The Hiss
Self-titled CD - Self-Released

I can see the Christmas lights sparking under the Philadelphia moon; I can see the girls laughing in the parking lot as we pulled in. Listen close, you can hear Marlin whispering about the blonde, you can hear her thinking; you could taste it. Incandescent streetlamps approached us near every mile, bending lights around trees shot out from the rigs whose drivers cast shadows upon our weekend. Under wooden bridges rumbled running rivers, over wooden bridges we sat staring at the sky. Shafts of proud tanned wheat and photographs of it in our mouths, cigarettes and dope for the moment. Snapped up in clicks and shuddered for the mantle, developments of after-image present in the light. Down lanes lined with lakes, traffic marks thick with rubber, we drove, still, listening to the radio. We went into this record shop on our way, over the wooden bridge, right by the soft yellow break in the trees just past the second stop light. Nothing much there, really - eight-track cassettes and weathered albums, Songs In The Key Of Life and such; it took some persuasion to get John to pick it up. We stayed four days before we decided to leave. Touch football on the gravel road in front of the house, the girls smoked and laughed at us from the porch and we all got drunk when the night dressed up. Bernadette in her black velvet boots, shuffling her fingers through the smoke in the ashtray, caffeine in the cup and her sugar so bold; touch football in the house and we’d fumble. Courtships in the bedroom with the runaway girls, the breaking of jealous rust from smiles beneath the belt. We left after noon; we never went back. (Josh Gabriel)
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