To And From The Afterlife

by mark bingham

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1.
mark bingham - Brahms All Nite 04:33
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Raymond took an axe, an axe to the coffin Splintering wood all over the deceased Raymond drank a 2 litter bottle of Sprite pissed himself and fell asleep Raymond never got used to the night shift it wasn't fit for his body or mind he liked the sunrise in the morning not dead tired after work there was never a good solution/ jobs being hard to find the solitude carried him through the peace of the dead and the manicured lawns the lights of the 7/11 4 blocks away were Raymond's only signs of the living behind the walls of the Hillside Mortuary One night on the way to work, Raymond stopped at the donut hole a woman sat down next to him stirred her coffee with a straw their eyes met, she smiled , then she looked back into her coffee Raymond thought about her all that night dreamed of her while he slept through the day woke up in a good mood, exercised, shaved and put on new boxers fussed with his hair Raymond went back to the donut hole to see if she was there a long shot but it was all he had this routine went on for a week raymond knew she was a sign from God / a reason to believe a ray of light, from a casual smile he just knew she'd be back to see him but she never came back for donuts/ still his mood stayed elevated, he wiped the walls/ he swept the floors/ he vacuumed one night as he checked the bodies - new arrivals of the day he saw her staring back at him, this time she couldn't look away so he left her to do whatever /the deceased do in their spare time and he checked the records, her name was Grace/ born in 1969 2 years younger than Raymond, a mouth like a freshwater bass Raymond lay down beside her, went to sleep with his hand on her ass Raymond took an axe, an axe to the coffin
2.
High Purpose 03:30
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I didn't think much about living a double life, I just lived it didn't mind my own contradictions Now I hurt in every place that you ever touched me then I get better. simple pain with no high purpose who gets a contract for love ? bones to scrape , meat to shred ? oh yea, it gets better find some boy that burns out the pain I am drunk on sobriety drunk on belief drunk on faith and unified eternity in relief I am drunk on notoriety. drunk on grief and disbelief no unified eternity I am drunk on beauty and I see the sky with no high purpose
3.
Soon One Morning 04:49
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soon one morning death comes creeping in my room soon one morning death comes creeping in my room soon one morning death comes creeping in my room these are dangerous times I'll say nothing - boom boom death came looking, took my mother and moved on death came looking, took my mother and moved on death came looking, took my mother and moved on these are dangerous times, i'll say nothing and be gone death has left me, left me a motherless child death has left me, left me a motherless child death has left me, left me a motherless child these are dangerous times, I'll say nothing face my soles to the north turn my bed around/ face my head to the south/magnetize /hypnotize. no victory, no revenge, a wilderness of sweets, the sum of earthly bliss
4.
Ancient Days 04:29
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I said in my haste   all men are liars oh keep my tongue from evil in these ancient days old men will dream of ruins the young men cut the wires let your heart not be troubled through these ancient days I will consider the lilies of the field the soil in which we toil  I will not turn wide is the gate that needs no introduction in these ancient days the wages of sin  I don't know what that means unseen and eternal is still a labor of love (labor of love) my charity covers a multitude of hate like drops of holy water in these ancient days tired of praising famous men tired of  laughing to scorn drawing in the common air crows cawing on the fence post my broken spirit  my contrite heart my sins are forgiven my love bears all things, all things my enemies lick the dust /with Sheb Wooley in "High Noon" Karl Malden on the waterfront/molecules of love in these ancient days In these ancient days
5.
Hadda Be Playing On The Jukebox 06:16
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Hadda Be Playing On The Jukebox words / Allen Ginsberg It had to be flashin’ like the daily double It had to be playin’ on TV It had to be loud mouthed on the comedy hour It had to be announced over loud speakers The CIA and the Mafia are in cahoots It had to be said in old ladies’ language It had to be said in American headlines Kennedy stretched and smiled and got double crossed by lowlife goons and agents Rich bankers with criminal connections Dope pushers in CIA working with dope pushers from Cuba working with a big time syndicate from Tampa, Florida And it had to be said with a big mouth It had to be moaned over factory foghorns It had to be chattered on car radio news broadcasts It had to be screamed in the kitchen It had to be yelled in the basement where uncles were fighting It had to be howled on the streets by newsboys to bus conductors It had to be foghorned into New York harbor It had to echo onto hard hats It had to turn up the volume in university ballrooms It had to be written in library books, footnoted It had to be in the headlines of the Times and Le Monde It had to be barked