Shearwater

When will they remove the tourniquet? Is the operation over yet? Will you calm down, sir, will you calm down? I can hear the generators hum, roaring like an evil stadium. Will you calm down sir, will you calm down? But this frame is collapsing under all of the weight of my self, and this desperate wish that they'd pin it on somebody else. Will you calm down, sir, will you calm down? And this terrible drone is the sound of a thousand machines, singing just to themselves in a language that no one can read.

When will they remove the tourniquet? Is the operation over yet? Will you calm down, sir, will you calm down? I can hear the generators hum, roaring like an evil stadium. Will you calm down sir, will you calm down? But this frame is collapsing under all of the weight of my self, and this desperate wish that they'd pin it on somebody else. Will you calm down, sir, will you calm down? And this terrible drone is the sound of a thousand machines, singing just to themselves in a language that no one can read.

I had a dream that it all went fine
Sound body, sound mind
All of the drugs left not a mark
Fine features, strong heart

When I came to this place
My face was pale white
But all of the color
Returned overnight

I lost so much weight
And don't I look great?
My body sinks down
As my heart floats away

There was a hush inside the air
When you were lying on the stairs
Feeling the world had scattered there
Like little feathers on the air

And as the people filed away
The men in suits of black and gray
Each with his hands inside his coat
Each with that hush inside his throat

And this concrete cold
And this cruise control
And the drops of blood in the shaving bowl
Are the lovely things
Bright and hovering
That can pull you up
With a thousand wings
Let me through

They're thinking, "How did we arrive?
Was it by fortune or design?
Or was there something else in mind?
Let there be something else in mind"

There was a hush inside the air
When you were lying on the stairs
Feeling the world had scattered there
Like little feathers on the air

And as the people filed away
The men in suits of black and gray
Each with his hands inside his coat
Each with that hush inside his throat

And this concrete cold
And this cruise control
And the drops of blood in the shaving bowl
Are the lovely things
Bright and hovering
That can pull you up
With a thousand wings
Let me through

They're thinking, "How did we arrive?
Was it by fortune or design?
Or was there something else in mind?
Let there be something else in mind"

"It's like a makeover when the filming's over and she doesn't know how to fix it so that it'll stay, and she can't figure out how to tease out her hair that way herself. And when she wakes up all the make-up has rubbed away and she doesn't know how to find her face. It was only for one single day that you looked so beautiful, baby. Now your cheeks have gone pale, and your roots dark gray. And though they nod as they notice you're nice, baby, nobody's noticing twice. Dim the lights as your memory of paradise fades. I'm like an architect who cashed his check, but he doesn't let on that it's the last one he'll get. Though he knows the funds have run dry, he wants to have fun for one final night, staring out at a skyline that he'll never change. They're saying 'though we like all things that you've made, notice no one remembers your name. As you float through time, feel your powers decline day by day.' You're like a convert who goes back to work when he can't retrieve how the clarity actually felt. When his co-workers ask him the words won't come out. And in three weeks his new leaf has rubbed away and it feels just like an average day: facing walls talking into the phone, sitting dumbly in church all alone, picking back up the magazines he'd thrown away. Well, convert, what your god whispered into youl ear you forgot once that god disappeared, and that life-changing day, you just felt it fade. But, you know, it's got to fade. You know it's got to fade," and, falling down on the couch, he says, "it's perfectly that way."

"It's like a makeover when the filming's over and she doesn't know how to fix it so that it'll stay, and she can't figure out how to tease out her hair that way herself. And when she wakes up all the make-up has rubbed away and she doesn't know how to find her face. It was only for one single day that you looked so beautiful, baby. Now your cheeks have gone pale, and your roots dark gray. And though they nod as they notice you're nice, baby, nobody's noticing twice. Dim the lights as your memory of paradise fades. I'm like an architect who cashed his check, but he doesn't let on that it's the last one he'll get. Though he knows the funds have run dry, he wants to have fun for one final night, staring out at a skyline that he'll never change. They're saying 'though we like all things that you've made, notice no one remembers your name. As you float through time, feel your powers decline day by day.' You're like a convert who goes back to work when he can't retrieve how the clarity actually felt. When his co-workers ask him the words won't come out. And in three weeks his new leaf has rubbed away and it feels just like an average day: facing walls talking into the phone, sitting dumbly in church all alone, picking back up the magazines he'd thrown away. Well, convert, what your god whispered into youl ear you forgot once that god disappeared, and that life-changing day, you just felt it fade. But, you know, it's got to fade. You know it's got to fade," and, falling down on the couch, he says, "it's perfectly that way."

