lyrics
The Gold String
Listen to This
Make it Safe
The Trees at Your Mom’s
The Gold String
Drawing Circles
Jana
More Together
The Tree Detail
Colours
You Can Come Home
Magic in the Panic
You Can’t Help It
Colours
The Fan
Walking in the Folly
Talk to You
The Fire Inside
Nobody Tells Me a Thing
The Shallow End
I Love You, Go Easy
If I Can Do This
I Love You, Go Easy
The Unmarked Animals
Monk / Monkey
Runs in the Family
The Warning Bell
The Evening Ghost Crab
The Faulty Body
Body’s in Trouble
Now’s the Time
Live in London
Julie
The Weeping Willow
Sponji Reggae
One Eye Open
Come Comet or Dove
Plea for a Good Night’s Rest
Old Virginia Block
Stop By Anytime
Ain’t That the Way
Steady & True
Don’t Hurry for Heaven
Ain’t That the Way
Julie
Healthy Parents, Happy Couple
You Need a Maria
Don’t Hurry for Heaven
Good to Get Out
The Easier Way
The Bowling Green
Sponji Reggae
A Picture of Us in the Garden
Keep Your Silver Shined
Old Virginia Block
Keep Your Silver Shined
1340 Chesapeake
Let’s Go Out
The Well-Dressed Son
to His Sweetheart
Eloise & Alex
Does the Day Feel Long?
Dress Sharp, Play Well, Be Modest
Stop By Anytime
The Weeping Willow
Upstate Songs
Plea for a Good Night’s Rest
Come Comet or Dove
Farewell, Seasick Suffering
Tristan & Isolde
Should Have Been Snow
You Aren’t Really Here, It Isn’t Really Light Out
White Kite at Georgetown Green
My Baby Just Cares for Me
Last Summer’s Lifeguard
Country Sun
Listen to This
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
Listen to this.
We were walking,
Watching blackbirds
Filling a tree like water
Filling a teacup.
Listen to this.
Eventually,
The tree was filled and
Spilling over into the snow.
I wanted to video.
Eventually, the stream slowed.
But the kids were excited, naturally,
So we kept walking
Watching blackbirds
The flock took off. The sound was unreal.
Listen to this.
Make it Safe
(Devon Sproule)
Here we are, curled in the dark.
First we’re newborn, then like logs.
You are a starfish w/ your leg off the bed
Then like a soldier up at attention.
The fear in the night — make it safe, make it alright
The riot in the mind — make it safe, make it alright
On your birthday, I showed you pics of the outside
You didn’t notice, but it passed the time
St David up on the Lakeridge
A dove muttering into the mouth of St Greg
Straighten a boy’s leg — make it safe, make it alright
Primipara on the toilet — make her safe, make her alright
I can’t talk now, spring is all over us
Come on spring, come and unfold us
A whale moves away from where a wave unstuck it
Rain gathers in the bottom of a champagne bucket
Where your brother betrayed you
Make it safe, make it alright
I wanna take you back to that room
Make it safe, make it alright
Here we are…curled in the dark…
the last two spoons left in the drawer
How do you fall asleep with such speed?
You say “Goodbye” and then
You’re twitching into a dream.
The fear in the night — make it safe, make it alright
The riot in the mind — make it safe, make it alright
The Trees at Your Mom’s
(Devon Sproule)
Leaves in the fall on the trees outside your mom’s
Can’t be improved, put to a tune.
But in writing them down, you can remember the sound
Of them hanging on after they’re gone.
Out on the moor, there are ruins galore,
But I feel the drive of what’s still alive.
Even the stone wall
Will fall, fall, fall, fall.
Only the green vine
Can climb, climb, climb, climb.
Chainsaw in the autumn, pinyon in the oven —
This could be ours…visible stars.
Square feet in a meadow, adding a shadow
Under the ridge, the sun comes right in.
The clouds coming and going —
I never really noticed
The forest with a browse line —
I saw it for the first time
After the aching and the burn out,
Maybe we’ve made it through the woods now.
The channel is wide but I see you try.
And I’m trying too, to find my way through.
Like a raven with a frog voice,
Raving in a fog slice,
Royal purple pond ice —
This is what it feels like.
The time between the diving,
Of a hungry sea lion,
A hay bale wrapped in plastic,
Smelling like strawberry chapstick,
White and orange gym shorts,
Longhorns storm the ball court,
Underneath a blue tarp,
Geodesic dome arch,
Crowded into the sweat lodge,
Crouched around the hot rocks.
Leaves in the fall on the trees outside your mom’s,
Can’t be ignored anymore.
The Gold String
(Devon Sproule)
I’m imagining a golden string that is connecting
Everything but especially, beings where love has been.
I’ve imagined it again and again so often,
It isn’t even imagining, it is making it happen.
Meet me in the magic hour,
When the bridge is silhouetted
in the Pleasant Valley.
Look up when the moon is uncovered.
Look for the burrowing owl on top of
The satellite tower, giant sunflower.
The golden rope it’s goal is mostly to go between people.
It is a perpetual stretcher,
An energetic connector.
It can stretch down a street even when you can’t see
He who you are loving after.
It specializes in timezones,
Spangling clean in between ’em.
Meet me at the beach at Onekahakaha,
Where you can go for your ocean slowness,
And can quiet the mind riot.
Look up when the Goldeneye pushes over.
Don’t miss the Lesser Yellowlegs nesting
Next to the tamarack in the boreal forest.
See, you don’t even need to feel or see someone to seal it,
Though touching is like no other, brightest glow child to mother.
Even if in loving you I was your only glow donor,
You would be so golden and ropey.
Little yellow globular bobbin.
The golden string is invisible only until you remember it,
And once you discover it hovering,
You can never forget about it.
You don’t need to take pictures.
If it is the golden string it will sing forever,
Like an unscheduled oriole
In an otherwise unbeautiful funeral.
drawing circles
(ed askew)
i like to draw straight lines by eye
an air-o-plane in the morning sky
noisy voices, a bouncing basket ball
kids in the yard outside
i think and think and think of time
how many days and how many years
another coffee, another beer
“and something to live for..”
i like to play piano sometimes
letters and numbers and words and signs
but what is the cost of ascending lines
broken fingers, “my watch is broken”
satellites in the sky go by
sending news to the distant world
love in the right hand, hate in the left hand
guns in church, “but his bible stopped the bullet”
blue rain
red rain
white rain
coming down
i like to draw straight lines by eye
an air-o-plane in the morning sky
noisy voices, a bouncing basket ball
kids in the yard outside
blue rain
red rain
white rain
coming down
Jana
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
Jana, the hunt is on.
