicing mud and crafting land
Out at night with dirty hand
A fort it rises from the roots
And stoic sits awaiting troops
late at night they tore it down
fort has fell grew tall and new
a gentle watcher at the sea
eye optic wide be seen to see
people gravitate to stone
lighthouse looker shy be shown
true speaker of the tongue of mounds
this air transmits now open sound
nervous signal hover 'bove
place you never thought could love
collective information is
transcend communication does
Vista arises from earth
island adolescence flees
look toward west with insolence
tolerance gone, with innocence
and the only true happiness
this way lies.
Vista arises from the earth
Nervous signals
Scopic vision seeks and sees
21. END
Eyes have given me my sight
venture to an upward flight
Time awaiting of my trip
Northway must evacuate
Gone this bridge and people's feet
harness nor control of me
water speaks my very friend
take me now this way begin