Welcome to the Website of Joel Cusumano

The Internet's Jester and Clown Prince of Song

Joel Cusumano, The Internet's Jester and Clown Prince of Song

'WAXWORLD'

A1. CAESAR

Caesar’s got a crown of laurel
Caesar’s playing all the good shows

You dump your lead into me
Your arrows go right through me
Your fetial heralder
Prostrated at my altar

Caesar feels that he’s entitled
Caesar’s population riled

You pierce your lead into me
Your arrows go right through me
You roll me in the carpet
My stone god’s house has crumbled

A2. ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE

A cubit of plastic
A fix for the modern age
It comes with a filter
That you can replace
But you like the old one
They used to make
In another time and another place

There’s someone on your arm
You’re feeding her some old line
You used to mean it
Now you’re killing time
And there in your mind’s eye
A different face
From another time and another place

You spend your life looking through a dark mirror now
Well at some point, you just lost track
Can’t go back but you wanna go back

Keep pushing forward
And turning away
To another time and another place

Out at a party
Under the neon glare
Is this supposed to be fun?
Am I supposed to care?
Warm bodies are moving
But lacking the grace
Of another time and another place

Well my heart was beating
Now it just aches
For some other time and some other place

Keep pushing forward
And turning away
To another time and another place
Another time and another place

A3. MARY KATHARINE

Light hits the window
Where the curtain fell
Mary is the easter after winter nights in hell

First ray of morning
On the ecchoing green
Seven years of labor and the ghosts have fled the scene

I don't care
If my band don't go nowhere
All I want is to dazzle in the eyes
Of Mary Katharine

Words yet unspoken,
Formed of alphabet parts,
Congregate, like wax they imprint Mary on my heart

She is the deluge
Menacing the gates
She opens up her mouth to sigh out comes the month of May

I don't care
That I'm not a millionaire
All I want is to dazzle in the eyes
Of Mary Katharine

She is the deluge
At the gate

I don't care
If I'm not a millionaire
All I want is to dazzle in the eyes
Of Mary Katharine

A4. THROUGH A DARKENED GLASS

Shakedown 1998
Me younger than yesterday
Brush the dust of history
Off my shoulder
As my cup of promise
Runneth over

Oh ooh ooh
Through a darkened glass
Oh ooh ooh
Through a darkened

In the valley of the stone
Clanging cymbals ringing drones
Happy zeroes pulsing, prophesying
But the speaking water
has been siphoned


Oh ooh ooh
Through a darkened glass
Oh ooh ooh
Through a darkened

I can see it there
Sand turned to water
I see my father’s helm
And a view from a great wall

Oh ooh ooh
Through a darkened glass
Oh ooh ooh
Through a darkened glass
Oh ooh ooh
Through a darkened glass
Oh ooh ooh
Through a darkened glass
Oh ooh ooh
Through a darkened glass
Oh ooh ooh …

A5. NO HELLO

Children’s toys and silly games
The boy child sings his dumb refrain
Echo to Narcissus cries
I know you are but what am I?

Black and white school conviction
Perched upon a stylite’s column
The revolution nearly won
As soon as all the washing’s done

Stubborn afternoons in bed
Was there anything I could’ve said?
Every start’s really an end
There’s stitches where you lose the thread

The summer loves they left and came
They all spoke soft, they all had names
I screamed at night just like a child
And watched them vanish from my side

Now you ask me why
I can’t equate the stardust that illuminates your eyes
I can’t predict the motion of you to or from my side
Until the day the sun’s suspended frozen in the sky and dogs can fly
There’s no hello, ‘cause I’ve said my last goodbye

All her secrets cast in wax
Her heart under the plexiglass
I tried I tried but I fucked up
Let’s get back to the dumb chorus

The summer loves they left and came
They all spoke soft they all had names
I screamed at night ‘til I was sore
Then rearranged some major chords

Now you ask me why
I can’t equate the stardust that illuminates your eyes
I can’t predict the motion of you to or from my side
Until the day the sun’s suspended frozen in the sky and dogs can fly
There’s no hello, ‘cause I’ve said my last goodbye

A6. NINEVEH

I swore I got it right this time
On Via Atri we laughed at the purgatory shrine
Vergini outside the crypt
A woman crosses herself and tightens her lip

And you said
I want this
And you said
Don't worry
And you said
I'm making up my mind

Nineveh belly of a fish
How can I speak of The Word after going through this?