High up, the trumpet song.
Here come the hungry dogs.
Jana, you’re all alone.
When you hold someone so far above the rest,
But you can’t get near enough
To the one you love.
When you hold someone so hard against your chest,
But you can’t get near enough
To the one you love.
When you were a newborn on your father’s bed,
You were already trying to lift your head, Jana.
And the first time you slept through the dark
Was the Saint Joan fire and the fireworks, Jana.
Jana, look out below.
The big ditch is overgrown.
The way out is thick and green,
Up through the nettle sting.
Jana, the hunt is on.
High up, the trumpet song.
Here come the hungry dogs.
Jana, you’re all alone.
It’s a pain that makes your heart want to explode,
When you can’t get near enough
To the one you love.
It’s a place you never stop trying to go,
But you can’t get near enough
To the one you love.
It was Jana on the trampoline,
Flipping over her bony Pyrenees, Jana…
Now it’s Jana, wakes you when she gets in
With your thumbprint still on her skinny chin, Jana…
Jana, when you’re out there on your own
And you can’t get near enough
To the one you love,
Keep your heart out in the open even though
You can’t get near enough
To the one you love.
I won’t know what’s on your mind.
You’ll just say that everything is fine, Jana.
But then when you let me in
There will be gold dust on everything, Jana.
Jana, it’s on and on.
The white noise of trumpet songs
The traffic of the hungry dogs
Jana, we’re all alone.
Jana, you’re up to speed.
You have everything you need.
When you wanna rest your bones,
Jana, you can come home.
More Together
(Devon Sproule)
If or when it gets tricky again,
If the pain stays or gets worse in your hand,
If we drift apart in the heart,
Or forget the golden thread,
I know now we know how
To find our way back again.
I’ll remember this year, living here,
And being more together.
We are so much more together than we used to be.
We are so much more together than separately.
I lost a friend and got back a lover.
I caught a wall that was falling
Instead of building another.
I found a pirate station
With an old man DJ.
When we move in the spring,
I’ll be sad to leave him.
Often, before I shop for the evening,
I run toward a long row of TVs
But peripherally, I see your bodies,
Working and sweaty,
Jumping into the evening,
Thumping the reset,
Feeling the music,
In these funny outfits
We put our bodies to use in
And I don’t feel gross
I feel the power around us.
I feel close
Anciently crouched around the hot rocks.
More together.
We are so much more together than we used to be.
We are so much more together than separately.
The Tree Detail
(Devon Sproule)
In a certain spot,
Looking out through the dark,
A light looks back
From a house across the way.
But before it gets to me,
It shines through the tree between us,
And projects the branches
Moving on my window.
In this giant magnifying,
Each tree gives me its detail
from fifty feet away.
You Can Come Home
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
When it was warm enough,
I cast out for the brown trout.
I came all the way out of the bay.
I took my shirt off. I felt the sun sauce.
I heard the sail flap. I saw the waves cap.
I let the rope out. I came about.
When the work is done,
When the light is gone.
Then you can come home.
When I began this, I ran a fast ship.
Top of the water, I barely scratched it.
But each empty day, I took on the weight.
I lost the wide eye. I lost the wide sky.
I took a last run in the last of the sun.
I ain’t winding the line in until I find it.
When the work is done,
When the light is gone.
Then you can come home.
The wind changed. The rain came.
It took me over, into the water.
The mast went into the black depth.
I felt the rough touch of the muskelunge.
I moved toward the centerboard.
One body is not enough to get this boat up.
When the work is done,
When the light is gone.
Then you can come home.
Magic in the Panic
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
I can’t go home,
Though the wind is getting meaner.
I can feel it in my bones,
Nobody’s gonna be there,
And I need someone to be there.
I’m pulling in a long long line. I always think I got ’em.
The water column’s full of life, but I’m dragging the bottom.
This is me dragging the bottom,
Hoping there’s
Magic in the panic, magic in the upshift,
Magic in the scattering of the family.
I could do it in the early days,
In among the lost ones.
I had the campaign in my veins,
The drummer in the rostrum,
Drumming the lost ones.
But when the lost ones grow up,
You’re hitting on a lonesome drum.
The shrug comes creeping in,
Just looking for the season’s end,
Hoping there’s
Magic in the panic, magic in the upshift,
Magic in the scattering of the family.
You Can’t Help It
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
I’ve always wanted it,
Since I knew how to want.
And I’ve worked so hard,
Just to get this far.
The day they pulled you out,
All of the stars lined up.
You knew the formula
Before they held you up.
How does it feel to be carrying so much light?
You can’t help it – you can’t help it that you’re so good.
I don’t believe that he loves us all alike.
You can’t help it – you can’t help it that you’re so good.
A plane is powerful,
With a noble wingspan,
A fine-tuned rush of air,
Perfected by man.
But a bird is natural
In the wild above,
When it sings its song,
We look up.
How does it feel to be carrying so much light?
You can’t help it – you can’t help it that you’re so good.
I don’t believe that he loves us all alike.
You can’t help it – you can’t help it that you’re so good.
Colours
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
I don’t want to make you mad.
I don’t want to hold you back.
I’ll show my colours now.
You haven’t felt the fire inside.
You haven’t heard the stormy night.
I’ll show my colours now.
I never said I could change.
I never said I could change the way I am
Like it was nothing.
I can be gentle when I’m trying to sell,
Generous when it serves me well.
I hide my colours well.
I wanna wear them on my sleeve.
The things you say, I wanna believe,
But oh, my colours…
You don’t have to pretend if you don’t understand.
You should be afraid to dig that line.
But if you are brave, you might find
Blue under the robin’s nest.
Green to lie back against.
Find my colours.
I never said I could stay.
I never said I could stay and play the game
Like it was nothing at all.
The Fan
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
I’m so afraid you’re gonna hate the summer.
The heat will be more than a bummer, in the summer.
When we moved, the air was moving all up and down the city.
It’s gonna be more than a pity when it gets shitty.
I know you love to sleep with the windows open.
And it’s so sad when you have to close them
And the night can’t nose in.
And the fan goes ’round and ’round…
We’ll take a boat out on the Town Lake,
With your brother when he comes to see us.
We’ll fix the rope swing between us, in the pre-dusk.
And I’ll fly to Carolina when my sister delivers her second.
I’ll try to figure if I’m dead set on kids yet.
I know the day is long and the night is fleeting.
And the clean start could still use some cleaning,
When the dog days come creeping.
And the fan goes ’round and ’round…
When July has set a record
And August is clawing its way in,
When all you want is to stay in
And not let the day in,
There will still be ice in our glasses,
Night at the end of the day.