In South Carolina
I was struck by lightning
The world was a ball on a tether
My body as light as the weather

The moon was like an almond
The continents dissolving
I lay on my back in the garden
Looking for any safe harbor

All the black days unleashed by the rain
Collapse into sunny defeat
We live in a house with the roof lifted out
Impossible blue while we sleep
Ready yourself, extinguish your doubts
The hour of your strength is nearing

People got no respect for the dead
They roll new plans out neatly
But in a morning exploding with red
I awoke completely
By accident
An accident

Though you smile so sweetly above
Your congregational coffee
In this town where I was born
By accident
An accident

you were not the first to arrive,
and will not be the last to survive,
as the pigs and the oxen we bound
to the wheel
tear it off, tear it off!

you ate not the last of this house,
or the first to go over the side.
remember the wrecks of those elegant ships
"turn it off!
turn it off!"
no.
look with century eyes they make you go blind.

galloping into the void,
you are rolling your eyes like a horse,
all to turn form the beam,
from the eye of that screen.
"turn it off! turn it off!
with our backs to the arch
and the wreck of our kind,
we will stare straight ahead
for the rest of our lives!"

These were the words of the wounded man
He came to me, you should understand
And he's coming to you, all the way
From the hardest place
Through the hardest days

"Out on the roads of that winding plain
I took her in, took her all I had
Understanding everything
But her coldest eye
Should have changed my mind"

So then he rose, and he rubbed his eyes
Crawled through a hole in a lake of ice
Just to show you, all the way
Though the queen has died
She has multiplied

These were the words of the wounded man
He came to me, you should understand
And he's coming to you, all the way
From the hardest place
Through the hardest days

"Out on the roads of that winding plain
I took her in, took her all I had
Understanding everything
But her coldest eye
Should have changed my mind"

So then he rose, and he rubbed his eyes
Crawled through a hole in a lake of ice
Just to show you, all the way
Though the queen has died
She has multiplied

Oh daddy, I'm lost in your overcoat
But I found my heart
I pulled it out by its root
And I said it once
Said it twice
"If I live, or I die, I am free again"
And I was free

I came to love the spaces inside of me
The winds that blow
The leaves of the almond trees
That would grow by the road
Brushed with light and with snow
And I will ride as far as it goes

Oh, joy of mine, swelling inside of me
I feel your eyes, hands as they form in me
Said it once
Said it twice
While you live
When you die
You will be free again

You are free

Oh hail Mary, full of death
Sing me a bitter song
As dark as the day is long
And as black as your eyes are wild
While the hail from the blackened cloud is raking the firmament
Destroying our argument
About the temperature and the time
Wild and unbroken

We lay like a wounded lamb, facing a billygoat
Bowed down in our heavy coats
Under the force and the threat of his eyes
And we march in our rows and rows
Under a burning hand
Past the scars of the wounded land
Into a country of thorns and spines
Wild and unbroken

Oh, God save the chamberlain
Oh, God save his appointed successor
But God saved his hardest face for you and all your kind
That's what's troubling me

Hail Mary, sick and proud
And holding aloft the light
That would burn through a heaving night
And then leave us upon the rocks
And the child who is nearly born
Waits just to do you harm
Like the shock of a broken arm
Or a love that would burn you blind
Wild and unbroken

when you were a child,
you were a tomboy
and your mother laughed at the serious way
that you looked at her
and from your window at night
there were the star's little fires
and the armory lights

you were tracing the lines
of a globe with your fingers:
cool rivers, white wastes
desert shores, and the forest green
and a limitless life
in the breath of each tide
and each bright mountain, rising

but now the boys are away,
and such kicks they are having;
slashing away at the forest walls,
with their bitter knives.
sparks bloom in their eyes,
and they never look tired.
will they never look tired?

on cliffs that tower from the rising seas
their bonfire glow
where a tiger lies
and, cleaning their weapons,
they laugh at his useless
claws, and all:
it is a beautiful night
to be born to this life
and grind his every bone to powder!

do you remember
do you remember

she carried you down to the edge
of the dark river and said:
though the water is wide,
you will never grow tired
you are bound to your life
like a mother and child.
you will cling to your life
like a suckering vine
and like the rest of our kind
you will increase
and increase
past all of our dreaming

horse without rider
lungs without breathing
day without light
song without singing
a song...

