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Allegoria

by Melanie A. Davis

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1.
Gallowman 03:54
The gallowman is coming, I’ve seen him on cable TV. Folks had started running, but there’s tripwire in the streets. I got a man that says he don’t want me - but that I’d die before he’d let me walk away free. The world is ending, but we’re fine with just pretending that the problem’s to be fixed another time. Orwellian nightmares, gilded in gold - keep your eyes on your paper, and do as your told. Somewhere in the fuss, I’d gotten old. Woke up in the evening scared to leave my front door. Sorry way of being, an apathetic feeling that there’s nothing we can do anymore. The lie we’ve been fed of a dream reappears, abiding by the parameters of fading frontiers. The world is ending but we’re fine with just pretending that the problem’s to be fixed another time. Orwellian nightmares, gilded in gold - keep your eyes on your paper, and do as your told. Somewhere in the fuss, I’d gotten old. The world is ending so I’m told. She keeps descending into quicksand made of marigolds, but I won’t see the empire fall, for I am now too old to pave a way, to care at all, the corn’s still growing but the farm is sold.
2.
I got a lot going on in my head like, would I really be better off dead? Or was that just something cool I said? Is the depressing isolation all a part of the cause? Just a backlit distraction from the lion’s claws? More preventative measures for making sure our brains don’t thaw? And you’re just as scared as me, you say, and all we can do is hope and pray, but I called God - he had moved away. Paper dolls thrown in the trash, you wanna leave? So make it fast. Blowout the last cigarette ash. I got a lot going on in my brain, wondering if this is what it’s like to go insane. So the Midwest’s not the best for working on emotional range. Are we doomed as a species to just wander lost? Had some finer greater purpose, but we just forgot? Time to clear your head darlin’, your favorite TV show is on. Masses of people torn apart, convinced they work in affairs of the heart turning chemical deficits into art. But that’s not what you meant, you said, as you lay down in your little bed, but you think to yourself, maybe this is for the best?
3.
Sisters 04:02
My sisters and mothers from the times before the stars shadowed my eyes call back to me through highways of nerves that plug into the back of my mind. I find it’s getting worse with the times, don’t you? Just blind enough to blame it on a shadow in the dark or two? They’ll string us up to pillars, muscle statuettes. Medusas and Madonnas, cat-eyed darkness feared by men. The first sin, us and them, the debt of Eden’s crime only just began. Covered up her mouth with a filthy, shaking hand. So they douse our feet in pious flames that writhe and burn and wrap around the name of these Magdalenic monsters to be tamed. They burned them up and still, they wanted more. No godly love raised marks upon the door of any actor who forgot what her part was for. And I know it’s probably met with greater ease if I could simply ignore our tattered tapestry, spraypainted over, her golden edges torn. No more would the giver of life cede to those who take. Imploring their importance to an audience of ears that ache. I’ve found the story sweeter said by those who get to taste the blood-soaked glory. Rich, predatory, stealing space. Till our time I fight, taking back my whole life - not one night. Back without a smile, just for my own spite So they douse our feet in pious flames that writhe and burn and wrap around the name of these Magdalenic monsters to be tamed. A million dead and still, they come for more. They don’t crave our flesh, no, they just crave the war on any actor who forgot what her part was for.
4.
Important 04:19
There once was a man all alone in his own little world, sat upon his throne of diamonds and pearls picked up when the ocean bed was dried up and left for dead, little, dusty swirls. I’m very important, have you noticed? Gonna have to import some focus on me cause I cannot survive without the wandering eye of general publicity. On my planet of one, am I having fun yet? Didn’t know what to do but it looked so shiny and new so I placed my bets, my bets on you. I’m the greatest, I’m the best, I would know cause I washed out all the rest. It only goes to show how far a loan can go. And aren’t you proud of me, Ma? I got up here and I killed ‘em all. But the money doesn’t go down as smooth in my throat but at least, but at least, but at least, but at least I’m important. The little man sits alone on his chair all day wondering through the haze how it got that way Counting the stars each night, hoping that he just might buy one or two if the price is right. I’m very important, have I told you? Biggest cock of the walk, biggest heart, too. Although the lack of competition might seem like a submission, even I can beat all this decomposition On my planet of one, am I having fun yet? Didn’t know what to do but it looked so shiny and new. so I placed my bets, my bets, on you. I’m the greatest, I’m the best, I would know cause I washed out all the rest. It only goes to show how far a loan can go. And aren’t you proud of me, Ma? I got up here and I killed ‘em all, but the money doesn’t taste as good now deep in my throat. But at least, but at least, but at least, but at least I’m important.
5.
Bring me your mothers and daughters, your sisters and your sons. Your broken and disheartened or the ones we can outrun. I don’t really care, do you? Seems too plebeian to do when every single move I make is for the sake of you-know-who. My pockets are heavy, my heart is gone. Ain’t no Jesus to tell me I’m wrong. Just a couple of roadblocks that this old tank can take. Soundproof the glass to keep it all in, and blame our family for modern sin. I turn the TV off cause I know all of it is fake, I see what I wanna see, and that’s more than enough for me. Bring me the sick and the damned, the worthless and/or the poor. I’m a Slovenian-American dream, a queen’s crown on the head of a whore. But I don’t really care, do you? And after all that you’ve been through, I’d say it’s in your right to put up a fight for the good red, white, and blue. My Spade bag won’t fit my AR-12. I saw the devil walk out of hell and into the arms of a country eager to please the rich and the beautiful, stupid and vague - pretending not to care is the latest craze, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Oh, no, you could never be me - hell, I don’t know if I’d even wanna be me. Bring me the bloodlines of the white knights and the crusades, oh, I bet good ol’ Jesus could turn his cheek to a righteously pointed blade. I don’t really care though, do you? I’ll leave the mote in your eye too, so maybe that way neither one of us will know what the fuck the other’s up to. Standing inside a pool of blood, I opened the gate, I didn’t start the flood. People would pay a fine price for the red on your soul. Fireworks all turned into duds, ninety degree dives down into the mud that’s scattered with six foot by six foot holes. If there’s a god, just maybe the sea could melt up enough to swallow you and me.