I hope you feel the same way
Then as you do now.
And the fan goes ’round and ’round…
Walking in the Folly
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
I have run a mucky verge,
Cheering twigs down a river,
Camouflaged by winter’s subtle colors.
I have come alove.
Muddy water shushed
Me back in my body,
Met with longing.
I have interbeen,
Wintering, in his rumbling brown,
Revisiting language unsettlingly round.
Two warm hands inside your wooly vest,
Do your best to act unimpressed,
And to separate the day from the daydream.
Two bodies on a centerboard,
Muddy water over safety orange,
And beneath, the sharpened teeth
Of the muskellunge slip by.
Spidery air on the bottom bare
In the out house at night,
Soft sand in your hand
but you’re gripping too tight.
I have swam past his fingers.
They were perfect fifths in two rivers.
I have secured to memory the shiver.
I thought one of us would be lost,
Walking in the folly,
Body follows body.
Instead, I’ve been roused
From the couch hunch
Where I have been.
I have found new ground
To plant the old seed in.
I have left just a thumbprint
In the midst of his chin.
I have been pushed back from the edge
By just the wind.
Hiked down to the human town
to try it all again.
Knocked off a stock song to forget about it in.
Talk to You
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
Down at the Seahorse,
To some loud R&B horns,
You danced with a pensioner.
She said, “Forgive everybody,
Be happy to see them
When you’re sure of yourself you’ll know
They wanna talk to you.”
The kids in your city,
Happy to see you,
Happy to know where you’ve been.
Pouring you coffee,
Selling guitar strings,
Doing it all again.
They wanna talk to you.
You see them coming.
You turn away from them.
No one can find you there.
You’ve had your secrets
And you’ve had your reasons
But no one is stopping you now.
You wanted to be true.
You want it to be true.
I’m telling you: it’s true.
They wanna talk to you.
The Fire Inside
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
I came looking for someone awake in the witching,
Feeding and burned by a fire inside.
You rode in from Richmond and the city lights.
You took the exit and the music started.
I came looking for someone awake in the morning,
Whose body was warm a whose breathing was clean.
You were looking for someone to take you under,
To show you the wonders of the fire inside.
And you’d learned a little trick about the jealous heart,
It’ll tear you apart if you listen to it.
You were looking for someone who had it together,
Who didn’t change with the weather,
And whose fire inside didn’t eat them alive.
Where’s the fun
In always getting along?
What doesn’t make you crazy makes you strong.
I came looking for someone awake in the witching,
Feeding and burned by a fire inside.
Nobody Tells Me a Thing
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
My cattle are escaping,
Nobody tells me a thing.
How can I corral them?
Nobody tells me a thing.
I know they’re laughing when I turn my back.
Don’t they remember my mom and my dad?
My friends back in the city,
Nobody tells me a thing.
They don’t think I have it in me.
Nobody tells me a thing.
(Do you remember days kept in by the rain
On the sleeping bag with the old rodeo scene?)
I could give up.
I could blame the wintery air.
But where will it stop?
I fear wherever I go,
I will find myself there.
I came to turn it over.
Nobody owes me a thing.
But I’m so alone here.
Nobody owes me a thing.
It’s wild out in the garden.
Nobody’s tells me a thing.
Inching toward my doorstep.
Nobody tells me a thing.
I wake up in the darkness.
Nobody tells me a thing.
The stars are in the millions.
Nobody tells me a thing.
How can I corral them?
Nobody told me a thing.
The Shallow End
(Devon Sproule / Mike O’Neill)
Sometimes it’s so easy
To see where you belong,
And to see where you want to go.
I can see you all the time.
I will remind you when you need to know.
But when it’s hard to see,
Then you don’t believe me even when I tell you so.
I can only hope that you’ll remember
By the time you have to go.
Just close your eyes
And you’ll see the way to where you need to go.
And when you’re far enough away,
I will show you just the stuff
That I want you to see.
I will keep my secrets
And pretend that we are who we want to be.
The shallow end is easy,
Sitting on the edge and making ripples with your toes.
But someone has to jump before
The sun is gone and everyone is cold.
I know I should jump but
what if I come up and everyone is cold?
The back part of the pond belongs
To the pilots & yellow belly sliders.
If you push to that part of the pond
On the mossy dock, and fall in, hang onto your bits.
To that part of the pond, we run –
Hot from the sauna, mud at the bottom.
If you pick the right path from the pond,
You’ll come upon God’s acre, the terra bathers.
If I can do this, I can do anything.
If I can do this, I’m gonna do this.
Since the school year’s begun, I’ve run and I’ve run.
I haven’t quit running.
I’m as strong as I’ve ever been, but the hills
And the hills keep coming.
My team keeps time in the van behind.
My brothers watch my shirt change colors.
If you could just ask about my daily task,
I can stay abreast of this miserable rhythm.
If I can do this, I can do anything.
If I can do this, I’m gonna do this.
Five years back, our wedding friends were pudgy and young –
A gold tie straightened, a nylon string strummed.
On one side, a hidden pair of yellow rubber gloves.
On the other, a supergiant, disguised as the sun.
If I can do this, I can do anything.
If I can do this, I can do the lightening youth,
The sitting monk, the mutinous muse, the lesser drunk.
While it’s still fun and games, while it’s still me and you,
Let’s give ourselves a taste of what we have to lose.
If I can do this, I can do anything.
If I can do this, I’m gonna do this.
I got plans, albeit square plans.
Working hard, round in the arms,
Brown in the arms, my man in the arms.
My man: the pattern on the ocean
From the satellite motion.
My man: sitting on the runway nearly all day,
Waiting on that big wave.
I say, from my gold-flower bed,
“I love you, go easy!”
You say, from your candle’s two ends,
“I love you, go easy!”
It’s just survival trumping the night.
It’s hard to be happy
When you’re spending your time drawing the line,
But you can’t help trying.
When we’re alone, we can measure in big boxes.
But out on the town, moderation abounds.
It’s been staring me down.
I say, “Let’s call it a day.
I love you, go easy!”
You say, “I’m just coming awake.
I love you, go easy!”
I say, “Go out of your way!
I love you, go easy!”
You say, “You go out of your way!
I love you, go easy!”
You and the unmarked animals
By the cow field and the twin oaks.
I’m taking water and a wandering jew
To get its wander on on you.
I wanna lend a hand to your son coming up.
I wanna start picking up where you left off.
So many questions, you ask so many questions!
It’s like whomever you’re looking toward
Feels like they’re sitting on top of the world.