You left some of your sweetness
On my tongue in that evening
With your husband and me
I can't wait

I made a book of the hour
I let you out of the tower
Through the murderous crowd
Let the bombs fall so loud
I can't wait

I can't wait
I can't wait
I can't wait, no
I can't wait

i was a cloud
i was a clud looking down;
your frantic waving did not provoke feeling.

but this little one
steady your wings, now, sparrow
i remembered him
steady your wings, now, sparrow

and in the dark,
from the sea marbled and moon-blue
into the burning eye of the sun
without feeling

my end was imminent
steady your course now, sparrow
but i remembered him
fear for your home life, sparrow
fear for your home life.

If you could ring the sky like a bell
Even such a sound would never suffice
If you could bang the world like a drum
It would only show it was hollow inside

And your love, it slips behind a little cloud
And your eyes are veiled
Is there a medical term for a heart that's been removed?

If you could wring the hours and the days
Of all their lives, I think you would find
That the lovely faces crash like a wave
Upon a shore so frozen and white

And as love, it slips behind that little cloud
The snow is like a feathery down
When your heart has been removed

And as love departs your life
Like silvery birds that leave the coast
Your eyes are as wild and lifeless as the moon

Something is breathing in the air
Something is moving, in the water
And the winds in you are blowing

Bring back my boy
I loved him
I loved him

Gentle flakes of snow
on the roads and the fences
And I'm fading out
I can tell it all the time
I'll go down in a flame
and wheel in the air like a swallow,
diving

Oh, you border guards
So young and handsome
in the light
Will you let me go through,
to the enemy lines
one more time?
one more time?

Hold my arm, will you
Hold my arm harder
There are islands in the sun
There are diamonds in the water
Oh..

the hollow light
is still on the fields
where the winter has warmed
and the snows have drained waway
and the hunter's cry
is still on the air
as the bullet flies home
but the heart that's pierced with it
still is racing
still is racing, alone.

the silver shoals
of the light in the deep
brush the glitterin skein
where the great, dark body writhes
and the trembling jaw
the unfathoming sounds
of leviathan, bound
as his heart, though weakening
still is racing
still is racing, alone

you are racing
you are racing,
alone.

my blistered feet
turn bloody
so i take to the air,
and i am everywhere, i am starlight
i am moonlight
over burning fields and bodies.
i stay close to the ground,
slipping miles from the arches and arc-lights,
into the warm night...

my winged children, all
will fly over the mountain wall
to the lid of the sky,
and slice its belly full wide
with their warm knives
-not the pin-pricks of starlight-
but to bathe in the bright blood
of the world,
of the world above.

After all the times you've been turned around
Will you never be ready now?
After all the times that we stood your ground
Will you never be steady now?

Everybody makes mistakes
Some do most of all
I just don't have what it takes
They're singing as they fall

Everybody makes mistakes
Some more than the rest
Yeah, that's what some do best
But you won't be distressed

And of course we'll send the check
You can just write in the amount
Just let us know the house and town
So if you're going to wreck
You can still be safe and sound
And just let us know and we'll come down

Everybody makes mistakes
The phone lines are shot through
Causing everybody pain
Sitting in for us and you

Everybody makes mistakes
Some more than the rest
Yeah, that's what some do best
But you won't be distressed

You say, "I'll break all the way down
And then all these pieces will be easy to sort out"
Well, we can't wait
We can't wait

Peeled the shirt from your back
Had a look at your scars
They healed over so well
You forget where they are
They radiate like stars

When the cataract falls
Through the darkening air
And the bones of the earth
Have all been laid bare
Then heaven is right there

And in the mountain laurel
Yes, I loved you, oh
And yes I watched the blossoms fall

We will stand in the waves
While the colors all run
And our minds fill with light
'Til we start to go numb
And then we'll let it come

I tried to save a girl I truly loved
And didn't quite know how to help her
So now she's sleeping as her parents up above
Cry over things that they can't tell her

And when I did my good deed
I thought I'd feel unbroken gladness
But standing in the street alone
I just felt sinking sadness

