Sublime eclectic mayhem. That’s been my playlist project and musical life, one that begins with The Muppet Movie soundtrack and later involves performing hymns, death metal, surf, and bluegrass. I’ve played in theaters, tents, and basements, for multi-stage festivals and squirrel rodeos. I’ve written and recorded music for The Drunken Odyssey. Sublime eclectic mayhem. A warning and a welcome for joyous noise, for those navigating what Beckett called “this bitch of an earth.”

Not Washing But Mopping

In the moping, in the great mopping
of our flooded basement, my eyes
wet as as the bottom stair, I watch 
little pieces of our life float by. 

It’s not grand tragedy, but inconvenience
and a few days of intense domestic work. 
It feels like more when you’re in the sweeping
and soaking of it, the wet ankles of it. 

My heart, soft, like rabbit fur stretched
around brittle pack rat bones twitches. 
I tried to keep every child’s drawing,
not knowing I was dealing with factories 

even Warhol couldn’t manage. My wife, 
tougher in this way, let go, snuck into 
the trash what I wouldn’t. I try to hold on 
against time and, now, this slow wash of water. 

A soggy Goodnight Moon almost breaks
my squeaky heart. Sure, it’s been damp
more than once with yogurt or worse,
but it’s never been damply spread like the flesh 

of a freshly-cut filet. Some soaked ball of sock, 
a pink panda-pattern lights up memories 
of tiny toes wiggling, little fingers throwing them.
Even as I push more water through the doors

I know that sock hasn’t fit anyone in more than five years. 
Yet, there it is, that snap of pain.
A stuffed husky, drowned in this calf-high flood 
recalls afternoons of play and warm, intense naps, 

much deeper than this cool water
slushing across concrete on this weekend. 
I see a hairtie and remember my clumsy hands
trying to make braids and I cramp. It all turns out

not to be too much, but more than I thought.
At three hours I ask for help. My oldest grabs 
a mop without thinking and without complaining. 
Post-storm sun washes in from all the doors as 

we bathe the driveway for the third or fourth time in fewer days.
I’m glad she doesn’t react to the small plastic nonsense
that I remember her playing with at the table,
remember her saying she’d love this thing, thanking

me for this momentous gift with a side of fries 
I felt fatherly guilt about buying in the first place.
I saw her gazing toward the possibilities, plastic and otherwise,
at the other end of that chubby little arm.

We set out for the day, navigating through waters 
a fallen tree set upon us by downing the power lines, 
and drowning memories in a sump pump flood. But with  
this company, I, somehow, continue to row happily. 

Flooding

Listen on Tidal. Listen on Spotify.

1. “Though My Eyes Go To Sleep, My Heart Does Not Forget You” – Yazz Ahmed
2. “Lake Disappointment” – Bdrmm
3. “Cadaveric Spasms & Purge Fluid Showers” – Caustic Phlegm
4. “Later in the Tapestry Room” – David Grubbs
5. “Takoba (Injustice Version)” – Mdou Moctar
6. “The Arkestra at Dreamland” – Will Stewart
7. “Leaving Home (Alternate Version)” – Yo La Tengo
8. “Stay With Me” – Venamoris
9. “pirsomnia” – Ichiko Aoba
10. “The Shock” – LIBRA
11. “Future / Now (Live)” – MC5
12. “Live Text” – Gunn-Truscinski Duo
13. “Carnage Gathers” – Grave Infestation
14. “Sun’s Goin’ Down” – Noble

Stephen McClurg (Episode 473 & 666) composes and improvises in Serenity Dagger, The Abdomen, and other projects. Along with session work for mid-Alabama singer/songwriters, he frequently collaborates with musicians across the state adding bass, guitar, and synths to friends’ recordings. He currently writes reviews for Horror DNA and is the substitute low end wrangler for Mobile-based punk rock band Future Hate. You can find out more about his work here.