In the back of the Amoco in Louisa,
With a bag of tobacco between us,
I came under the question attack.
I learned how to question attack back.
It ain’t a hole you left in me.
You made it whole with what you left in me.
Before you know it, the window’s closing.
Just when you’ve grown up, they start throwing the curvy stuff.
It’s true what we tell them:
Distance makes us better.
It’s clear, dear, from back here:
We should be together.
We should be by the ocean.
We should be in the Spitfire,
You showing me what a good motion
It can be spinning your tires.
I’m giving up my mother hold.
You’re giving up your night assault.
Before you know it, the window closes.
Just when you make it, the morning comes to take it.
I try to work, work, because everything needs working on.
But half of the time I’m just skirting the side of what I’ve set my sites on.
If I get to know the ghost that you’re walking out toward,
Will you try to show me how to go slowly up to that mushrooming void?
I’m coming home from my girl in the woods.
The window closes.
I know that window’s closed for good.
The window closes.
By the unmarked animals,
The window closes.
I’m coming home with something to show.
Where do you go to push thirty?
Go with your Monk
And with your Monkey.
Where do you go when your fur feels dirty?
With your Monk.
Where do you save and where do you spend it?
Careful as a monk, fun as a monkey.
To think future or think present?
You gotta go where the bones are.
Go far to go far.
I’ll be leaning a little bit further north.
How to get home, pickled & legless?
Walk with your Monk
And with your Monkey.
How to atone for the rust and the restlessness?
Who can you love with the heart of a chicken?
Ask your Monk, then ask your Monkey.
He knows where your balls are hidden.
You’ll get a load of the real snow.
Turn at the pivotal pile of stones.
The cup and the string will stretch farther
To Lighthouse Point Park & Carousel
And to the Mark Twain Centennial.
Qui Transtulit Sustinet.
To the house with the math and the music.
Who sees you buckle before you do it?
Who in the woods is a hurdling dancer?
Who gives the answer you knew was the answer?
Whose blonde body was bred for softness?
Who guards the gold-flower bed in the darkness?
The Warning Bell
(Unofficial Sequel to “Hang on the Bell, Nellie”)
I’ll work a while in music, til my money runs out.
I don’t mind the driving, and I like the crowd.
On the nights the guitar feels right & I ain’t sick of the songs,
It’s a pretty good job.
I know you know what I’m saying, honey – I know you do.
It’s good to have someone who knows to come home to.
But it should be someone who knows when to let live,
When to be discreet,
And when to start letting the warning bell ring.
I’m climbing down the ladder,
Untying myself from the clapper,
Letting the warning bell ring.
I’ve been waking up early to the tune of the neighborhood rooster.
The cat’s in the dark yard hunting birds.
Pretty much all the leaves on the mulberry tree came down overnight,
But she’s still blending in all right.
Out of reach, out on the street, you can see up to Monticello.
There’s a brown bird under a metal cylinder at the top of the telephone pole.
Like a kid in the guts of the parking garage, lunging up a saxophone,
I’m a bird with a big mouth, a big mouth and a microphone.
Climbing down the ladder,
Unhitching my middle from the clapper,
Letting the warning bell ring.
I took the Triumph to Keith’s tonight to celebrate the cooling off.
It’s like driving the outboard at Tremblant.
Out in the lake, in the middle of the night, just you and the yodeling loon –
Something about moving fast and looking straight up at the moon.
I know I’ve been a bit of a broken record as of late.
I grind my axe in the morning. I pick my bone at night.
Sometimes it’s you I’m picking on. Sometimes I think I’m saving your life.
I’d like to think you’d do like for me.
Climb down the ladder.
Unhitch my middle from the clapper.
Let the warning bell ring.
Your four favorite persons,
Waist deep in a waveless ocean,
A gesturing-big, sticky-skin, messy-hair affair.
You run back to grab your camera,
Carrying it carefully over the water,
But when you look out again, they’re lost in the night brown,
The sun is down and the flies are out.
You’re practical as the daytime.
You never believed in the evening ghost crab,
Countering flashlights with a 360 view.
Ticking down to the land of the skim board,
Evolutionally stuck at the half point.
Wick the bubbling oxygen. Pinch the groping hand.
Hold your breath in the sand.
You’re waking up on a jungly mattress,
Caterpillar tents in your branches.
You think you saw it. You think you caught a glimpse.
But here you are again at the bottom,
Climbing up yesterday’s mountain.
All you really want is another little look off the edge.
You’re just a few miles from your childhood exit,
A few more from the local prison.
Stop in for a visit, see what we’ve added on.
You press the button for the floor beneath the basement
To see the rows of lifers adjacent.
Each house was made by the man inside before he died
With the gold he could mine.
You come home in a blue afternoon,
Pick up the same tea and barbecue.
You’ve got so much, so much, and so little to do.
But your four favorite persons
Are waiting for you to finish your lesson,
Waiting to go to the blue hole,
Pile up the hippie stones,
Expose the copper head,
The bruise on your leg,
Juice in the wine,
Bodies in their prime,
Listening to the cicada choir,
Around a jumping fire.
Somebody’s hand is on your shoulder.
Somebody’s measuring coffee for the morning.
And there’s always somebody blowing a sweet midnight wind.
But anytime you try, you can feel that wind blowing.
If you’re really listening, you can hear it in the morning.
It’s the same song over and over and over again.
How do you make
The coming-to-make-things-bearable, bearable?
How can just a number on a phone’s display
Display a loving stomach’s terrified nerves?
Faulty body – girl, you got it.
Ravishing cinnamon skin all aglow,
You’d never know it’s a faulty body.
It’s hot and bossy.
On it goes, though it knows that the bow’s drawn.
Coupled, we dance a frazzling dance,
A things-we-should dance.
While ahead you go, powerless to postpone
Your two-timing lungs and bones.
In a faulty body, you make do.
We drove out to Missouri,
Missouri in a hurry.
A cop on a bike,
A quickly pocketed pipe,
But you charmed him right.
It was a hippie week in Missouri.
Naked, day-bathing made me worry.
I was skinny and shy,
But you set me right
For the rest of my life.
It takes a faulty body to know one.
New Haven could be our plan
To make you a happier man.
If it’s as bad as they say,
And we don’t dig the busier days,
We can always come back again.
(Don’t be afraid to come back again.)
San Diego could be the show
Where we can sing our last cynical note.
Cheap, by the beach, could never be,
But I could teach and support us both.
We could give clean living a real go.
Now is the time.
The hill country sun could be the one
To put the fire back in your gun.
