Get all 11 Ok Housecat releases available on Bandcamp and save 90%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Switched-On Phonics: U, Switched-On Phonics: A, Switched-On Phonics: E, Switched-On Phonics: O, Switched-On Phonics: I, Groceries, Loose Teeth, Bad Goods: 2020 Selections Before Everything Went Pear-Shaped, and 3 more.
1. |
No Water
03:08
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2. |
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3. |
Fllng Blnks
01:31
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4. |
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…five six seven eight
it was great until the flagship sank
while we drank champagne and watched the day parade
march lock step first through the barricade,
then down a well, to the crowd’s dismay
If caffeine is the opposite of chivalry:
well you can still count me in.
I’m certain I would rather be alive
than put up with the
ball and chain and lock and key,
inhaling coffee only addicts drink-
reminders only help me think
not-quite-arms’-length in front of me
he said, “If I’m to be the messenger,
then I hope your wallet’s FULL;
my fees are steep but clean, cheapened by
the subsidies of lotteries
and subsequential poverty
of users that can only see
the uses for the funds appearing
only in one man’s arms’ length”
that’s when the flotsam and the jetsam got some traction
when that unforeseen call-to-action
cracked the porcelain
his mandible happened to be cast in
so let’s whittle down the sample size
to something singular and randomized
designed by New York Times New Roman
defined by number lines that spiral
loop-de-loop and swoop and pull
’til half past empty is almost full
when I heard the car alarm I bolted up a tree
staring down intently at my bare hands
estimating the time it’d take to dig a hole so deep
I’d snap that oak tree’s talons once and for all
ever unreliably sober
but undeniably related to the maker
shaken but intent on making viable
the pliable idea that midday
can still be BLACK as PITCH
coincidentally inclined to
find the kind of snitch who cannot help himself
I said, “Physician, heal thyself!”
then tucked away my dashboard shade
and made for any other stable place
that a doctor might find himself saved from grace.
so he and I defaced the plywood sign by the highway
then in sneaks doubt and with snide chagrin
I FREAK OUT/BREAK GLASS/
fresh air in my lungs akin
to the ashtray water left on the deck
when the rains came in
and so I straighten out the learning curve,
assault the pavement, strain my throat,
“I’m a con man, not an artist!”
then between the gnashing of teeth,
the rustling of coats,
the smell of burning rubber when the asphalt explodes,
the sidewalk chalk mural in the sewers below
depicts venn diagrams playing god even though
the ARITHMETIC just won’t ADD UP
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5. |
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All my life I've been seven years old,
never told that if I broke the golden rope around my shoulders
and if I hold the holy ghost close like the pistol in my holster,
I could ride the brakes, fold right up,
hold the holy roller coaster upside down then tie a bow
and watch my throwing hand let go
Then a crateful of umbrellas fell and kept the rain at bay again
so I picked a thrifty switch and fixed it neatly to my cardigan
I shook the toaster upside down for a fistful of the crumbs within
and fed the ducks now resting in my furiously vacant skin
You, of all people, especially should know
how to juggle all these ducks without disrupting their presumpted rows
so no matter what the vice grip of the undertow might say
those waves are angry and that stubborn tide is
NOTHING if not here to stay
I'm still shaken when my roster shows a missing pair of water wings
I'm mistaken but my panic causes all the dormant manic things
I've laid to rest, kept in recess, but caffeinated fever dreams
compress my debt to a single cent, torch everything that's left
...so I got dressed
and (because you asked) I took the test,
did anything but try my best but
CRUSHED IT
less than zero stress,
then ate my breakfast, headed west.
Because if I'm stagnant, I'm invisible
so I, by principle, stay second-wind invincible for the once-thought
indivisible residuals we divvied up and cut with half-heart
LIVID parentheticals,
all now tethered to their brethren, all bereft and underfed,
and when that clock strikes half-past-ten
I best not hear you ask me when.
The gas station attendant claimed he rearranged his skeleton
to suppress his brittle neck's attempt to keep it in development
he cracks his knuckles, fills my tank with fumes and
ruminates while I contemplate when to make my final move.
The stop signs posit plot lines, hold the motion sickness over
but that PARASITIC HOST thought GOLDEN ROPE
his FOUR LEAF CLOVER
Now the forecast looks grim for a yes man, I've been told
so now I never leave the market when I'm feeling undersold.