Girl, your dad will not us bless
So hang up your veil and dress
Look at me and take one guess
Where this best-intentioned love will lead us

I once felt a feeling fully through
Though I knew I shouldn't feel it
Because to act on it I'd be a person
Who should be slapped into a straitjacket

So every time it comes around
I just let it die inside me
You said, "I only come around
Because I just need you to hide me"

So we knelt in those dead weeds
Sticks and sharp rocks cutting into our knees
And I thought that we would freeze
But there was just too much warm blood in our bodies

I'm not going to make you take the pills
Though you should really think about it
The fire by which we both were almost killed
Glowed so beautiful, don't doubt it

But we have to make a choice now
Can we glow without it?
There's a space I tried to fill
But I'm seeing now I never will
You fly around while I stand still
Until I slowly just get smaller and smaller

I tried to save a girl I truly loved
And I never would desert her
But we both found out that I was dreaming
Of the day I thoroughly could hurt her

And I saw myself inside her eyes
This shrinking would-be savior
Resented her for never needing help
And couldn't wait just to betray her

So we drove back to her place
From the temporary home that we had made
And I stepped back into the street
Feeling the fullest moment of my life
Slowly shrink away from me
With my good deed

I tried to save a girl I truly loved
And didn't quite know how to help her
So now she's sleeping as her parents up above
Cry over things that they can't tell her

And when I did my good deed
I thought I'd feel unbroken gladness
But standing in the street alone
I just felt sinking sadness

Girl, your dad will not us bless
So hang up your veil and dress
Look at me and take one guess
Where this best-intentioned love will lead us

I once felt a feeling fully through
Though I knew I shouldn't feel it
Because to act on it I'd be a person
Who should be slapped into a straitjacket

So every time it comes around
I just let it die inside me
You said, "I only come around
Because I just need you to hide me"

So we knelt in those dead weeds
Sticks and sharp rocks cutting into our knees
And I thought that we would freeze
But there was just too much warm blood in our bodies

I'm not going to make you take the pills
Though you should really think about it
The fire by which we both were almost killed
Glowed so beautiful, don't doubt it

But we have to make a choice now
Can we glow without it?
There's a space I tried to fill
But I'm seeing now I never will
You fly around while I stand still
Until I slowly just get smaller and smaller

I tried to save a girl I truly loved
And I never would desert her
But we both found out that I was dreaming
Of the day I thoroughly could hurt her

And I saw myself inside her eyes
This shrinking would-be savior
Resented her for never needing help
And couldn't wait just to betray her

So we drove back to her place
From the temporary home that we had made
And I stepped back into the street
Feeling the fullest moment of my life
Slowly shrink away from me
With my good deed

Near a little garden flowers wild grasses
A body's in the casket
Milk is in the carton
Coffee's on the brew
And cars quietly pass
As people hear from last respects
Collective view

The face of the deceased
All emptied of emotion
Waiting for distortions
Of it's perfect features
In a little clearing
Where they'll put the coffin
And then shuffle off
And afternoon is nearing

You were once alive, body
Then you died
And I'll sing your name with my instrument
But one day it will leave my hand

I'm skipping like a stone
Just a couple skips then gone
To the bottom of a pond
Where sun can never go
And resting at the bottom
Who knows what I'll find there
No one can divine where
Friends go when we've lost them

The movie on the plane home
Said, "Life is for the living"
As I sat slowly living
Paralysed with boredom
Flying through the thin air
Skimming over cities
And isn't it a pity
That we can't grow old there?

Doesn't it feel strange
To wait on this change?
Well, the pilot tips his instruments knowing
One day they will rust upon land

His little hook
Your little eyelid
The iris dilates while the heart implodes
And when he comes
And you're dreaming
His mouth still denies what your heart just knows, oh no

Nobody would ever have known
No light in the dark would have shown
How you would reply

When the bombs finished falling
And ashes were drifting along the roads
Little child, how you lifted your eyes to the air
And the ancient shapes of crows

Nobody would ever have known
No hand and no eye could have shown
How you would reply

Nobody would ever have known
No light in the darkness would have shown
How you would reply

From the wreck of the ark
To the fading day of our star
The light races
The light drags
The moon rises
The moon sags
Over the rolling waves
And your hands on the balcony