Living in the back of our buddies’ shack
Getting only the good stuff done.
Getting only the good fights won.
Now is the time.
The family will wait. The family will wait only so long.
You can tell Keith that if he needs to, he can come.
Now is the time, if there’s ever gonna be one!
We’ll know the whole time that right here is the end of the line:
At East Jefferson and Red Maple Drive.
But while the ghost is still in town, and our folks don’t need us around,
Let’s get the old days off of your mind.
Let’s get the old grapes off of the vine.
Now is the time.
I asked God for a good job.
He put me on a plane.
All of the people that I love,
The people that I’m from,
Are far away.
I’ve been packing dirty clothes,
Sleeping in my coat,
Eating in the car,
Living in a bar.
Goodness, ain’t that the way?
I asked God for a good man.
But I forgot to say,
“I wanna see him every day.”
I try to remember that Goose Poop Pond,
Even with a swinging rope,
Is never as fresh as you hope.
The neighbor baby in the mud,
Getting dirty in the sun,
The washing on a wire,
Potatoes in a tire —
Goodness, ain’t that the way?
If you got honey in your mug,
Liquor in your cupboard,
Water on the stove, sugar on the phone,
Goodness, ain’t that the way?
You’re on your own.
You’re on the way home.
New Ry Cooder on the radio.
You’re cooking for one,
Watching an old video.
And here in the distance,
Here in the miss you,
Fonder and fonder and fonder I grow.
I was on a walk tonight, out late.
I noticed your pick-up’s license plate:
A horseless carriage from Colorado,
The home state of a girl I used to know.
We met in a computer lab where I introduced myself.
She was pre-med; I was nervous as hell.
Her name was Julie. Could yours be the same?
I’m leaving this note on your windshield, just in case.
We were both shy and a little strange.
We both liked spiders and good-guy / bad-guy trains.
Her lips were chapped, her shoulders: burned.
We moved in together just after the winter term.
Julie always left a little light on for me.
She said there was little that she would need.
But still I noticed all the times she clenched her teeth,
And the nights when she barely touched her drink.
Julie.
All along, something was wrong.
Some women are patient, some are too pretty to be,
But woe is the beau with neither.
There ain’t a fellow alive with a pillow so wide.
Just waiting for my beautiful love, my restless lady,
The only girl I think of.
So perhaps you’re not the one I held so dear.
Why should I believe she would ever return here?
But I just can’t stop looking for her along these streets.
I just keep looking for Julie.
On a drive, nowhere going,
Gravel popping, tape deck whirring,
Happy couple talk a back road,
Face a thistle with a backhoe. She goes:
Take a book, for instance,
When it’s done, you are let down.
But when it’s smacking in your head,
You go attacking for the end.
Like a good love, too long in bed, besides,
Why should we do like the movies?
Moving doesn’t need a pattern.
Wooing matters, not the captain.
Filthy keyboards, mixing records,
Fetch another fizzy beverage.
Vision shows up as it pleases,
Sound holes echo back our sneezes.
Healthy parents, honest living,
To be in love, to barely scramble past
The mowing grass, the compost bins,
The washing dishes,
Discs our basement’s flooded with,
The risks, the time it’s taking
To find some piece of mind,
To bear the frown from a guitar,
Awaiting meaning, reading,
Keeping dreams alive along the window,
Silly green the guilt of living happy,
Heart attacks for all the lucky,
Wine, the bookshelves, color-coded,
Competition keeps it going,
Bland relief at barely standing
Fancy-worded nerdy booking,
Germ: the food that kills the cooking.
Terminal: they don’t know nothing.
Love denies the dying fear.
It’s good to finally be here.
Kenny, you got your Hopewell.
You got your Timesbold.
You can keep your Potown.
You keep your Sunbelt.
Too narrow in the shoulders,
If you like a big man to throw you around.
If the party isn’t ever over,
Even a party girl won’t stick around.
You need a Maria, but you don’t get a Maria.
You don’t get what you don’t deserve.
If you don’t do it right when the right one goes by,
Kenny, you don’t get the girl.
You can’t give it all to music.
You can’t give it all to love.
But if you’ve gotta use it, fair enough.
I’m not saying it was simple.
I’m not saying that it wasn’t real love.
I’m not saying you were hurtful.
I’m just saying that you gave it up.
You need a Maria, but you don’t get a Maria.
You don’t get what you don’t deserve.
If you don’t do it right when the right one goes by,
Kenny, you don’t get the girl.
I don’t believe that you should believe in heaven anymore.
The way that you’re going, I’m afraid of you floating away.
And if it’s forever, then you’ve got forever to get there.
Don’t hurry for heaven while I’m taking care of you here.
Baby, you’ve got a body worth more than it’s lot of admiring.
I’m talking studies and statues, I’ve not found a match for you yet.
But if you keep on living like you been living, darling, who’s to say?
Don’t hurry for heaven. Don’t hurry away.
Tell it on the mountain. Tell it ‘cross the sea, boy.
Tell ‘em all you’re coming home to me.
I’ve heard that the curves of a guitar are like the curves of a woman.
And you can tell a true player by his want to get better, they say.
So if you love me even half as much as you love your old Martin,
You should be practicing on me just about every day.
Tell it on the mountain. Tell it ‘cross the sea, boy.
Tell ‘em all you’re coming home to me.
It’s good to get out of the house.
It’s good to get out of the house.
Don’t it feel so good?
Just go and buy a motorcycle,
And ride til the summer’s over.
Don’t it feel so good?
When you were young, getting your Catholic on,
Saying, “Jesus was cool; he went up and down too,”
Four-tracking up late and blowin’ it out the window.
Cuz you were always a guy who did whatever felt right.
Don’t it feel so good?
Going door to door, the girls are home alone.
Talking ‘bout the Man til the man gets home.
It’s good to get out of the house.
It’s good to get out the house.
Don’t it feel so good?
Downhill from Belmont Park, I put a family there.
We cut a good rug. We cut our own hair.
When the basement floods, the basement floods.
When the money gets low, we pack a bag up and go.
The Paul on tour, the Dev at home alone,
Going on about her man til her man gets home.
It’s good to get out of the house.
It’s good to get out the house.
Don’t it feel so good?
The Easier Way
I had a river growing up. I had a pond.
I had barely a secret. And now I have none.
But I’m not bragging about it.
Sometimes I get sad about it.
Where’s all that rosy panic
I used to fill up my nose with?
It’s a shame about growing up.
It’s such a shame about cleaning up.
Wasn’t that swingin’ give-a-damn named for you?
Now the women want time for a walk.
She turns in early; he stays up.
