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Nuclear Christ 

for Mr.  Norman David Mayer

I.

“I have a bomb! I have a friend!

    We’re gonna die! Stop to pretend!

    Why don’t you listen to me”

    This was Norman Mayer’s plea.

    We’ve lost control of ourselves

    Like masturbating giants

    Getting off on death –

    We worship the weapons, we

    Count them like toys, we

    Cannot decide and we

    Will not listen, Mr. Mayer

    Must die to show this 

    World, this shot dear world –

    He was sixty-six, old and angry not mad –

    He could not escape the shackles 

    Linking all of us together –

    Of course you can die, it was

    A good day to die, Mr.

    Norman David Mayer, hating

    Like a Nuclear War, his

    Ashes smoulder still in 

    Arlington National Garden.

    II.

    He wandered and tried, failed, and tried

    Consumed by desire and the Greatest

    Fire the World was going to see

    His parting – dies as he

    Lies bleeding: “I have a Bomb!”

    His baby blue snowsuit all a mess

    He didn’t expect to make it anyway and

    He dies because we love Death 

    No large surprise He dressed

    Like Superman or Captain America –

    Mr. Norman David Mayer was

    Labeled insane by authorities

    Who think they are sane but

    Aid the ones with the evil keys to

    This massive prison we call Home –

    A van full of Air and Will He

    Was there at the biggest

    Phallic Symbol of them all,

    It looks like a missile How

    Sleek and defined – Pointed 

    At God – Now, what

    Do they have in mind?

    III.

    “I have a Nightmare” Three

    Years on a beach on an

    Island smoking dope Do you

    Think that made him crazy now?

    Most would say content He

    Only knew there’s no escape 

    No matter where he ran away

    So he moved on through his life as we

    Cranked the rack The

    Walls grow larger He was torn

    And He waited and He hated and

    He saved like none of us could –

    And he gave his life for 

    Something Undisputably Good you

    Know He’s right because this

    Very second the Bombs are ticking

    Atoms splitting Tomorrow we

    May join Him The newspaper 

    Headline reads “A Victim of an

    Unyielding Will” His flesh was 

    Mortal yet his spirit sails on until…

    Song #8 in The Submensas’s set is “Strange Graves” – a true ‘long-lost’ song. A classic punk song in the vein of The Clash, it was a fourth song recorded for our 1986 EP, “Twilight in Beltland,” but was left off the vinyl because I wasn’t satisfied with the vocals.  I intended to re-record the song but that never happened, and the master tape of these sessions has been long lost.  But now this two-minute song has had a renaissance, and is back as a boppy little number with jangly vocals and an upbeat guitar riff.  We put “Strange Graves” on our 2012 compilation, “Trading Cards of Glory”, but it’s a little grainy because the recording was from a CASSETTE.  So we now have a great new version. Here’s how the song starts…

    How many times will the world rock and roll,

    Before it finally breaks asunder?  

    And how many mixed-up little piles of debris

    Will you and I be buried under?

    A strange grave here/ A strange grave there/ 

    all graves/ are strange

    … and then I list a bunch of ways to die. The meaning of the song is a little interpretive, but I would say it has to do with choices and how we’ll end up in the places that we’ll end up in… It’s like a mini-version of Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died”.  (It’s two mins, whereas Jim Carroll’s song lasts five and a half.)