Never, Black Sun Blues, w/UZZA

performed at the Day Block Brewery, November 18, 2016. UZZA includes Tabatha Predovich

and Rich Patterson from Invisible Jazz

black sun blues

now everyone tells you that you’ve got it made
with your fine eldorado and your golden cage:
you’ve got underground parking, a bedroom in the sky,
and your lover beside you to start off the day.

but the clouds are massing on the northern plains.
and thunder shatters along the shale moraines.
and the gaps close up and the light runs thin
and those black sun blues spell out your name.

now the black sun gives and it takes away
your high profile and your pride of place,
your passport, your armor, your alibi
it strips you down, then it gives you a name


I look outside. I see a band of crows
sitting on the branches of my sheltering oak
and every feather there, and every leaf
falls black and dead, like some neoprene.

they spread their wings to ride the wind
like an oil stain upon the rising tide.
they storm the heavens to pluck out its eye
and all I can see is a hole in the sky.

now the black sun burns with a negative light.
the stars - my body, my heart is the night.
those talons unsheathe above my head
and the black sun blues dig into my brain.


is it me, in my mind? or maybe it’s you?
or the universe down with the black sun blues?
don’t you feel the ground shear under your feet,
obsidian blades ripping up from the deep?

you say you’re my friend; why don’t you hear
the black sun blues singing in your ears?
you say you’re my lover; why don’t you see
the darkness at noon is closing in on me.

now the black sun reels out the wire
then pulls it in and twists it tight.
your heart’s blood surges, it cuts off your veins.
those black sun blues will drive me insane.


now the black sun blues just feels like a friend.
it’s my confidante, it’s my last defense,
my Maginot line and my silk negligee.
when those black sun blues have come to stay.

it looked into my cradle, the day I was born
it’s waiting for me now, right beside my door.
it turns me invisible with strangers around;
hides me in the attic when the soldiers come.

the black sun rises and the black sun sets
with the lingering taste of your last cigarette.
it’s your old tin crown, your moth eaten cape.
it blocks all the exits; it’s your last escape.