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Italian Vice

by Red Rosa

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1.
the dogs of my enemy are snapping at the heels of children playing in the street a pack of lies as bleeding meat on the slab under a knife, all treated heartless, but they say it’s ironic in their eyes everything rests on a gene, on paranoid alert corrupted from memory in forgetful hand, peddling prescription fix, bathroom cabinet yet any other is scum splash on pages like blood except their bullets are justified like the past you can’t flick away your shirts will never change colour you’re out to lunch, as always breeding webs of hate
2.
use hearing protection as the doors slide up lit as chemical glow seep through concrete the prettily sick shine of a rain soaked morning the dawn floods austere their words sliding thick you forgot how the sky fuzzed its way into the cracks of every photo the trains stream tears hallelujah screams every silent mouth in central station striped cathedral streets jangle as a maze clouds stretch industrial as the moors begin to echo
3.
Floor Show 02:11
4.
Uniform 03:54
these faces on the wall are the only ones i recognise those through the grill are spiders who trapped us i smashed the furniture with bombs and fists outside the sun stares at me borders the shadow of iron bars to get me to wear your uniform you’ll have to nail it to my back thick skin as shield for years stomach as knot they can’t break rain through the window rubber suits as if we’re ill why do i need disinfectant? i write in toothpaste bones struck, they break trees flicker as noise mouth to mouth flesh they peel off and parade as a crime what hands could we bite? what was i given? i sang the words i meant that’s all i had left
5.
i can tell you who’s going to win before the starting gun is fired trees sway like those carrying coffins at huguenot funerals on this charcoal flooded street of my birth and death which slopes as scales you will not fly your flag and they trail by 15 lengths what lets you forget can be poured into stained glass, improvised as bombs through windows, boxing is training from the tv slips insipid deadweight glittering lies which not even my corpse can balance on a raining morning favourite until the corner they’ll break your legs and lock up the playgrounds euthanised in a ditch the shovel throws dirt as i open the door early with the sun struck down rising as dying flowers
6.
standing in the ruins of another’s life and if it was all a myth then it was big enough to hide in, hallelujah just a dream which i fight for in my sleep road signs twist like pearblossom on breezes all sits in different lights as if all you ever had drained in blue and yellow tea-stained as if the trigger had been pulled before birth where the roses grow through and bodies sit oil soaked phones half off hooks rip newspaper up for letters codewords in accents standing in the ruins of another’s life and i leave flowers on their grave with every step with every step away
7.
nerves and cells imprisoned like mazes as the streets on which you were raised in the head in which you inhabited it all locked down under clouds like he said, lent back against the wall, your funeral my trial take a swig and snarl over the lip of the bottle, life behind the mask teeth grinding like bars of cages as rows and rows of houses trap you warm in their embrace never having known you that’s why i hide within my head in psychic defence to stop the past from spilling out as it’s my psychic defence walking over pictures in chalk i never did it without a reason says the cop who takes backhanders better living in my head hidden in the dark i act as if beaten i did it for the ones i never knew and in my head i did everything right that’s why i hide within my head in psychic defence to stop the past from spilling out as it’s my psychic defence walking over pictures of chalk
8.
Morning comes as a sparrow flies wish I owned one I've got to do something today Someone wrote on the rug again Consequences of Industry You're not as old as you thought you were The very worst poet of all At least there's that mark on your shoe It's not piss it's dew Drive a circus on a whim At a supermarket lighting rig You can stop screaming now He's pretending to drown On bikes laughing at the night once again and Migration for your mind to wander You're a headache in that wine There's no time, there's no time there's no time Point sticking around, when you're lying in glue But it's burning into you The tongue bites into the flesh Not much to say about language The newspaper blinds your eyes Still it lets in light There's writing for the wall Done by a kid in confidence Carving out a hole for yourself Which we might all die in Sleep soundly at night In the morning making eyes
9.
Avenues i was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead the petals split and die their sweat dries up the gates high and inviting vines twist from stone faces camera skips orange like trains collapse as bricks (chorus) but i couldn’t tell you why but i couldn’t tell you why i leave their words like flowers they stay drying for hours it’s just something that grows twists through bars of the cage blurred in smoke and rain from the places we came i was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead and i leave flowers at all the graves even if they die eventually
10.
and i knew less then but i found what i never lost who would care about tomorrow when all there is is yesterday i’ve been here before as the grass bleaches easy as sand from timer the light drips from fading fingers figures now as paint splatter as leaves drifting from the rain and concrete to their own burning end i never lost it it will never lie sleeping draped in fading orange shadows hazard-striped are a burial shroud of chemical soaked denim into sunset they flew nervous half-light which could never end the wheels came off turning the final corner i never lost it it will never lie sleeping the cradle slows in the heat as the lock clicks shut they’re all ghosts now there’s nothing left to find

credits

released July 28, 2017

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Red Rosa London, UK

A post-punk band from South London.

Thomas Whittaker
Ben Tudor
Edward Wilson

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