Yes you, of all people, especially should know
how to juggle all these ducks without disrupting their presumpted rows
so no matter what the vice grip of the undertow might say
those waves are angry and that stubborn tide is
NOTHING if not here to stay
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6. |
Scrambled Legs
03:01
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7. |
Ache
04:47
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An ache's an ambiguous feeling
that can crack and collapse from the ceiling
it's the lump in your throat
it's the ring in your ear
it's the paralysis brought by impossible fear
it's the knot in your back
it's the hunger for sin
it just depends on the mood that you're in
An ache is the pain that's the easiest to fake
in the way that it takes on this number of shapes
avoidance will whisper her song in your ear
you'll find yourself tense from the straining to hear
when opportunity knocks in the noise of the stress
you'll wince, and ignore the whole mess
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8. |
Missouri Loves Company
04:00
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it was seven o'clock in the morning
I woke up restless,
clumsy down the stairs,
conjured up my checklist
with some persistence found her overcoat
seventeen plus one
i cross my eyes to dot the t's
but never made it home
and she sings just like a bureaucrat
buzzing like fluorescent light
she sat beside the bearded lady
I caught the red-eye just in time
floored by strings of colored lights
you can believe it when you see it, pal
it's archaic but you'll rue the day
momentum caught me standing still
her purse smelled like imported grease
allowed to wed the TV set
mongoose bike, missing peg,
cracked her barrel;
wanted it
aloof, and up to no good too!
by four, by eight, by god
the proof: truncated form aloud
we see the TV nod
my uncle was an umpire
called the game, ate the scorecard,
flew away! punched out his paystub
ate cobb salad at the bar
and by now, the moon was just an afterthought
we laughed it off,
but rope as taut as this we know we'd better not
forget who tied that knot
"we're as separate as six degrees", I said
then shook my head so violently
my even-keeled demeanor turned from
retail black to stop sign red
I fought it off and walked the block but,
wouldn't you know it, she had long since stopped
but I had never heard of chapstick
and so the casserole acted fast (CLICK)
so left with nothing but a matchstick
carved my initials on the plastic end
of placid acrobatics- and so that geriatric name sticks,
and it FITS!
just like fantastically elastic deeds,
and other things
that make my cat sick
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9. |
Riot Squad Insistence
04:21
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Once upon a futuristic blistered solitary stricture
a frozen boy chose to overthrow every pixel in the picture
then feed-the-fire thoughts were wrought
as riot squad insistence fought with beesting rubber bullets
he tossed the towel and forgot
This and that go tit for tat
lead the pack belt loop exact,
escape the frantic antique fact
that fortune yields a rusted plaque
And so I'm dormant, bulletproof
all gargoyle pride, nailfile and tooth,
oilslick friction endurance and
TRUE as though it MAY BE, perchance,
she knows this pirate creed:
I think that then I'd be the through hand of SHIPWRECK CLEAN
And so I'll throw the plea I wrote
to feed the lump inside my throat
a knotted staff of notes that float
like heartbeats through a stethoscope
Too uncommon, this repose,
bold enough, long-sleeve SUPPOSED kevlar clothes
adorned his bones when
MANIC nodding HORNET'S NEST
descended watch as stormboy froze
Sick forlorn, scorned by asforesaid storm
as seasick nights short circuit morn
why wait for storms to dim the lights-
the lightning's delightful at night although
FRAUDULENT at-odds-with-GOD let me SLEEP TONIGHT
And then sunlight blinks,
a lightbulb not-quite-screwed-in on a
busted bum-leg endtable
during a somersault contest
oh, then the earthquake:
god forsake the spinning plates
whose white-light crash
was my mistake
But suppose that I was frozen
long before those gates had been reopened
that thunderbolt osmosis spoke
before my turn to be outspoken
some plaster-casted black-eyed paster can't confess unless
the damsel can unhand the grandeur,
cured by such distress
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10. |
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it seems to be a cross between
the all-that-is-ever-still-violently clean
and the vagabonds trolling for profits to glean
...but then wait,
if fate, with it's bow-legged gait
and the gumption to function as promised (but late)
assumptions neurotic at the junction of similar synonyms
that just can't relate
I tried to decimate that whirlwind,
skirted curbs and scraped my knees,
but all the time I spent on wheels just made my land legs ache
WHITE HOT uneasy feeling,
cast and reeling plastic CRACKED and paper PEELING
stealing from the richest twisted wrists
concealing it to lift your soapy opera's
mopey listlessness
and so with scrambled legs and arms to match
I patch the drapes torn down then up
my cats just can't resist a
POCKETFUL of SOCKET WRENCHES,
rocks, and lots of now-wet quick-set feather-tar cement
and everywhere that Mary went,
those sheep found ways to circumvent
the clock stops the hopscotching interval impulse
from foliage right down to doornail-dead red mulch
although my forehead reads clear coast,
my thoughts predict what I fear most
to enact a plan of satisfactory action,
one must flip the script when ziploc-trial-by-fire eclipses
those pocket-picked, starving-rich,
don't-scratch-that-itch-type pessimists
it's then that those that wander
wonder which of their best ideas they'll just forget
it's then that THOSE THAT WANDER
wonder which of their BEST IDEAS THEY'LL JUST FORGET
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11. |
Physician, Heal Thyself!