As a spine pricks the world
And a shudder deep is unheard
But you feel it
Oh my God
As the spindle flies apart
Turn your bow to the biggest wave
But your angel's on holiday
And that wave rises slowly and breaks

The wind that lifts the leaves against the night
The reeds that bow and bend beneath its weight
The holy sap, its smoky light
I will not hide

The fish that swim inside the murky deep
The island shores that loom above the sea
The holy, holy melody
Will bring them all to me

And play again that melody
Hidden close to me

The wind that lifts the leaves against the night
The reeds that bow and bend beneath its weight
The holy sap, its smoky light
I will not hide

The fish that swim inside the murky deep
The island shores that loom above the sea
The holy, holy melody
Will bring them all to me

And play again that melody
Hidden close to me

In place of the sun
In place of the moon
A terrible light
Will flood every room

And bathed in this light,
we will swim again
From the high desert's walls
to the seas, red and black

Turn the transmitters off
We are not coming back
And the pearls of our eyes,
are turning black

And when it occurred, oh, yes
sir, yes, sir
And the walls came down, it was
a fucking disaster
The whole thing's changed in
unthinkable ways
And now you have come to inherit it

But why did you come,
to corral everyone?
When you're just pushing the
darkness around

When the rooks were laid in piles by the sides of the road
Crashing into the aerials tangled in the laundry line
And gathered in a field they were burned in a feathering pyre
With their cold, black eyes

When the swallows fell from the eaves and the gulls from the spires
The starlings in their millions will feed on the ground where they lie
The ambulance men said there's nowhere to flee for your life
So we stay inside
And we'll sleep until the world of man is paralyzed

Oh, the falconer awakes to the sound of the bells
Overhead and southbound
They are leaving his life
And each empty cage just rings in his heart like a bell
Underneath these cold stars
In this trembling night
And he cries "Amen let the kingdom come tonight
Let this dream be realized"

Oh Michelle, where we dwell
There is room for mistakes
We'd make love on the fire escape
And as the neighbors all drove by
Their exhaust would spiral into the sky

Now you pick your earrings up off the nightstand
While I switch from my arm to my hand
As the morning streams through the blinds
Then I wake up again and it's 12:09

And we lived out of town
With no one to come around
So we slept in all day
Until your job took you away
Now Michelle, your smell won't leave my bed

I dreamed of a doctor
Here's what he said
"It's just as well as you're going to get"

Let's start all over
Let's do it right
One drive to Dover
One overnight

All of them waiting
For you to appear
And no more worrying
No more tears

Warm sun is shining
Green trees surround
All of your favorite songs
They're counting them down

And there's a Safeway
And Toys 'R' Us
Baby-blue Camaro
Rhode Island bus

One day you'll look back upon right now
And all sad feelings will be taken out

Feel the hooks in my skin
I set every one myself
And if you pull them all taut
I will turn to someone else
Was that what you asked?

Pour the wax in my mouth
And seal the place inside
To build a chamber like that
You must be in bad need, child

Oh, let my body rise
Effortless and light
And burst the seams of night

Took me deep underground
And outside the reach of light
Found it already filled, full of life
Was that what you asked?

Feel the hooks in my skin
I set every one myself
And if you pull them all taut
I will turn to someone else
Was that what you asked?

Pour the wax in my mouth
And seal the place inside
To build a chamber like that
You must be in bad need, child

Oh, let my body rise
Effortless and light
And burst the seams of night

Took me deep underground
And outside the reach of light
Found it already filled, full of life
Was that what you asked?

Seventy-four
Seventy-five
He's getting used to it now
How each one falls away in that hoary light
And they are gone
Gone from the age
Gone from the guards and their hands
It's no different today than years gone by

But it won't come out alive
With his hands so thin and white

Gone
Gone from the age
Then he is gone from your eyes
As that splintering wave takes so many lives
And now your hands
Gripping the edge of such a waste
Where every angel looks dead
Every face a lie

And you won't come out tonight
With your hands so thin and white
Alive

Seventy-four
Seventy-five
Daddy, come back to me now
I would beat them away
I would pull you out
I would wash every cinder from your eyes
And with silver and gold
I would adorn you

I'll let it all come out tonight
When they peel me out alive
Alive

Hey, little birdie, catching my eye
Sing little sweet things into this mind
And tug at my darker side

Fly to the bed where we are confined
Combing the cancers out of our lives
And harness your song with mine

And whose tongue gave you life but mine

Hey, little birdie, catching my eye
Sing little sweet things into this mind
And tug at my darker side

Fly to the bed where we are confined
Combing the cancers out of our lives
And harness your song with mine

And whose tongue gave you life but mine

When no one else would suffer me, I threw myself at your ankles. So still we slept and were at peace above the winter traffic.
He treats his friends like customers, he treats me like a given, your letter read. Come down, you said, and let me know I'm living. Soon, come.