on TV It had to be heard in alleys through ballroom doors It had to be played on wire services It had to be bells ringing Comedians stopped dead in the middle of a joke in Las Vegas It had to be FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and Frank Costello syndicate mouthpiece meeting in Central Park, New York weekends, reported Time magazine It had to be the Mafia and the CIA together starting war on Cuba, Bay of Pigs and poison assassination headlines It had to be dope cops in the Mafia Who sold all their heroin in America It had to be the FBI and organized crime working together in cahoots against the commies It had to be ringing on multinational cash registers A world-wide laundry for organized criminal money It had to be the CIA and the Mafia and the FBI together They were bigger than Nixon And they were bigger than war It had to be a large room full of murder It had to be a mounted ass- a solid mass of rage A red hot pen A scream in the back of the throat It had to be a kid that can breathe It had to be in Rockefellers’ mouth It had to be central intelligence, the family, allofthis, the agency Mafia It had to be organized crime One big set of gangs working together in cahoots Hitmen Murderers everywhere The secret The drunk The brutal The dirty rich On top of a slag heap of prisons Industrial cancer Plutonium smog Garbage cities Grandmas’ bed soft from fathers’ resentment It had to be the rulers They wanted law and order And they got rich on wanting protection for the status quo They wanted junkies They wanted Attica They wanted Kent State They wanted war in Indochina It had to be the CIA and the Mafia and the FBI Multinational capitalists Strong armed squads Private detective agencies for the rich And their armies and navies and their air force bombing planes It had to be capitalism The vortex of this rage This competition Man to man The horses head in a capitalists’ bed The Cuban turf It rumbles in hitmen And gang wars across oceans Bombing Cambodia settled the score when Soviet pilots manned Egyptian fighter planes Chiles’ red democracy Bumped off with White House pots and pans A warning to Mediterranean governments The secret police have been embraced for decades The NKPD and CIA keep each other’s secrets The OGBU and DIA never hit their own The KGB and the FBI are one mind Brute force and full of money Brute force, world-wide, and full of money Brute force, world-wide, and full of money Brute force, world-wide, and full of money Brute force, world-wide, and full of money It had to be rich and it had to be powerful They had to murder in Indonesia 500000 They had to murder in Indochina 2000000 They had to murder in Czechoslovakia They had to murder in Chile They had to murder in Russia And they had to murder in America
6.
Landry's Wake 07:07
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Tim Landry lived on Patin Road in Henderson LA His voice was so refined… Music took him round the world But Tim was given to the tipplin' way. With a love of liquor Tim was born Tim went speeding through each day with a drop of the creature every morn One mornin' Tim was so hungover just getting up was a big mistake He fell from a ladder and broke his skull And they carried him home his corpse to wake. Spin em round dance with your partner Burn the fire til your trotters shake. Wasn't it the truth I told you ? Lots of fun at Landry’s Wake They wrapped him up in a nice clean sheet And laid him out across the bed, crystal meth up his nose And a barrel of whiskey at his head. Cissy Landry fixed the plates but no touched the food A band was set up in the corner all complaining about the drummer Fontenot began to cry “ such a clean corpse, did you ever see ?” "Oh, Tim, why did you have to die?” "Ah, shut your gob" said Fred Dupuis. Maggie Courville said out loud , “it shoulda been you Allemond” then Huval bashed her in the gob, knocked her to the floor . Then the Landry war was on for real. Woman to woman and man to man, Pipes and bats, AK- 15s The row and the ruckus on Patin Rd Stinky Hebert ducked his head when a flagon of whiskey flew at him. It missed, and fallin' on the bed, the liquor splashed all over Tim Now Tim revives, see how he rises Tim is rising from the bed Tequila shots for everyone Sweet Jesus did ya think I'm dead? Under the great green oak tree Tim and the mourners drank til dawn All the tears turned into roses Bodies sleeping on the lawn In the morning the house was empty No furniture or tools Stripped of copper stripped of wood No silverware or guns Last seen in Catahoula, Allemond disappeared Cissy Landry had her fill , she left Tim and moved away Stinky Hebert went to prison but the stories never stopped Levee rats one and all, witness to a miracle They tell stories about me around kitchen tables Around fires they whisper The children are afraid but I would never hurt them They know I walk amongst them wearing clothes made in China Wearing boots from Vietnam The dogs in the swamp can feel me They whimper but I would not hurt them I comfort a poor dog running on a chain she stops barking and licks my hands Boats pull up ,cargo loaded, I stay hidden I can see their guns. They are afraid They tell stories about me around kitchen tables Around fires they whisper, The children are afraid but I would never hurt them They know I walk amongst them The dogs are not afraid, they know I would not hurt them
7.
All Roses 03:33
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roomfull of flowers. all roses. somebody passed. someone got married.