But that official compliment
Sure can keep a girl confident.
I’m coming around. I’m coming around.
But honey, where are you gonna be
When I come around?
We got a house and a dozen guitars.
We can walk to all our favorite bars.
We got good looks and good friends.
We got a little money, just a little money.
I remember crying all the time
Til my crying just wasn’t worthwhile.
And who showed me the easier way?
Who told me to say
I’m coming around? I’m coming around.
But honey, where are you gonna be
When I come around?
A Picture of Us in the Garden
Won’t you give us a trim, Maria?
The men can juice the grapefruit.
Megan’ll roll up her new tattoo,
And Monk will entertain us.
I can’t live any place but Virginia,
Though I’ve never even tried.
I considered McGill from dear Charlottesville,
But settled on keeping those Twin Oaks in sight.
Danele, you’re officially one in a million,
Though we’ve known it all along.
I can’t imagine that shit living in your beautiful body.
I can’t imagine a night without drinking,
Though I never drink that much.
I just love to do it. I married into it.
Some prefer down and some like it up.
You want a picture of us in the garden,
But it’s not much of a sight:
Maria and Dev in a vegetable bed,
Digging up grass in the last of the light.
Honey, how are we supposed to ever have us a family,
When the business won’t give us a buck?
I guess it’s lucky I’m still pretty young.
If my ears hear a sigh of a shiny red violin
Clear by the Rivanna, down in the Blue Ridge.
By the dog bags and trash, by the bottles and cans
And the dead beat brown grass
and the red dirt in the Blue Ridge
Then my home must be around another good old Virginia block.
If my ears hear a note on the cello, so low, then a double stopping bow,
from my headphones, in the Blue Ridge.
Out walking at noon, appearing under the white of the daytime moon,
keeping my big blue balloon in my tight fist, in the Blue Ridge.
Then my home must be around another good old Virginia block.
If my ears hear the sound of a slate rock on the ground,
clicking the drops of the rain coming down, along a front walk, in the Blue Ridge
The rim of dirt on the brim of a brow, the skin of sweat on the handle of a plow,
Miles and miles of tobacco in the south, from a back road, in the Blue Ridge
Then my home must be around another good old Virginia block.
I’ve got family in Canada, family in New York
I’ve got friends in every other place I’ve played
But I can’t keep from planting all my plans of family stuff
Down between the weeds in the red dirt clay
And where my ears hear a hundred bees riding that upwarding breeze,
a veil and a bucket by a pair of oak trees,
just another blond kid, in the Blue Ridge.
It’s all to make a pattern of love, to roost a lava field of white doves,
with just a pitch fork and a pair of thick gloves,
for your whole life, in the Blue Ridge
The pick up and go – the bent back and the grunt-chucked coal,
The gleam of your white underclothes, in the back seat, in the Blue Ridge
The pile of bacon by a couple fried eggs, kiss marks and hearts on a picnic table leg,
The quartet fretting on up in my head, on my long walk, through the Blue Ridge.
And my home comes up around another good old Virginia block.
We got the last of the apples,
Rosy just from the weather,
An orchard map spread out green and red.
A ten-cent yellow hat,
Rotten fruit kicked off the path.
Our hands in our pockets
And our pockets in our pants.
Racing out ahead to be the reddest heart beat beating,
Out on the scene busting blood through a young body.
A puddle with a jacket cap,
A picnic in a mountain pass,
A taste of summer coming back:
A summer swam by a foggy dam.
A Poughkeepsie scam around a mountain bend.
The season changed, the best of us changed.
The rest of us stuck behind to keep the silver shined.
A piano in a window bay
A straight back with a ribboned braid
Blue Ridge brick in an almond shade
A chin on a worn-out wrist.
A magnet with a grocery list says:
My, oh my, my toes get tired,
But I dont let on, or let go — I sing along.
Back home Ive got a couple friends
We drink together on the weekends
We keep our nails trimmed and fingers tough.
I’ve got a felt hat collection,
A dresser drawer to keep my pants in.
What, oh, what more could a woman want?
I want an overhaul for my guitar,
A clawfoot tub and a shiny car.
I want piles of fruit and a fully stocked bar.
Money for a flight out west,
I want cute shoes and a vintage dress,
New houses for all my relatives.
I want to land in a tugging hand:
A youthful bed with a youthful plan.
I want to wait and take my time,
All my time, to keep my silver shined.
The bruise on my knee is almost gone
Honey’s flown to Madison
Phyllis starts a watercolour
Gutters flood a spread umbrella
The burner’s up
The flame is high
The water’s gone
The pot is dry
But there’s a basement full of wine
And nights to remember
Of a slow talk had up a sidewalk
Taking its time
Walking up Chesapeake
Our white house on the right
Next door they’re throwing junk away
Furniture out in the rain
They’ve finally put the old lady away
So I took her silverware
Her books and her kitchen mop
Her hangers and her pans and pots
The dressers where she kept her clothes
It looked as though she lived alone
Much to hear while our four ears are still young
If we shout it right we’ll have more years yet to come
Tonight the moon will turn around
All the way back behind the clouds
Folks will lower their telescopes
Drive their wives and kids back home
Their eyes will block with mud and milk
Their eyes inside with blindness filled
And the moon will hide and seek until
There’s no one left to wonder why
The rug will soak
The screen will glare
You’ll come and summer will be here
We’ll kiss and cross the swamp
The boat will wait down at the bottom
The sun will set late in the day
The sun will take its face away
But love
Your face will always stay right beside mine
There’s nothing in the fridge, nothing in the cupboard
The jelly jar is empty, and I’m plum sick of peanut butter
A groundhog ate the lettuce right out of the ground
Honey, let’s go out
There’s nothing on the TV. The picture looks like hell
We’ve watched all of the moves up on the move shelf
I’m sure there’s a jazz band playing in one of the bars downtown
Honey, let’s go out
Last night we were swingin’, we had the music up loud
Our house felt like the center of the world
But oh my we slept late and the day just slipped away
And now the evening has found us without a comb or curl
We’ve hung around the kitchen, lingered in the hall
Upended all the bottles up on the pantry stall
I’ll take a stingy pour at Miller’s over no pour at all
Let’s go out, let’s go have a ball!
