Lullaby No. 14 - The City Your Soul

The constellations cast a glance

With eyes seeking the primordial

A human connection pre-language

The silence settled for all

The city sighed in the relief of an existence

The backdrop of an image-conscious excitement

Always moving forward

Yet that always fell short

That became a bottomless hole

The walls of the abyss

In real concrete

The only pull the waves of traffic

That grudgingly carried you home

And kept the silence

Of a mind brimming with expression

Cover the slits

With droning motion

Each passing scene

The capitalization of some once artistic dream

Dehumanized and lost again

The authentic let itself go

And the want became sufficient

So long as you believed yourself true

So it was

Despite your economy

And even in threatening the authenticity of your very existence

The city your soul

Was your persona that breathed in your heart

And even as you let it go

As you let yourself

The walls that stood in concrete reality

Vanished in pure concept

All that was left was still the dream you'd always held

And the nostalgia walked fast

Like it was a preconceived idea

That had merely always been waiting

In the hollow thoughts between the stop and go

The farewell had been rehearsed in countless repetitive silences

And so it just rolled off the tongue

Even as a foreign language

Deja vu au courant

Your departure was already seen in the current fashion

Your existence in the city of dreams

Was nothing new under the sun

A long shadow in the evening

For your beautiful son was born here

The walls echoing your soul

Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 13 – Homecoming

The midnight river sought its way back home

After her banks had left him in the dark

The midnight had left the river blind

And relics of the past came riding forth

The world was a great illusion

Where the meaning of things

Was hidden in the appearance

Of things

And the great machine

Opened its jaws to take you in

And you were riding down the river blind

The cool midnight air

Glistened in the moist pores

Of your naked skin

You were taking the river downstream

To the mouth of the great sea

That would release you from the earthen grip

This midnight era that man has dawned

In the meticulous retention of dear Reason

The grip of night as she released the sun

You were nude and porous

And tied to the river current

By strands of starlight

That shone you forth

On through the midnight air

Like a soldier you were stone

Expressionless and anticipatory

That the great illusion of the world

Would sweetly carry you home

And lay you bare to rest

Settle your longing bones

Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 12 – Identity

A lasting Word fell from the sky

And landed in my voice

I screamed aloud

As it tore through the white noise

That's left me quiet

The winds

Their howls

They have all been put down

They left me in the silence

No rasp

No voice

I'm always in this stillness

In the echo of my soul

And in the silence

I can hear my voice sing

I tried to find the Words

But then I stopped and I fell silent

So silence I became

The winds

Their howls

They have all been put down

They left me in the silence

No rasp

No voice

I'm always in this stillness

In the echo of my soul

I took the Word from the sky

And then I wrote a song

I knew that somehow

I could find my voice

But then I heard the sky falling

It was silent too

So I stayed in the silence

True

The winds

Their howls

They have all been put down

They left me in the silence

No rasp

No voice

I'm always in this stillness

In the echo of my soul

Inspired by “Cosmic Love” by FLORENCE + THE MACHINE

Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 11 – From Paris

The violin resounded in the lavatory

Looping from the descendant moment

Déjà vu au courant

The common object of your intellect

A readymade concept

Recurring in the drifting of your thoughts

Through sleep

Across worlds

Into dreams

Ever farther from the common point

To the next arrondissement

The center always slipping away

As you were always moving forward

The metaphor of an incessant redundancy

In the digitalization of your experience

What became the soul of your Reason

The rationalist’s empty throes

Resided

As they became known to thyself

’Las there was no more

A mathematic of identity

Your shadows that hung over you

In every waking moment

Sleep forevermore


Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 10 – Roaches

August, New York

She closed

Curtains of rain

Swept under the bridge

That brought your thoughts

Back to the concrete

Brittle yet firm

An advertisement of your freedom

Captured in the late evening glow

Over the hum of the freeway

That beckoned you once more

On the road again

Forevermore

The memories swelled in the narrow

Passage of the moment

Sought to reform upon the other side

Always swimming toward

An angel’s landing cascading through

The river valley

Where the shadow of new life

Stood before

Enveloped the old deaths and rebirths

Just a brim of light remained