8.
To And from The Afterlife 07:20
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To And From The Afterlife. Words by Brad Elliot with additional text by Mark Bingham I dont mind the black smog in the open market we were looking for a place to eat we found a side alley filled with smoke. the smell of human flesh, carne asada and chorizo on the grill. look out over the ruins spread across the mountaintops. The murals are beautiful and the skulls are made of sugar and coffee . beer and weed to drink and smoke on your long journey to and from the afterlife I dont mind that I thought god would protect you when everyone else was exploiting you. I dont mind that i dont give a higgs boson about any gods. I dont mind that you tried to save a rabbit and it bit you . I dont mind that you got a tetanus shot . I dont mind that you didn't tell the doctor what other meds you were on. I dont mind that the tetanus shot didn’t work with your medication and you had a seizure. I dont mind that you sat watching tv for 3 months until they turned off the power. I dont mind you wanted the police to carry you out in your recliner. I dont mind that you captured the event on your i phone. I dont mind that you took care of a raccoon who knew how to work window locks, take the lids off jars and get into the kitchen cabinets. I dont mind that the raccoon ate all the hippie food that no one else would touch. I don’t mind your ex calling and asking for beer and rent money. I don’t mind you having pictures of your ex lovers in the bedroom . I don’t mind that you never have any money for us. and I don’t mind that I pay for everything. and I don’t mind that at age 43 you still live with your mother and your father and your daughter and that your still married to your second husband . I don’t mind that you kiss boys and girls and flaunt it in front of your daughter. I don’t mind that your daughter is a beautiful spoiled brat who always gets her way and throws temper tantrums in public places. I don’t mind that your ex that you're still married to lives for porn and sends you 10 hot e mails every day , which you forward to me . I don’t mind that you’ve had 60 different lovers from Lubbock to Slidell. I thought everything was OK. I dont mind when you tell me men are not the answer even as your devour them and burp them up in mid sentence. I dont mind when you tell me what you've learned from men is that you've learned nothing from men. I dont mind that you think men are spoiled, deluded and incapable of sane actions. This is our world. Made by men. I dont mind that your shame comes from using people. I dont mind that you take in 16 year old runaways too drunk to say no and all too ready for their Kerouac moment with angel Mommy. I dont mind that you feed them breakfast and give them manicures before sending them away - backpacks bulging with vienna sausages and chili weenies. So burn the incense and eat the bread of the dead . all the ingredients are assembled place the fruit and plates and candles and flower petals for the souls of the dead to follow you home. It will be beautiful. the black smog over Los Angeles. looking for a place to eat we found a side alley filled with smoke. the smell of lavender, carne asada and roasting red peppers . look out over the ruins spread around the freeways . The murals are beautiful and the skulls are made of sugar and coffee . beer and weed to drink and smoke on your long journey to and from the afterlife.
9.
Coney Island Evacuational 03:38
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coney island evacuational by Raymond "moose' Jackson i handed it off to jeffery who was busy making parallels between a dark-frocked flock of jewish mothers and daughters and a small flock of gulls all facing the same direction with the dry sand blowing over the wet until we had a beach over a beach and i thought, goddamn they don't make brothers like this anymore he was the captain, then those were his rocks, his waves but the moaning ferris wheel belonged to me and the whole abandoned kingdom of wooden horses trains twisting into the sky coffers full of cotton candy a damned beautiful and useless mess we eyed each other with more than a little weariness we both knew he would blow me away would wear away all my rhinestones and carny paint my perfect, pastel poseidon even my tilt-a-whirl all these he would take from me but his eternity would be an endless horizon of sorrow after i was gone and he might have the gulls and the old jewish mothers but he'd never see a little girl again i mean, not truly they're only like that when their faces are sticky with cotton candy and theyre screamin' happy with both their hands and their skirts up and how was he going to pull that one off? with a hurricane? i'd seen his hurricanes and nobody screamed for joy a lot of 'em just up and died if you want to know the truth you might think i'd be mad mad at the stupid inevitable loss of it all tho' i suppose it was avoidable but i just feel sorry for him it's not his fault it's me and mine it's the way we went about it we threw the whole damn game for beauty we let the bastards build our ruin right into the foundation because we needed tragedy and decay to hit that perfect fucking patina that only lasts a couple of years and you can only see it on cold days in march anyways but we were there for it we shared a bottle of sasparilla and he let me pour out my heart knowing that my time was short; i was going back into everything soon enough there wasn't much for him to say about it, i guess nothing that he wouldn't be washing all over the rocks and beaches of the world for the next million years or whatever until he dries up in the sun and then it'll be the sun's turn to cry old as he is, i know he's never lost a friend like that i let jeffery lean on me (we were both tired of loving and losing) as we pulled away from coney island where jewish ladies flap out over the surf and even the pigeons ride the subway
