2.5010 : 1/20/19 : Surround In Wrath

Some saw

surround in wrath

Some say

intervene

Sometimes the truth is

truly

Somewhere between

get right out of it

Something inside said

enough trouble

enough dissonance

inside one head

no mind no self

no ethereal spirit

just the breath

that goes then stops

and fate, the blind

plucks at the string

in other hand

his razor

at the leather lash

he strops

what

Long as I last

Which wraps up volume 2.23 of the songs of days, titled The Original M.A.P.S. Project, or, "Figure out how to figure it out". Which was possibly something? It's a wierd one, the book it was written in was a leather-bound journal of what looks like handmade paper, with about the proportions of an old polaroid. I can't really remember what the M.A.P.S. project (which I abandoned, retitled as a song volume and usurped with these songs) was about, some poorly focused effort in the perpetual quest to rectify my mind.  What remains is a front endpaper featuring half a dozen fortune cookie fortunes I pasted in, a bunch of Tao quotes, and particularly a couple dozen acronyms of the word maps. Like, Mastery, Action, and Process, Synthesized, and Malefactor, Antihero, Pariah, Sanctifier. I don't know. I can see that I tore quite a few pages out of it, front and back, The small size of the unlined pages really restricted the possible length of the songs throughout (since I generally adhere to one page per song).

It also included an extra song, outside the daily rotation, that appears after the formal end of the volume. No recollection of the when or why of writing it.  But I'll include it here for the sake of completeness but it's not a song of the day and don't treat it like one! It doesn't count, literally. Also very meta, if not outright solipsistic.

Song Will Teach

Song will teach you

how days get past

Some short some long

but not a one lasts

Song will teach

You will go past too

probably some day

nobody sing about you

but I will

long as I last

Somehow still here

for every day's song

already past

Song will teach you

how they all say it's so great

but it you think they're showing up

You'll have a hell of a wait

Next volume on deck ASAD 2.24: Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?

what

2.5009 : 1/19/19 : Act

Desperately seeking

another act

So much as I don't want

to be like that

but here I have to

be true to the core

What else can a

map be good for?

what

2.5008 : 1/18/19 : Swirls

Each thought

that swirls around

I sure don't want

to set it down

a lot of

worn out welcome

smack

maybe

the only ever track

what

2.5007 : 1/17/19 : Pour

Open every passage

pour whatever in

every other artist

perfect now on never sin

never selfish never jealous

just thrilled in the pour

no filter no discernment

no principle but more

no principle but hacking it

no goal but pack it in

try to stay elusive

maybe get it back again

what

2.5006 : 1/16/19 : Fatal Estrangement

What dead end

of some other guy

am I using

for entertainment

or fatal

estrangement

From what though

what

2.5005 : 1/15/19 : Fortunes

My fortunes shift

just like the wind

and where did all

my hopes get pinned

beyond distraction

on the floor

I'll bite until

I hit the core

what

2.5004 : 1/14/19 : No Material

No material

Nothing but grind

Drumming out

iterations

till I'm going blind

two year celebrities

how does it feel?

Let me tell you how it is

if it never gets real

what

2.5003 : 1/13/19 : PLAYED

Anyway

nobody can get away

with calling me

a quitter

Dunno what's next

but I'm not

bitter

And I'm fine with

the exit charade

And soon you'll see

it's not me getting played

what

2.5002 : 1/12/19 : Forever

How long to stop

dreaming

of repeating

the classic error

if the timeline's

really

neither here nor

there or

if maybe it's never

Still not the same as forever

what

Wilderness were paradise enow

I don't break in with commentary much anymore but song number 5001 (which passed the halfway point of this putative 10,000 song project without much commentary or fanfare) also marked the ending (one song prior) of an odd little sidetrack which I did not bother to label, call out, or count (at the time I was writing them), of rough quatrains with the rhyming pattern

A

A

B

A

I spotted the pattern (and occasional obscure references to it within the lyrics themselves) after a while during the transcribing from the handwritten originals in recent months. It stood out because that rhyme scheme is not a regular thing with me at all, and I had nary a clue what it was about until I got to this most recent song, where I appear to have consciously marked an end to it, and the Khayyam reference finally woke up my memory - right, the Rubaiyat. Someting I vaguely remember studying in college, but college was a long time back even in 2019 and what might have inspired this little homage or precipitated its end (other than just hitting the big number) is lost in the mists of time, which is also maybe half alluded to in the lyrics of Jettison.

Whatever its origin or intent, the series (if it can be called that) looks to have started with song 4955 on 11/26/2025 (just after number 4954 with its Scheherezade reference which was maybe relevant?) and runs for 46 songs, a number that does not seem to bear any relationship to anything. It seems like it was just a momentary goof that I picked up for a while and then dropped. A month and a half seems like a long play for something like that but you know, when you've written 5,000 songs and are aiming to write 5,000 more it's but a blip.

what

2.5001 : 1/11/19 : Jettison

Jettison the pattern then

because I'm no Khayyam

I told em 'bout the halfway

point and everyone

said dayum

Said around these parts

old quatrains take

a different cast

I'll tell you all about

if you somehow

break into the past

what

2.5000 : 1/10/19 : If I Should Fail

Before I start, perceive

it's all about

the tall tale

Deep down think it's for

the better if I

should fail

do I think the magic

number will

prevail at last

however it turns

out

it's surely

no grail

what

2.4999 : 1/9/19 : Shrug

Knowing a night's good

behavior

merits a shrug

and still a hundred floors above me

on this pit I dug

So what's the motivation

just try to leach steam

and drift a path of

least resistance

and hope You don't

yank that rug

what

2.4998 : 1/8/19 : Middle

Nothing like an end

everything like a middle

Go get your torches babies

I've got my fiddle

Maybe the other half

will be all uphill too

Well you'll chew a long while

on what's spitting

in my griddle

what

2.4997 : 1/7/19 : Eccentric Philanthropist

Dark long enough

Demand it to pass

be an eccentric

philanthropist

sounds like a gas

I'll seek you in the cave

old bard years gone

and you'll talk me

out from the old impasse

what

2.4996 : 1/6/19 : I Doubt It

The star says power

I doubt it

what else to say anyway

about it

gut worm ear worm

brain worm

All turning crazy

If it's the augery I flout it

what

2.4995 : 1/5/19 : To Arrest Progress

Soon wrap it up with

failed groping to

arrest progress

Guess I'm trying to keep ancient

history alive but

hey I digress

under the shadow of a

nasty turn in the inner

labyrinth

fail or luck out it'll be a

long day before I

get out of the tall grass

what

2.4994 : 1/4/19 : Knuckle

Paring it even further

to the knuckle

of the bone

Nobody is looking down

for wisdom in that phone

well known it's all

marking time

don't think about for what

they caught me gazing

raptly at 

a plain unblemished stone

what

2.4993 : 1/3/19 : Cape

Like a goof in a crux

in a cape

Think I stopped dreaming

of the great escape

Think I'll surprise them

all and ace the quiz

and from that launchpad

get the devil by the nape

what

2.4992 : 1/2/19 : And Burns

The worm

returns

It twists

and burns

And seems

its host

Just never

learns

what

2.4991 : 1/1/19 : Delusion

Landscape can't be all verges

So maybe it is delusion

Not tough to plumb the history

pinpoint the source

of my confusion

But it is what I arrived

at and the path is not so

clean

And the feeling of the

turning point

proves not always illusion

what