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Movie Theatre Haiku

by Chris Robley

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1.
I wait in the rain that falls on the pier everyone’s here to watch the ships come in from the fog I’m nervous and cold its been so long since they’ve been home what happened to my baby? where has my baby gone? who’ll keep me safe from harm and warm? I’m soaked to the skin and everyone’s gone home with their friends and I’m all alone in the cold, shaking my bones nobody knows where is my boy someone knew me they’re gone now
2.
like a flower bent towards the memory of the sun you will do the things that you have always done like a wounded bird who has fallen from the sky you will never never know the reason why you never ever really learned to fly no kiss me and make up no shake hands and make friends this is how the story really ends no pinch me and wake up no way we can fake it there’s no way we can pretend again
3.
remember that movie we saw at the film festival? -the one with the girl and the artist. this torn and worn ticket stub is reminding me of your breasts that I praised in darkness. a period piece set in France with a star-crossed romance and the ending dragged on in slow-motion. I held your hand as you breathed heavy during the scenes where they made love like us by the ocean. and when the couple would fight, grainy and black and white it seemed like they fought out of boredom. and when the theatre turned on the lights, exit out to the night all the leaves in the street colored autumn I said I sided with him, you found him selfish and dim like all men who dwell within their own minds you don’t want to be alone so I’m walking you home hand in hand, both of us for the last time
4.
It's hard to believe things existing outside my head That you’re sleeping with somebody else in someone else’s bed and that people still live in the homes and the towns I’ve left That the world will keep turning around long after I’m dead
5.
can’t ya hear us crying Lord, Lord, Lord don’t ya feel us dying Lord, Lord, Lord thought I saw you flying, oh my god flying out of town like Santa Claus when times get hard every man is free, that's a story we can barely be before we get so tightly tied to Lord, Lord, Lord tied for all our lives to lies every man is free to choose his chains you’re at liberty to pick your pain do you hear my prayers, Lord, Lord, Lord do you even care? are you even there at all god is great and god is good but god is something I’ve never understood god is good and got is great but god is something to which I could not relate and god is great and god is grand but god is something I could never understand Amen
6.
Premiere 03:27
city folk in city clothes all bustle down the street check their hats and coats and loap about the mezzanine crowded in the queue to view the concert coughing as they’re clustered in their seats to be there dressed so fair to put on airs like throwing fine pearls to swine recite the lines a dozen times tonight and then repeat by demand the actor and the audience will meet would that I could muster up the strength to such a feat for one accustomed to defeat just to be there the show goes on at eight o’clock and we won’t stop when we mess up when they’re on their feet the world is at peace the world goes to sleep all have gone, tomorrow morn we’ll wake another day to mine the mint the papers print for what the critics say
7.
Ahhh, the great age of paper.
8.
so you think you’ve gone is it any wonder that you won’t stay long spoiled bon vivants in the real world with no confidence so you’ve gone away is it any wonder that you won’t stay there out all on your own soon enough you will come crawling home concrete and nails bitter betrayals stones against stick bones against brick stepping on cracks knife in the back when all else fails run with your tail between your legs back home raise society on a little bit of sesame street propriety and this is what you’ll get little mama’s boys and teachers’ pets
9.
Glass Reich 02:33
(instrumental)
10.
wake up babe its time to leave this place behind and cross the border before the morning comes we’ll run from what we’ve done our new life’s just begun give me the keys oh, we gotta go we’ll drive down to Mexico these sweet dreams would’ve been nice to take you to the Mayan Empire and tour the pyramids of gold lying on the beach at sunrise you'll be kissing me I’ll be holding you did you see those lights flashing in the night its time to make our flight
11.
on the train, I’ve seen this movie before its the one with the midwest football hero and the championship game when he scores how dramatic, how cliché and he gets the chick and she sucks his... yeah, but they’ll cut that part out anyway but its a picturesque burlesque and I look out the window a dozen silos poking up above the fog and a man on a gravel path by the highway as he jogs in the after-dawn all those silos are all the same all painted red and filled with grain and he’s running home to his ball and chain run boy, run cause its a picturesque burlesque and all those silos are all the same but I count them as they go flashing by I count them one, two, three, four why is everything a fucking bore? and these photogenic freaks in their seats, nervous as they’re drifting in and out of sleep they’re all the same but I count them they’re all the same but I count them one by one and two by two everybody’s got so much to prove one by one and two by two everybody’s got so much to lose one by one and two by two everybody thinks they’ve got the blues one by one and two by two they’re all the same but I count them cause its a picturesque burlesque and I’m no different but I think I am ah, but I know I’m not but I don’t give a damn a permanent fixture of regret
12.
1, 2, 3, 4. It's my fault. This album needed a waltz. But I just can't stand 3/4 time. So 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

about

"This gothic, orchestral indie-pop is sure to leave heads spinning with its unique and haunting sound." - NPR’s Second Stage

"This is an album for the ages." - John Winn. Racket Magazine

credits

released January 15, 2009

Robley's third solo album upholds his reputation for writing story-songs about characters that find themselves in heartbreak and despair. But "Movie Theatre Haiku" also finds him taking his trademark blend of fractured folk and dark, psychedelic indie-pop into more ambitious orchestral and electronic territory.

"[It is an] album about measuring distances in an over-stimulated world where all our standard compasses have gone spinning out of control. Distances between old lovers, between the living and the dead, between your ambitions and your limitations, between the world you wish for and the world that is, between a performer and audience, between God and mankind, between here and home," explains Robley.

"The characters in each of the songs on 'Movie Theatre Haiku¹ are lost in a kind of confined space, fumbling in the darkness to feel the four walls closing in on them. They must measure distances in a shrinking world, and find a way out."

Produced in Portland, Oregon by C.A.R. with Mike Coykendall, Jeff Stuart Saltzman, and Rob Stroup @ Blue Room, Mysterious Beard, and 8-Ball Studios.

Lovingly coached, coaxed, mixed, and massaged by Jeff Stuart Saltzman, except tracks 9 and 12, mixed by Rob Stroup.

Mastered by Carl Saff.

Artwork, layout design by Tammy Paladeni.

Writ by C.A.R. (bite my tongue, ltd.) ASCAP
copyright 2009

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Chris Robley Lewiston, Maine

"Chris Robley is at the top of his game with his new work." - KCRW

Maine-based singer/songwriter and award-winning poet Chris Robley (formerly from Portland, Oregon) performs orchestral indie-pop and fractured folk reminiscent of John Lennon, John Vanderslice, Harry Nilsson, and Joe Henry.

His poetry has appeared in POETRY Magazine, Prairie Schooner, and many other journals.
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