10.
Two Crested Caracaras 06:06
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two crested caracaras shore birds and waders move across the sky from Hackberry Ridge to Johnson's Bayou Cows in a pasture in the rain off highway 14 they chew their grass and hay 2 crested caracaras flew by the house today but I do not believe their wings I do not believe their wings we watched for hours as the skies grew dark with birds we knew our place on this green earth The gulf is quiet for another few months the cane is in the fields with water, grass and hay 2 crested caracaras flew by the house today but I do not believe their wings I do not believe their wings Black vultures flew around the car as if they were looking for you I searched the fields and pastures until dark skulking warblers flew out of the brush whether hurricanes come or all stays calm the stars are visible tonight I can look up i can look back I can do what's right and I know what I must do morning doves sing of what might have been brown pelicans are watching me. at east jetty beach the gulf is quiet I know it's just wait and see til we can laugh and play 2 created caracaras flew by the house today
11.
O'Neill's Lament 04:27
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o'neil's lament words by Raymond "Moose" jackson burn these ideas in the flames of a pagan's new year when chickens roost in natted hair and drunks slide in time on steely strings and the stars trickle down on us twinkle in empty bottles not a snowflake's chance of salvation 'round here it's a ninth-hell effigy it's a crossdressing ballgown its a hobo lovin' bookworm what makes the bones of family hope comes on whiskied wings Recognition is born on the neutral ground we will wake to bulldozer's bull's-eyes and FEMA will pick the scab of our poverty i am not all right but i'm upright and i'm here a warm body clinking glasses with the dead when they pass around the bowl of dreams you will see that overwhelmingly the majority of images have been imagined by us wildcrafted by a people that can't hold onto anything not tied to our belt loops and if you dip into this bowl a puff of cloud, you will be party to a tribe of lost nomads no field to season no flock to shepherd drunk and dumbstruck in the rain i am not all right but i'm upright because dying of a broken heart is no longer an option these stars we been admiring were originally laid for coyotes who shared with us tufts of their ruff in payment for our diligent sins they howl for us in Saturn in tune with the ghost of the strongman howl for the passing of wonder wail for the empty dream bowl o'neil warned you but you wouldn't listen the devil be watchin' and waitin' and now the water's receded and the stars are shinin' still but those flames lick up 'round this plane of existence and the cock has crowed threefold for the traitors in our midst and all the drunks in unison poured their drinks upon the ground and the cops made a raid on the mausoleum charged the dead with disturbing the peace i am not all right but i'm upright because i was there for the last trumpet call i saw the last strap fall from the shoulder of the stripper who stayed when the sirens lay dead silence. a quiet night but progress for the city of sinners comes on waves like sympathy from the undulating throats of coyotes lay me down no longer upright but alright; we riff-raff all come home to roost in saturn 'neath the watchful glance of the strongman
12.
Bound For The Promised Land 04:53
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On the banks of the wide Missouri I stand and cast a wishful eye To Louisiana's fair and happy land where my possessions lie I am bound for the promised land I am bound for the promised land oh who will come and go with me ? I am bound for the promised land oh the demons watch as I load my barge I keep them in my sight the sweet fields arrayed in living green and rivers of delight generous fruits that will not fail on trees immortal grow swamps and rocks and fields of cane where beer and money flow soon will the lord my soul prepare for joys beyond the skies where never ending pleasure rolls and praises never die. I am bound for the promised land I am bound for the promised land oh who will come and go with me ? I am bound for the promised land

about

A compilation of songs and pieces, storytelling, spoken word, rants and laments with death as the overall theme. featuring poets Allen Ginsberg and Raymond "moose" Jackson. Storytelling, Ginsbergian rage rock, decompose the classics, Psychedelic Guitar Stranglers, Finnegan's Wake revisited , More Art Damaged Uncategorizeable Alleged Music , SEEDY ELECTRO pop, Small Orchestra w spoken word, shaggy dog stories

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released February 12, 2023

produced by mark bingham except for "Hadda Be Playing On the jukebox produced by Hal Willner

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mark bingham New Orleans, Louisiana

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