Late After Midnight lyrics

1984 cassette player eating tape Left speaker dead, had to lean for the snare Kids nearby talked factories, marriages, pay I learned drum fills before learning despair Heavy metal arrived without asking my name Before I knew boredom had rules of its own Then Misfits records, cheap sleeves, skulls in black Some dead singers felt less distant than home Not heroic Not cursed from the start Only a strange kid Dragging noise through the dark Astrikos dust over the vinyl case Years disappeared but the appetite stayed Astrikos faces gone one by one Still chasing thoughts that refuse to be done Late after midnight The scratching returned Not everyone writing Knows what was learned Years filled shelves till the wood bowed low Fernando Pessoa multiplied when one life wasn't enough Guimarães Rosa bent language into fever and bone Books stopped soothing and started being rough Then Ramana appeared Then Nisargadatta came Not like teachers descending More like acid on names Some inherit maps Some keep walking by guess Returning for decades To the same unrest Astrikos dust over the vinyl case Years disappeared but the appetite stayed Astrikos faces gone one by one Still chasing thoughts that refuse to be done Late after midnight The scratching returned Not everyone writing Knows what was learned 1999, Siderações Four hundred fifty fragments out of sight Poems beside unfinished songs in notebooks Written while dogs barked somewhere at night No movement to build No disciples to keep Just returning to subjects That interrupted sleep Astrikos dust over the vinyl case Years disappeared but the appetite stayed Astrikos faces gone one by one Still chasing thoughts that refuse to be done Late after midnight The scratching returned Not everyone writing Knows what was learned 2020 changed the weight of a room Silence sat longer beside every chair People discovered routine can collapse And fear has habits nobody prepares Then songs came faster than years before Three hundred knocking against old doors Some died half-made Some survived the page Old fascinations returning with age No audience waiting No reviews to read Only another afternoon Spent following need Again came the notebooks Again came the sound Like an unfinished argument Still circling around Astrikos after notebooks and years After private obsessions and ordinary fears Something persisted Though memory thins Songs sometimes outlive The hands that penned them Astrikos one question remains Did you write those songs Or spend your whole life Becoming the person Who could? 1984 cassette hiss in a dark room The tape keeps turning Long after the hands are gone