To savor the sweet life

A bon vivant

Designing thy consciousness

To empty of itself

Lest your only conversation

Was the brim of memories

Held behind the levee

Of futures yet unknown

But tabled still

In a relief of soul

The bountiful echo of the universe

Resounding in your latent thoughts

Even your repetition

Lost its resonance

A formulaic awareness

Became privy of itself

At the expense of effectiveness

While the formula carried on

An empty rote

Day in and day out

A freedom paying homage

To its walls

The streets of its home

Where roaches lived

In the black shoes

That scurried like the dancer’s step

Whom carried them

Through many lives

In just one stride

Along the silent sidewalk

Grated like chalk ill drawn

On the board

For the child to discern

Your inner child wanted only

To reimagine yourself

A new and improved identity

Transcendent of the humble appreciation

Of truths like consumerism

Like the dismal science

Echoing throughout the pressure

Growing in your waxy ears

As you climbed to greater heights

Molded by the wisdom of the market

A freedom that showed itself

Only in the darkness of the night

Like roaches

Scurried back into their holes

Once the light was shone

And left the appearance of

Freedom

You see the paradox we’ve drawn

You see now the mask of the truth

The clash of transience and permanence

For no wisdom speaks of absolutes

The only truth that which is free

To reimagine itself

Like a child born again

I stood outside the brick conduit

Where a hollow bass

Carried us through dawn

Our dog sniffed at the foot of the stairs

For the footprints of those burnt out

Blaze up the night

In a comatose drum

The street was soot

In the residue of oil

The light changed for no one to come

The restaurant let itself of the vultures

Who waited on our stoop

Who listened to the drunken voices

Singing Latin music on the corner

Who spoke themselves mad at times

And boded of the short walk

To the freeway

Carry us home

Where life is a free trade

That may always run no risk

Deliver the blessing of perfect love

A stone cleansed of its impurities

Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 9 – Love (The Ninth Symphony)

AUGUST NEW YORK

She stood before us

An omen of perfect love

A still silence protruded

From memories

Of a northern Californian lake

At high dusk

Pristine

The waters stood still

As they watched the moon

Shine in full, true fashion

All her pores to be seen

Though covered in a pale

Post-evening glow

The night’s serenity

Veiled in the psychology

Of always moving forward

Of clearing out the space

Depositing the dusts

Of memories

In an old eastern bloc

On Newton Creek

The heavy gray drabs

Forlorn like the moon

Though the glow of Reason

Outshone

And covered the memories

In clouds and air

To keep the intellect light

Behold what stood before us

The beauty pure and pressed

Drink from glasses

Made of air

The wine of poetry well kept

Well buried in the heart

The cellar of our souls

Where emotion ages something fine

Flashing omens in the sky

Like a mirror of the mind

Inverted day in and day out

The journey never ends

And love opens the heart

A dance with the white rabbit

Who looks upon the hill

Just north of the Conservatory Water

Near the Children’s Gate

With a sparkle in his eye

A whisper on some distant Caribbean wind

There is magic in the world

And here we stand


Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 8 – Forming Memories

The beauty of the evening light

Recedes into the dark façade

Of technology’s design

Yes the mountains, the heights

The peaks of the intellect

Recede into the sunset

Like memories

Glowing orange

Fading lavender and violet

Iridescent blue and gone

Black as the night

That was coming on

Silent as the farm

Where we waited all afternoon

Receding into the weight

Of history

The memories that would have you

Sleep no more

Déjà vu au courant

The pleasant strangeness

Of post-industrial existence

Through which nothing quite

Reached you

Sounded

I listened to the poet

As he sang

And my thoughts were empty

In the syllabi

A resonance so clean

As to not be seen

Not felt nor heard

Receding into solipsism

The echo of the soul

The philosopher always doubts

One’s own being

Especially in the grey

Evening manner

The light that sank

Into the widening of your eyes

As you struggled

To find the moment

And all things around you

Peeled away from nothing

Converging on some distant point

The lines of thought

Shaved off the machine

In the whittling

Of your intellectual capacity

I want you all

To touch beauty

As I do now

I want you all to reach back

Look forward

Or simply to your side

And feel again

Or for the first time

The most beautiful moment

Of your life

And let it become you

As you become

What you are capable of becoming

I want you to listen

To watch

To touch

The natural beauty we all share today

In the woven fabric of our lives

And hold on

Jason Greendyk

www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 7 - Paris

Paris! Paris!