And you said
I want this
And you said
I'm sorry
And you said
I'm making up my mind

Nineveh ghost in the hall
Cheap trinkets and postcards are no love at all

A7. TWO ARROWS

Two arrows son of Venus
Two arrows tearing love apart
One set to rousing passion
The other rout it from the heart

One shot to pierce the marrow
One lover spinnig from its charms
Next lead and poison arrow
Drove his loving sweetheart from his arms

Two arrows pointed at us
The gods will slice a membrane
Just for their entertaining

Hold fast, where do you run to?
Am I the cause of your distress?
Me I’m no unkempt shepherd
You run because you know not yet

I am the lord of Claros
I see for epochs past the sun
No secret unknown to me
I know every secret but your own

Two arrows flying at us
The gods will slice a membrane
Just for their entertaining

You know I really loved you
I really touched that burning wish
I hoped for your possession
But I could not face the god and live

You ran from me like Daphne
Fear pulsing through your laurel limbs
I held you as though grains of sand
You passed through me just like the wind

Two arrows pointed at us
The gods will slice a membrane
Just for their entertaining

Two arrows flying at us
The gods will slice a membrane
Just for their entertaining

B1. PUSH PUSH

Itinerant sons of benighted scum
Push push oh ooh ooh

See the most vile at the top of the pile
Push push oh ooh ooh

For a cash count you debase yourself
Push push oh ooh ooh

Terrorvision louts empty head big mouth
Push push oh ooh ooh

Itinerant sons of benighted scum
Push push oh ooh ooh

Your silver and gold will rust you’ll choke
Push push oh ooh ooh

B2. STIGMATA

I wanna make you crawl
Burn like an aerosol
A view from the wall
Stigmata on my palm

I slaughtered all your sons
They were the lucky ones
Phoebus overrun
Can't look beyond my sun

Stigmata makes me feel
Oh ooh
Gun powder on my wheel
Oh ooh
Stigmata makes me feel
Oh ooh

I wanna make you crawl
Burn like an aerosol
I haunt the midheaven
Stigmata on my palm

Stigmata makes me feel
Oh ooh
Gun powder on my wheel
Oh ooh
Stigmata makes me feel
Oh ooh
White heat to pierce my needle
Oh ooh
Stigmata makes me feel
Oh ooh
Gun powder on my wheel
Oh ooh
Stigmata makes me feel
Oh ooh
This wound will never heal
Oh ooh

B3. THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS

Speak to me softly and speak to me true
God knows the reason for all that you do
Nothing you see is untouched by His hand
His reign is endless he reigns without end

Speak to me honest and speak to me well
God is the thing that will save you from Hell
Guiding you to the perfection of one
Leading you from the Emperor of None

Speak to me faithful and speak to me low
Here are the sheep and beside are the goats
Why should he make some to hurt just He knows
Thank Him for His grace and do what you’re told

B4. A VIEW FROM THE WALL

[Whom the fates seek, from the high watch-tower let him fall … ]

B5. MAYBE IN A DIFFERENT WORLD

Stranded in Piraea
Tracing shadows on the wall
A ringing in my head
Like vespers casting out the gulls

And I know back home they're probably
Setting out the plates
They’re rolling out a strangled bird
And wine to be abstained
Seven years a stranger
But no pearl here to claim
And I can feel her color, warmth
I hear a voice but I can't trace her shape

But maybe in a different world
Our Christmases have come
Maybe in a different world
We’re walking in the sun
Maybe in a different world
That's blue instead of grey
Maybe in a different world (x3)

Stranded in Piraea
In the hard suburban sprawl
All my little promises just
Movement of the jaw
Seven years of labor
But no eucharist offered
And I can trace the letters and the
Accents
but I cannot speak the words

Maybe in a different world
The stone’s been rolled away
Maybe in a different world
That’s blue instead of grey
Maybe in a different world
A new Jerusalem
Maybe in a different world
But not the one we're living in my friend

Maybe in a different world
I'm holding you again
Maybe in a different world
I’d be different man
Maybe in a different world
Another time and place
Where love is written on our hearts not
Trampled on and melted down in flames

Maybe in a different world …

B6. DEATH-WAX GIRL

Only love and hunger
Brought me to the world
Under bar lights chasing shadows
And the pall of memory I

Awoke in the apartment
Of the Death-Wax Girl
My mouth yearning for absorption
In her moldable smile

She said "hush" (x4)

Days we spent as strangers
On the Field of Mars
At night the candle burning
I reshaped her limbs

And no clay can match
Uncanny wax, the Death-Wax Girl
See the smile, see the color
See the likeness of the skin

She said "hush" (x4)

Television and perfume
And a bedroom built for lovers
Now become a tomb

Only love and hunger
Brought me to the world
Only eyes without perception
Teeth without a maw

And I tried to join my substance
To the Death-Wax Girl
But she melted my guts spilling
Like Zumbo's dead Gauls

She said "hush" (x4)

B7. FORMING

I put poison in my tea
I prick poppets in my sleep

Strange knots growing on the garden wall
Something tracing footprints in the hall

And it's forming
Forming without a conscience
Forming without a word
It's following ancient patterns
Something beyond absurd
Forming above the skyline
Forming below the dirt

White walls padded, lock and key
Laurel underneath my feet

Surface tension on the precipice
Black dust gathered in an evil mass

And it's forming
Forming without a conscience
Forming without a word
Following ancient patterns
Something beyond absurd
Forming above the skyline
Forming beneath the dirt
Nothing can ever stop it
Nothing can be reversed

It's forming
Forming without a warning
Forming without a word
It's following ancient patterns
Something beyond absurd
Forming above the skyline
Forming below the dirt
Nothing can ever stop it
Nothing can be preserved