6.
Did you see what they said? The news is spewing fire and integrity is dead. We are alone in the dark, too afraid to depart from the comfort of our heads. Don’t tell me you’re afraid. Without the distance there I cannot accurately gauge my empathy towards you or my desire to care. It’s nothing against you, but I got my own to bear. God bless America today, I guess we were just hopeless either way. I just wanted something I could maybe believe in, but what do I know? I’m only a heathen. A hedonistic witness to an unforgiving sickness we love. So I sacrifice my hands to those better suited to know the things I can’t. The camera’s on, the lights are red. Only static in my head, but damn, don’t I feel like a new man. Could you listen to me better? Could you somehow just forget her? If I took my words and paint them red, just like the ones that Jesus said, would you hear me better? God bless America today, I guess we were just fucked up either way. I just wanted something I could maybe believe in, but what do I know? I’m only a heathen. A hedonistic witness to an unforgiving sickness we love.
7.
Sophie 02:12
Such a fine and sunny day, and I must go. Doesn’t matter anyway, this I now know. The blue skies are free to take me cause I think I prefer to be free. The government, she’s scaring me, and I must leave. She got too big for the shoes she picked and forgot the powers that be. Another prize of man’s design that will lead to his demise every time. Such a fine and sunny day, and I must be gone. Turning my back on a life that’s gray, yes, it’s time for me to move on. Remember me as they’d have me be: another fruit to add to their hanging tree.
8.
Mojo 03:16
Songbird to the lost and wild, father to a wandering child. Propagandic savior of the human race and proprietor of our disgrace. Tell us Simon, where have you been? Does the dust taste better washed down with gin? Tell us Simon, where have you been? My legs are getting heavy holding all this sin. You took your journey to the bottom of a pot of gold. The world keeps on turning, but you don’t know how you got so old. Not even the city of lights could keep away the dark, cold nights. Save yourself for somewhere later down the road. Tell us Simon, where have you been? Does the dust taste better washed down with gin? Tell us Simon, where have you been? My legs are getting heavy holding all this in. Take your shoulders, hardened skin. Your love transforms you where the blades might’ve been. Just another year older, ‘nother year colder, close your eyes and ease your mind. What’s the last thing you told her, poetic soldier? No more a slave to terrestrial ties.
9.
Moonbath 03:14
I’m bathing my skin within the moonbeams crawling down the hill. The call of dusk begins to rise up, sweet and shrill. How I long to be a part of me I haven’t met yet - a thrown out scene missing its regret. I turned my wheel fifty times now wondering just how a bend in the road could last for miles. Turning back and shaking hands with myself, sneaking in reruns as I am allowed. How I long to be a part of me I haven’t tried yet, a calmer sea locking hands with a sunset. So I find you in the outline of shadows before me, creating your frame in a carefully planned out memory, tracing the veins of the night for a sound of your name, watching the stars wake up and blink slow and plain. Yes, I long to be a part of me you haven’t seen yet, a clearer mind more apt to forget a wrong placement, a wrinkle of cloth - till I can’t recall what it is I wanted to say I forgot or what I was not.
10.
Memory 03:47
The closest thing to heaven or hell is the feeling I get when you tell of me. The roots of the willow trees nudge me softly out of my sleep so I can look upon your memory and weep for you, with you, for me. If you could, I’d like a fall one when the red sun’s just a hint of warm. When the homespun joys watered down the poison at our back doors. If at all you choose to keep anything, let it be the way I speak to you. Don’t let my voice get weak, unable to greet your conscience once more. The closest thing to heaven or hell is the feeling I get when you tell of me. The roots of the willow trees nudge me softly out of my sleep so I can look upon your memory and weep for you, with you, for me. I don’t need no idols, and I do well without beads. I find it feels better to lie between the heather and weeds. My soul would climb up a dandelion puff and catch the wind somewhere - Leave the granite alone, don’t you look for my bones, they’re not there. Because the closest thing to heaven or hell is the feeling I get when you tell of me. The roots of the willow trees nudge me softly out of my sleep so I can look upon your memory and weep.
11.
Lazarus 03:19
Watch me as I arise out of the flames before your very eyes! Kick dust off of my feet as I turn to meet the miracle that’s me. Life imitates art, but art imitates death, and here I am in the middle. A phoenix rising over the ash, a knobby-kneed foal of a pistol. And the murmur never bothered me, in fact, I liked it better that way. And they’ll give you gold up to your teeth if you can push their own dark away. So watch me as I arise out of the flames before your very eyes! Kick the dust off of my feet as I turn to meet the miracle that’s me. You know I’ve done this all before, another time or two or more. The main event’s on deck, get your ticket at the door, what’re you waiting for? It’s just the theatre of it all - not as impressive if you stay. See, every man has his call, and I think mine’s to beat my grave, oh yes, I do. And well, the murmur never bothered me, in fact, I liked it better that way. And they’ll give you golf up to your teeth if you can push their own dark away. So watch me as I arise out of the flames before your very eyes. Kick the dust off of my feet as I turn to meet the miracle that’s me. You know I’ve done this all before, another time and I won’t care. I just let down my red hair and I eat the men like air.

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released January 24, 2020

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Melanie A. Davis Murray, Kentucky

Singer-songwriter from western Kentucky. I sing about me, you, us, and the wild weird world we're currently living in.

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