The étuvage of dreams

Where the caged bird sings

Of casual perfection

A nice thread

Torn in the empty silence

Of a stateless sky

The collective humanity

No more real than the divine

A woven heartstring unraveling

In the conflict of the others

Bury thy truth

In the expression of distaste

And carry on in the cool flow of things

The free mind pulls

From flights of fancy

To gather the strands of our hair

That have laid to rest on the ground

Burnt in the pleasant sun

The shavings of new life

Hanging in the balance

Of repressed emotion

The waters that came to your eyes

To dilute your disgust

A light heart in the wake

Carry on another day

Dispassionate

Breathe in the future

To save your breath for now

A letter from Paris

Your concept has answered you

In the truest fashion

Smile

The soul of the city

Knows of thy coming

In another life

His kingdom receives you

The power and the glory

Like a child’s dream

You pass

And dare to claim your spirit

From confession

Jason Greendyk

www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 6 - Nonexistence

The empty walls exiled you
In the apprehension of dreams
Break the spell
The distance in your voice
Set back to the message
Written in clear blue skies
A nonexistence
Your canvas to believe
In what you will
Otherwise mere
The reminder of God's death
In the existence of the state
Of things
A condemned building
Whose spirits
Were sympathetic of the fair
Bedeviled the April witching hour
I saw the fire in your eyes my child
The breath of new life
In this empty spell
A European draft whistled
In the pliable nature of your freedom
Your Father wore on His sleeve
As He said, I am the Son
And you are one and the same
What I dream you become
What I desire you manifest
Your fiery eyes as cool
As the great blue ocean
And as fierce as the wanting itself
Like pearls
Darting from the light
Pensive they said
What thoughtlessness
Your eyes were like the depths
A mirror of my soul
Iridescent in the endless night of life
Turn to gray stone
What was left
The morning star nodded
In the direction of your fate
And with good Reason

Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Sermon on Reason at the Fridge Art Fair - Recording

Download and listen to the Sermon on Reason held at the Fridge Art Fair on May 10, 2014 in Long Island City, NYC, a reading from the Seven Sins of Reason and the Selvage.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9kh0nhmobc2j7vv/Seven%20Sins%20Reading.m4a

Jason Greendyk
www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 5 – Born into the Noise

