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Possibilitarian Smile

by Isaac Fosl-van Wyke

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1.
Sea Legs 04:25
sew my eyelids to the storm and wait for the rains to come. stitched under your laughter, i stand heavily ever after in the blind thunderhead’s wet hum. drag my eardrums through the sand and answer the shell-phone’s ring. listening to the ocean, i think i taste your salt-emotions, and the wind fills my lungs to sing. and i sing: “the way we live along these shores is shameful and depraved. it seems like we might have missed the call,” but i don’t know… maybe we’re just drowning in denial of the waves, always wondering how we got here at all. at least i’m wondering how i got here at all. weave my limbs into the waves and swim to the rocks up ahead. listening to the seagulls whistling neither good nor evil, i just heave past the hate and dread. and from the rock i cast my grief into the sea, and wait for the bait to catch. looking at all of these nests, i know we’ve always done our best, but we must peck and peck if we expect to hatch. and maybe i’m just drifting along this fingernail of moon: that silver fish hook for the tide, but i don’t know. lately she’s been lifting up a bigger sail and soon, i’ll be floatin’ along this ocean far and wide. yeah, floatin’ along this ocean far and wide. Now let’s hear it! [storm]
2.
well, i just can’t recall: was it love made me fall? cuz i can’t even re-member how to hold you at all. though i know it’s true: i’ve been leaning on you for a lot of things. all the eggshells on the floor say: i should try and see it your way, but i can’t even re-member how i rolled throuh the doorway. but the dancing of smoke on this air that i choke on: says another thing. but for all my expectations, and my days so uneventful i’ve followed your lead just to grow so resentful. now i made up my mind: not gonna be afraid to stay behind cuz i told you not to wait for me, told you not to wait for me, and i know enough to ask it, ’least i know now ‘nough to ask it. & on my own two legs, i’ll be sure not to put my eggs all in the same one basket, the saaaame basket again can’t i anti-trust ya, mister golden blowhorn? my new nuclear family member? cuz some TV news guy is reading out the blues i came here to sing. but i read up on that wikipedia, this great big list of all the things they’re feedin ya, now which one came first, the fake news or the fake media? their eggs and their chickens are both makin me sick, and they own everything. but now he says something’s wrong in China, so i’m tryin’ to change the channel, but American Nightmares’ve been digging this tunnel right straight through my mind: pumping all of my hatred down the line. cuz they sold all of the stations to a monopoly man and he knows how to cast it, just brooooad-broadcast it now i don’t want to beg y’all, but it seems like you put your eggs all in the same one basket, the saaaame basket again now some folks of old spent their seasons in the cold painting patterns of spring on eggshells, so i’m told. it was a matter of duty to offer such beauty up to everything. now i can’t be too sure: were those my people or were they yours? but it seems safe to guess that whosoever they were, they show’d some restraint, cuz they know’d that you can’t just take everything. but the soldiers came a stompin’ to proclaim this world was lifeless, so we sold off our eggs for the privilege of whiteness, &then we made up our minds: time to leave the motherland behind. now our hearts have been crossed, and we don’t know what’s lost, but we try hard to mask it in the concrete and plastic. now the eggs are all shattered, and the vessel they’re gathered in it ain’t even a basket, no it’s not the same basket no more.
3.
you used to try when the times were hard to plant yr fingers in the yard in the hopes that feathers might grow from those hurtin’ hands. meanwhile i never found my path in spite of all that funny math tryin’ to prove i was a victim of circumstance. but you were square-rooted as me, with fallow ground from a family who could hardly notice how your heart heard the lie when they told you not to fly but to try and be a star: how bizarre! you missed the sun by a single inch and now yr cardboard wings are singed, and stranded, and stitched up with stars from the pleiades. cracked desert skin and black fray’d lace, and all of the beauty of your face, a-sparklin, pasted with the petals of peonies. your possibilitarian smile coulda swallowed me whole just to spend a little while under a leaky tin rooftop, while the sun closed her eye, wrung the clouds out to dry, and you told me of your dreams: how serene! that summer blazed away so swift, and how our friendship, it seem’d to drift, while somebody danced away his days in the undertow. that otter swam his rivers round, till one bright morning he was found: a roadside victim in a murderous puppet show. how my heart dove straight on south, when i saw he had his paw in his open mouth: he spent his last breath laughin: how the car… it seemed alive. time for work, it’s time to drive. but all the beauty that his playful soul had made: how betrayed! black highway brands on the planet’s skin, & hot death tangled up within, unsuspecting but fated as icarus. some who get burned up in this game they throw their hands up and proclaim: “i guess this whole blesséd world is too big for us!” but what do possibilitarians do? with a buncha beatin’ hearts and a song or two: under the holy ozone…? while the sun, burning bright seems to ask with her light what the world can endure while we lust for a cure to the very disease that the driver of the car never sees. but when we’re left at home to all our own devices, do we have to drive the world into a crisis? and then climb the roof and twist the weathervane? how insane!
4.
We All Go 05:34
i know this is hard, on our final night, and sunset sealed the tears inside: babe, i can see ‘em in your face! but now your dreams are forming, so i’ll see you in the morning. pray stay safe and warm inside the place… where we all go together, and we all go alone. and the voices ‘round the table call us home. tangled up in a memory, these callous’d hands of mine baby, how they long to feel your skin! much wider than forever was the net we tied together and cast into a sea where we’d never been… where we rowed that boat together, but now each rows alone. and the hands inside the waves will draw us home. lost alone one desert night, i believed my death was near. baby, he was knockin at my door! i could feel him comin’ for me in the dark all cold and stormy. and i wished that your sweet spirit could guide me t’wards… where we all go ever after: where i was gonna go alone. but the wild horse’s laughter led me home. a deep death-fear has haunted me, & it might’ve been the end of us: babe, i know you have made that case! but that fear ain’t for-giving, & it’s the same as a fear of living. now i’m preachin’ to the choir about the faith… of how we all go together, though each one goes alone. and the ghosts around the table call us home. out here, all of the ones who’ve died are as close as the constellations are. babe: it’s way bigger than me and you! in the desert, eyes are widened by the great, green-grey horizon, and the mountain crown of sky’s encircled blue… where we’ll someday fly together, into the wild winds of time, to become the blooming weather: shall we go, baby, go? together and alone? and our sep’rate grief of days’ll feed the dead, while we are able: living fed, we sing out gratefully, and our voices ‘round the table call them home.

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Stay tuned for full LP, "Underneath," coming August 2021.

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released May 1, 2021

All songs written by Isaac Fosl-van Wyke
Recorded and mixed by Jim Marlowe at End of An Ear
Mastered by Shelley Anderson at Black Lab Mastering

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Isaac Fosl-van Wyke Louisville, Kentucky

Isaac Fosl-van Wyke is a songwriter and puppeteer based out of Louisville, KY.

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