When we met it was December
And though the jokes you told were splendid
The serenade had ended by January
When you wooed me in June, it was by a different tune
In spring came the ring and now we’re calling up our parents
Let’s get ’em all together, on some sunny hill
You can say “I do”, and I will say “I will”
All the bells will rings and all the kids will shout
When we go out
The Well-Dressed Son to His Sweetheart
Lady, put on your pretty blue eyelids
Pucker up your pretty pink lips
Get a grip on that bristly chin
Get a grip and then move on
Man, hook a bell to your favorite fling
Save up for a glittering ring
Serenade her with a crook in your knee
Color her in with a blush on her cheek
Saying “You want gold, I’ve got golden hair
You want cowboy verve, I’ve got my share
You want a bird, I’ll sing a song
You just want a peck on the cheek, I’m gonna move it along
So put on your pretty blue eyelids
Pucker up your pretty pink lips
Keep a hold of that trembling flower
Keep a four leaf clover in the kitchen in a jar
Sit a ways from her shaded face
Don’t give her the hand until she’s laid down her last ace
Write her letters from a post on the pier
Write ’em better than she’ll ever hear
Go and watch her cut up a rug in a Sunday night bar
Then consent to walk and not drive if it’s not far
Save your pennies and take her out right
Save the corks from your choicest nights
If you want one long night, I’ll keep the sun from view
If you want to make a daytime record, I’ll come wake you
To the grass that has grown long in this thundering haze
To the chest and full lung being left in your wake
To the pestering loved one to be loved anyways
And the well-dressed son to his sweetheart, saying
“Put on your pretty blue eyelids
Pucker up your pretty pink lips…”
Eloise and Alex
Brushing off their knees
“Humbly, this we ask you…”
Then kissed and went to sleep
Carriages of nest eggs
Ghosting off the treetops
Justifying bright side
From out there in the night
Plucky little numbers
Partners thick and thin
I hear the word sierra
Whenever I see them
Eloise and Alex
Invite the outside in
If I ever stepped in trouble
I’d say I’d been with them
In the cataract of the evening
They sit with rain upon their feet
& entertain some lowdown
Soft and privately
Eloise and Alex
So patient in their love
It’s difficult to gather
What they can’t get hold of
Red cabin, red dusk
Red chair sitting in the last of the sun
Baby, does the day feel long
Watching the screen blow in and the hummingbirds warm?
The lake goes silver, the sailboats lean
The fire escape’s made of wood
Upstairs window waving green
To a throat too full to sing any good
In a shake of a tail, another year will be over
Feels like it’s just been a Spring and a Summer
Baby, does the day feel long
Watching the sun spread out thick on the warn out lawn?
On the blue and beat up dock
By the curl of the bay when the suds spread out
On Earth, who could fish out a shinier haul?
In the summer sun with the days so long
The next catch seems like a long time coming
You don’t gotta say what’s troubling you honey
All my thinking back has been
Strung up between two tall trees
Some kind of language learned in the country
Grapes filled with a million seeds each
A wasp along a wooded walk
A pump house overgrown
Baby, does the day feel long?
Outgoing, with a brown leg and a beautiful gun
Say “Land ho!” from your lip’s fine boat
And barnacle of teeth below
Baby, does the day feel long
When you can barely see the shoreline from the ship’s top crow?
So you say “Hey, can you hear me?
My land, come near me! My love, my song
Don’t leave me alone!”
And the day, the day feels long
When the fog lifts to show the mountains
and to show a red cabin in a red dusk
And a red chair sitting in the last of the sun
Baby, does the day feel long
Even after it’s dark and day is already gone?
Dress Sharp, Play Well, Be Modest
What with the warm weather
And the rum and ginger
With a whole half a lime
Why not hold off on the walk home?
Find us a bottom to top the night
Shooting bottles off the back deck
Take all the fooling that you can get
With just a penny in your purse
It ain’t the traveling that’s tough
It ain’t the working that hurts
If you dress sharp, play well
Be modest and keep good what you have
When you’re warmed up in a wood room
What could be better?
What more could you use?
Than the front table at our favorite bar
Starr Hill Amber and Sandy Grey’s guitar
Just look at those fingers fly!
Three cheers for the hometown
But my heart for the traveler’s wine
Making ’em talk about nothing
Or what happened last year
Her head on his Tennessee sweatshirt
Not a cloud in the sky, not a negative word
Not a passerby
And so you gotta dig you a hole
Before you put your fence in
Go it alone
Before you let your friends in
Quit a party once in a while
Hold out for that warm weather
Fill your glass and keep trying
To dress sharp, play well
Be modest and keep good what you have
Warmed up in a wood room
What could be better?
What more could you use?
Stop by anytime
I’ve got the bookshelves loaded
And the back yard’s green and blooming
Stop by anytime
Let the humidity curl your hair
And the mulberries stain your toes
A wasp on the pillow in the hideaway bed
A whippoorwill whistle to a spooked city kid
Dry leaves catching ’round the camping fire pit
Quicker than a rippling lake
If you could come around, I could take you out
To see the bugs in the big woods shine
So stop by, stop by anytime
Stop by anytime
The roommates are all doing fine
With summer colds and summer deadlines
Stop by anytime
To let another hour of news decide
If it’s wrong to keep calm, or if it’s wrong to fight
Cat bells jingle in the middle of the night
Fruit flies drown in the un-drunk wine
Cracked blue china in the rack going dry
Older than a rowing boat
If you could come around, I could show you down
To where the knots of the day untie
So stop by, stop by anytime
Stop by anytime
With a little bit of small talk and a straight spine
Before my good thumb gives up its good try
Stop by anytime
Why have you stayed away so long?
Come keep company for a while
Two skinny cousins in a sunfish race
The rope through their teeth and the sun on their face
Rounding the buoy at the back of the bay
Lighter than a skipping stone
If you could come around, I could show you how
To make the most of a lonesome night
Just stop by, stop by anytime
There are thick stars up above
There the trees part themselves
Thick dust among many
Corks lined up on the shelf
There are bats in the attic we share, we share
There is smoke to kill mosquitoes
Waiting just above to drink our blood
And gas in the lamp that we light
When the sun goes down
My love wakes shaking with nightmare
And the night air pulls in close around
Come revenant, come, come ye gentle host,
To my patient hip and across our sleeping coasts.
Lay down your mantle, shot through with gold,
That we may lie again, here in sweet repose.
Rest your arms down around your oars now
And hear how the night continues on alive and well.
When how rare the bird, how still the wind!
And we still within it sigh and shift and turn, saying,
Sleep she comes to steal the ones who
Fill their glass and leave the rest,
Whose teeth get brushed, who eat enough,
And who know how to treat their friends.
How long this night seems with
No sign of a bright dream to guide us toward the day.
Come revenant, come, come ye gentle host,
To my patient hip and across our sleeping coasts.
Lay down your mantle, shot through with gold,
That we may lie again, here in sweet repose.