Pour out your soul

In the deterioration of your thought

As the delegation

Of futures’ promises

Binds your hands to your back

For you must learn to see with your eyes

And not your touch

Cease the blinding of the wool

That you pull over your heart

In the comfort of the corporate void

An abstraction of your existential digression

The drifter was no more

Instead you justified your motions

With a Reason

Through choppy seas

You stayed your course

The signs of God

Your only direction

In the aftermath of your rebirth

Born into the noise

And whip of the whirlwind

That stirred your dreams

Of once before

The want of absolute perfection

Despite the fine grain of your reality

And the rough fabric of your existence

You drove an impeccable line of your intellect

To the creation of a form

That defined the context of your new belief

The end no longer the juxtaposition of the journey

Rather found itself forming in every thought

The daring journey across the Sea

A Reason to move forward

In and of Itself

Filling the swells of your heart

With fantasies of your situation

That would constitute an end

All illusions that bore your vessel

Along the steady current of a hidden moon

The great Reason in the vast night sky

That caught the light of the stars

And passed it forth to You

To blessed guide you home

Where your family filled your dreams

With a reason for your being

A raison d'être

A cause

Greater than God

Or any Reason that came before

Carried you silent through the noise

And whip of the whirlwind

A storm that was never meant to end

So you just stayed your course

To no end


Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 4 - A Dark Hole

The world’s breath exhaled

An exhaustion that pulled you to life

Breaking the dawn

Out of your tension

A patient stroking of the drive

A straight line to focus on

To carry you through the smoke

And the mirrors that showed you

Your own infinitesimal cave

Of granular detail

A dark want of perfect order

That not a soul could entertain

A communist insurrection

Of the creative spirit

That drew gray lines

Across the black and white

And built uniform blocs

Of efficiencies

A dark hole in the essence of logic

Through dreams of intellectual filters

To improve the human experience

Like a red balloon let to the sky

Vast and blue like the sea

Into which we are thrown

Best bury your critique

In the clean appearance of things

And guide your direction

Through the filtering hole of Reason

To the high level of thought

That barred your execution

Lest you slip into the rational abyss

Buried in the minutia

By the passing of time

Always always slipping away

A chill down your spine

Would inspire your relevance

No matter how acute your passion

Your emotion is simply not

Important

More a mere reflection of your loss

Of the logical flow of things

In the interest of perfection

Your grip severed your ties

And you were nothing but free

At the world’s weary eyes

Your ideal a mere predilection

Of your divination of Reason

Born from the absence of your soul

In the theory of incompleteness

Within and without withal cast

Into the Sea

Where the old gods were a-swimmin’

In the doubtful nature

Of your existence

Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 3 - Memento Mori

The advent of new life
Whispered a fleeting notion of finitude
All that you strived to attain
Your departure from a home
Lost on the sprawling winds
Of deeply clutched desires
To satisfy the possibility
Sacrificed to become
What you are capable of becoming
The only end in life
Greater than your errant fashion
A brushing gesture that colors
Your travels the feathered hues
Of a dream once discovered
Once drove you to the border
Of your inherited culture
Where you stood in the brisk
Crystalline purity
On the banks of a river
That was always moving forward
Along the leading edge of your thought
And you watched it unfold
In the basin of your Reason
And the allure lost its hold
Upon the advent of time
You came down from Heaven
A fallen angel
To create a new body
Colored by the neverending journey
Of your mind
And as the ghosts of the past
Came to claw at your grounding
Having once took to the sky
You recalled the distance
And you never looked back
Despite your purposeful disregard
Of its direction
The river never let you go
It bound you in the throes of new life
And the demons of once before
They begged your happiness
Of what comes after
Alas it was your choice
And nothing more
And it echoed bountifully
In the soul of the world
It was your surety
That covered you
In the afterlife of your self
At the birth of your surrogate existence
The midnight river carries on
Unfolding throughout the valley
In the shadow of an Invisible Hope
A sacrifice that was not yours to make
A memento mori that was not your own
And in another life
You came home to your Son

Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 2 - The Witching Hour

The witching hour
Was upon us
When the drawing motions
Of the womb
Pulled
At your consciousness
To writhe and claw
At the vestiges
Of that pure time
In the empty airs
Of the world
The midnight river
Running
Through your thoughts
And only your voice
Could fill
This new abyss
With the soulful nourishment
You were accustomed to
Through speaking
Could you render
The psyches
Of your creators
To nurture the progress
Of your being
And bend the will
Of existence
To include yours
And late in the noir
Of night
When it seemed
The power
Of your voice
Was faintest
A dark magic
Called forth
Your words
As if the moon
Had sway
O'er your soul
As if the patterns
Of the growing mind
Guided the becoming
Of your voice
And connected you
To a primordial power
Not your own
That you once held
But sacrificed
In your delivery
To shape dear time
With your voice
That reminded us
Of peace
Of humanity
That reminded us
Of home

Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com

Lullaby No. 1 - Unfold

All I want the spheres
To whisper to your spirit
That all is right in the world
That your being will be a bountiful echo
In the vast reiterations of time
Blessing these fleeting moments
To instill conviction
Into the growth of your body
That it may permeate your soul
And raise you to believe
In the force of your spirit
Against all
Against the vapid, soulless execution
Of the world's soul
By the pop culture communism of the heart
Corazon espinado
Tracing the one long night of life
In patterned, absurd construction
Clinging all along to the Invisible Hope
The deservance of a romance
Granting science and purpose
To all things material
Persistently recanting the ephemeral trends of thought
That would distort the outcome of your destiny
Defined by your presumption
In the onset of consciousness
Unfolding thy limbs and gaze
From the cave wherein shadows on the wall
Nurtured your perception of the light
Now thrown into the dynamic of its reflective subject
To draw again and again the original thought
Out from a deepest well of silence
Deja vu au courant

Jason Greendyk, www.jasongreendyk.com