The Jose Canseco EP
(2005 Quixote Records)

Sense of Duty (wh burdine)

I touched my forehead to feel the ash there, undid my jacket to feel the Spring air. The flowers opened their seed into the wind, but at that moment, the bombs were flowing. And like rain touched the ground, the earth opened it's mouth and drank water, the acid drops, the relief will never come.
The earth kept spinning in 3/4 time, but I felt out of place dancing while others died. So I went out and bought a gun from the Big K and tried to do my part to keep evil away. It felt easy with fences there to keep evil out and goodness in, so I shot rabbits to waste the day, await the news of victory.
War. War. War.
The bomb drops, the gun shots, will not make the killings stop. So I declare, "A Death to War! and guns and bombs will be no more." Maybe our prayers will be real by then.

Jose Canseco (wh burdine)

Jose Canseco will never be struck out. The earthquakes could not stop your hero and his bat.
'89, you were playing your final season. Always strikes, never striking and so coach pulled you out. Told you, "Son, you ain't never gonna hit that way." You career was shot dead in the sixth grade.
You got drunk, started hanging out on 3rd base line, called the wife and told her you were "truly late this time." But she could smell the liquor over the phone and said, "the kids just want their daddy to come home!"
And when you say, "it's alright," it's not alright. You tell her again that, "it's alright." But it's not alright.

Prospects (wh burdine)

Bake ourselves a cake to celebrate the birth of Christ for an old traditions sake. Out in the yard, the kids were playing in the snow, I was making a new start on a season in which I'd try to break your heart--not by any intention of mine, only playing my old part:
In the game of my design--an old habit of fear that I might make too straight a line from the dirt to the car. I was driving out of here, I was trying to forget all about the last idea we had brilliantly destroyed and a new creation which we all seemed to enjoy.
When I'm gone, we'll be overjoyed at the prospects of living our lives young and unemployed. I'll drive off with a romantic tone in the air while we are feeling desparately alone
Write my name on your forehead with ink and remember there's no one left to blame. When we've all destroyed the pretty lives we had built we all will become unemployed with little more for us to do than examine our own wrecks. Remark, "how pretty the ruins look!" when they're hanging around our necks.

(What We Found) In the Dirt (wh burdine)

When Autumn came, we were happy. You found my hands in the rusty earth and with my clothes wrapped tight around my shoulders, every kiss goodbye left me warmer.
I woke up drunk with my eyes shut--shut like gloves in the shivering air. When the snow first fell we were singing, because our ears were full of ringing.
When the leaves first grew to full color, we were sitting ducks beneath the orange sky, which filled like red balloons in your round face. So we buried deep to sleep off the time.

She Hung Like an Ornament (wh burdine)

My girl is an ornament I hung up last year, but never had time to take down. We opened our presents, gave smiles all around and New Year's took care of the rest.
Up talking and drinking and smoking a few, I asked her would she, "be my love?" She answered, all sulky, "you're the end of the world" and quoted from Revelations.
And it's lonesome in this past-shadowed apartment alone, but the couch isn't talking, I'm not sleeping tonight. I'm up late divining some ghosts.
I called up on Christmas to hear the good word and the voicemail said, "Hallelujah!" So I hung up forgot it, came back to my sense and my sense is what emptied the room.

My Old Man (wh burdine)

My old man said, "Never come home without a bride in your arms and you won't feel alone and some medals to match the scar on your back." But I never saw war, I just fled to the North.
When my old man died, the house was no more. So I sung them to bed--my childred--adored. When I told them their past, they were silent and slept. But I never went home, never looked back and wept.