The heat had set in as the summer began
I had just ceased to sing winter’s sore tune
And rested my arm on the forgotten farmer
Of all that I can call my fortune
Fall broke the beak of the small bird that beat
In his breast and out through his heels
And I heartsunk to think of it’s stammering wing
Beneath heavy and relentless wheels!
I pulled up in the evening while he was still sleeping
Out jumped I and ran ‘cross his floor
And there he lay white and a guardian darling
Caught up in slumber and I caught at his door
“He blushes therefore he is guilty,” cried I,
“Of some private reverie grand!” So I took him
And shook him and made to unhook him
By squeezing and slapping his hand
The slow work of a blank book hung where we met
And he slept in the depths of his bed
And I, oh, kissed the sweat from his head
Right or wrong, to him alone I come to be fed.
I said, “Come back to me love, come comet or dove,
To my garden, come bladed or bled!”
Farewell to sweet and seasick suffering
Goodbye all hollow and brave new worlds
Say Oh well to green and yellow melancholy
And Oh my to sweet and strange new words
God damn, what damage done!
What wicked wanting have I felt
My nights have stretched constant without flame
I have been quick to draw and shoot and
Shoot again but never have I made my mark
Until my true love came and said:
Farewell, sweet and seasick suffering
Goodbye all hollow and brave new worlds
Oh well, green and yellow melancholy
And Oh my to sweet and strange new words
Say, fair boy, are you so sure?
Have you no questions for the world?
Are your nights so cloudless?
Are your skies so clear?
Say, fair boy, have you no fear?
Be still my quake and shudder
My hopeless hapless hero
Why talk of hunger and of luckless love
Be quick now before the light of day
Has left us lonely, consider this, consider saying:
Farewell sweet and seasick suffering
Goodbye all hollow and brave new worlds
Say Oh well to green and yellow melancholy
And Oh my to sweet and strange new words
Who will hear of love desolate?
In which some number more than two lovers met
But for two it was named
And though it is old
They grow young again
Each time it is told
For what love is more fierce than that of the young?
Why, it is for them that love songs are sung
For though they are quickest
To fall and to break
Their hearts are the true homes
Of worship and ache
And they say, “Yes it is sad to know I am happiest alone
But it is when I am under your hand I know happiness is not grand”
Her voice was like music with a dying fall
A delicate instrument to be played gently or not at all
But for him she suffered
And gladly at that
They made sweet songs
Sweet songs
They sang, “Yes it is sad to know I am happiest alone
But it is when I am under your hand I know happiness is not grand”
back to top
We are all looking up for the same flame
From our only sun,
Faces lifted and the dishes are already done.
It was dripping but before dinner
But now it’s really coming down,
From where two armies fought and fell
As fat drops on the ground
But it should’ve been snow.
Just keep something warm between your hands.
Let the season rollaway but believe them when they say,
“Sweet Jesus he was a good man.”
He brought my baby back from a lonesome track,
He kept him intact and whole.
He wet the earth and he quenched our thirst
From his holy watering bowl
But it should’ve been snow.
We’re all looking up for the same flame
From our only sun.
Faces lifted and the dishes are already done.
I can hear the trees swinging like chimes ringing,
That sweet sound …
From where two armies fought and fell
As fat drops on the ground
But it should’ve been snow.
You Aren’t Really Here, It Isn’t Really Light Out
When I ate the sun I couldn’t keep it down
Spinning in the toilet I saw the sky reflected
Birds scream out into the day
I can touch your face and hair but I can feel how far they are away now
Slipping like sun across the floor
You aren’t really here, it isn’t really light out
High up lamenting the night as it passes
Why not?
You aren’t really here, it isn’t really light out
My face is a flower
My leg a ship’s broken mast
My love’s a little prince, a prisoner of his broken past
He says, “Is that you in the distance?
Have you grown so thin?
Your face an egg at a table’s edge,
Your dress a night I cannot find you in”
High up as if touching a girl were a sin
Why not?
My dress and I you cannot find me in
Jan 4, 2015
I just found this video someone made using this song. You can really hear that I had a cold in this recording…
White Kite at Georgetown Green
Stayed up listening to you cough
Tired eyes watching the sun come up and
Black trees a dark Richmond street grew light
As we tried desperately to sleep and
Faded out and faded in I hold it all tight
Right here in my hands
Well, OK, I hold it all loosely
We couldn’t have slept for more than an hour or two to wake up in a strange house
With the same sun and you sitting straight up ‘neath your tangled hair
Me over here in the bed and you over there on the chair
And all we do is ask each other questions
We sit naked in our conversations
So distant and doubtful so insistent on fall
And beating and beating and beating and beating it out like a drum
I sat outside drinking and drinking like you do
Like you always do
I saw a white kite stuck up in the tree
It wants so bad to be free but it needs so bad the company
I tried to call you to tell you I thought it was you
I’m sure you were drunk too and
Beating it out like a drum
Beating it out like a drum
You and I, when we look at the sky we find so many more words to describe
It feels like a long drive, like a slow sunrise
And in your lights I can see you for miles
Remember that day I was your lifeguard,
Holding fast to your stuck-out hand.
I was coming to your rescue
With soaked with soaked and sandy clothes
And you look like hell but I didn’t notice
Because no one else was around.
You said “I could care less” and I thought you did,
I thought “things will be fine when we find some dry land.”
I think we can.
I think we already have come a thousand miles a day.
So I thought I was helping, I thought I was company.
But you went on floating like you hadn’t heard me
And our skin grew soft and waterlogged.
So I yelled, “Keep your head up!” and “Hold on to me here!”
And “kick off those heavy shoes!
And then we can move a thousand miles a day”
We’ve come wave over wave
And sea over bow.
Please, keep me as safe
As your sea will allow.
Remember that day I was your lifeguard,
Flat on my back laughing and out of breath
In the afternoon with you when no one else was around.
I heed the signs and lay my lips where they say to leave them.
Country sun, come wake me only to be thankful for them.
The thanks I get, a long awaited guest, sleeping in the bed I made him.
When morning arrives, you’ll find no record of the songs I played him.
I played them soft and shy,
He was rough and tired last night
Without his pride, he’s alright.
His eyes, a fine and blanket blue to hide under or drift away in.
Country sun, design your light around his face so as to gently wake him.
Just make him soft and shy,
He was rough and tired last night
Without his pride, he’s alright.
He leaves my bed a tight and tangled web,
One nightmare, one wasted day in.
Country sun, give up your gold stuff,
Just leave enough to cast the day in.
Just make him soft and shy,
He was rough and tired last night
Without his pride, he’s alright.