03:01
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12. |
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13. |
Cyclical Stillness
05:27
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a cyclical stillness instills some fulfillment
until the still millions forget their forgiveness
beget, and then let this cyclical stillness unravel,
unwind, undone
that gavel's now tattered momentum is spun
from the knots, forgiven in stillness, undone
thread the needle, feel the steel eye that's begun
to keep watch with the sky where the clouds are now hung
a cyclical stillness instills some fulfillment
until the still millions forget their forgiveness
beget, and then let this cyclical stillness unravel,
unwind, undone
you cut me some slack just to cover your tracks
and once you've a knack for this undoing act
I collapse, then attack
I've been watching your backwards excursion
for lack of a version intact, but in fact,
what I like is aversion like that
yes, perhaps I'm the sum of the numbers exact
and relaxing in this undeniable fact
once the bags are all packed
and the dishes are stacked
and the porchlight realizes she loves the moth back
I'll finally step off this interminable track
and give up the day that you cut me some slack
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14. |
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modify, customize, intensify the product line
demand supply to just justify the need to rewind
sanctify, align your hindsight, find a finer kind of light
refract it back to the exact same place we found our tracks had been erased
one fell swoop was all it took
I knew that I was off the hook
unprecedented second looks
confirmed that I was overlooked
she dreams of birds
and I suppose
that first she loves them
then she lets them go
she dreams of birds
and I suppose
that first she loves them
then she lets them go
the book may say that
if we part ways then
all but one will up-and-stay
your marmalade and bad crochet
will haunt my dreams while you're away
she dreams of birds
and I suppose
that first she loves them
then she lets them go
so play your lute and can those jars
'til farce and fable mute what's ours
steal cheap cigars to fill your throat
let those scapegoat days keep you afloat
misunderstand, demand that all the handfuls you've been granted
stand to reason with unplanted seeds of seasoned understanding
that enchanted but recanted scenes that please will not supplant
the things found feasible that can't deny the evitably unreasonable
she dreams of birds
and I suppose
that first she loves them
then she lets them go
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15. |
Solace In The Slow Lane
03:45
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16. |
Hotel Room 139
04:02
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her friend sully says nothing except that he's fine
(and of knots in his mind) but someone this kind
is not at all someone you go and just find
only in hotel room 139
sullivan offers to give her a shot
and before she can tell him that maybe it's not the best plan
considering the things she's been taught
but her brain somehow finds it the preferable plot
now she's thinking in knots and they're tied round her arm
denying fresh fuel to the blaring alarm
like that broken machine needs her blood as thedcharm
to pierce the balloon but protect it from harm
and so for now the cogs turn about, rotate, and shift
she gives Sully some cigs and her thanks even if
she receives crushing regret as reciprocate gift
so she thinks to forget but arrives just as swift
and when it comes knocking to burn down her home
she'll demolish herself to escape that bleak drone
of an irony steady, a fine metronome
keeping time for remainders, even if just a poem
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17. |
Phantom Pact
03:29
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I have this friend, he hardly speaks
but when he's dealt a card he peeks
to see if it's the one he seeks
it's not, he sits and keeps his peace
from within the fleece of godless lambs
the devil dealt that crooked hand
then gave the game for shelter and
beneath the table quickly planned
to snap back like a rubber band
now candid, he picks up the stack of cards
and deals me in exactly a dealer should, in fact,
with splendid, expert, skillful tact
now with the odds, against me, stacked
I fantasize some phantom pact
a religion that could count the cards
if I just have faith in what they are
so my friend, he breathes a wordless sigh
and folds his cards without so much as blinking
but I sense his spite
while conjuring my royal flush
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Ok Housecat Nashville, Tennessee
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