Claire lives up on Saint Mary's walk with her mother
I live down on Philomel by the harbor
And I hate the ocean
And I hate the ocean
And I hate the ocean, oh well

Claire says she'd throw me overboard then that she loves me
And then she kisses me on mouth and says I'm ugly
And I hear the ocean
And I hear the ocean
And I hear the ocean roar

The water pulls around the pier, dark and rusted
And I know the kindest face with a sailor's eyes still can't be trusted
But I feel the ocean
And I feel the ocean
And I feel the ocean swell

Claire lives up on Saint Mary's walk with her mother
I live down on Philomel by the harbor
And I hate the ocean
And I hate the ocean
And I hate the ocean, oh well

Claire says she'd throw me overboard then that she loves me
And then she kisses me on mouth and says I'm ugly
And I hear the ocean
And I hear the ocean
And I hear the ocean roar

The water pulls around the pier, dark and rusted
And I know the kindest face with a sailor's eyes still can't be trusted
But I feel the ocean
And I feel the ocean
And I feel the ocean swell

I forgot I was loving you
Disappeared for an hour or two
And I came to on a cold, wood floor
And I didn't feel so good anymore

Now we clasp our hands
And we make demands
That the clouds will say what's wrong with you now

And we had big plans
Now alone we stand
In the crowd and they're not even laughing out loud
They don't care

I'll shut my eyes and let tv
Whisper, laugh and talk to me
And I'll curl up tight inside my head
Killing time 'til the whole day is dead

And I'll clasp my hands
And I'll make demands
That the clouds are asking what's wrong with him now

And I had big plans
Now alone I stand
In the crowd and they're not even laughing out loud
They don't care

God, take that sound away
If you've got something to say
Say it now

It's fake and I need you not to be fake
And don't care how you make me feel
Just so you're real

Once I saw my face in a bathroom mirror
And I didn't know that I was here
But I knew my eyes and I knew my hands
I knew God would now listen to all my demands

And the sky opened up
And God interrupted
The Earth stopped dying and stopped giving birth
And when I came to on the cold, wood floor
Well, I didn't feel so good anymore

And all that sure love
And all their sweet words
I'd forgotten I'd felt and forgotten I'd heard

That was was clear
And is now so blurred and smeared
And your love felt more pure
And your love felt more pure once your voice disappeared

I forgot I was loving you
Disappeared for an hour or two
And I came to on a cold, wood floor
And I didn't feel so good anymore

Now we clasp our hands
And we make demands
That the clouds will say what's wrong with you now

And we had big plans
Now alone we stand
In the crowd and they're not even laughing out loud
They don't care

I'll shut my eyes and let tv
Whisper, laugh and talk to me
And I'll curl up tight inside my head
Killing time 'til the whole day is dead

And I'll clasp my hands
And I'll make demands
That the clouds are asking what's wrong with him now

And I had big plans
Now alone I stand
In the crowd and they're not even laughing out loud
They don't care

God, take that sound away
If you've got something to say
Say it now

It's fake and I need you not to be fake
And don't care how you make me feel
Just so you're real

Once I saw my face in a bathroom mirror
And I didn't know that I was here
But I knew my eyes and I knew my hands
I knew God would now listen to all my demands

And the sky opened up
And God interrupted
The Earth stopped dying and stopped giving birth
And when I came to on the cold, wood floor
Well, I didn't feel so good anymore

And all that sure love
And all their sweet words
I'd forgotten I'd felt and forgotten I'd heard

That was was clear
And is now so blurred and smeared
And your love felt more pure
And your love felt more pure once your voice disappeared

The hunter's star
Burns brighter than all of the suns of the firmament
As through the sky he raged
With his hook and blade
And the world unmade

As forests bow
And blacken the air
As the canopies burn away
And the arc-light fades
And no gull remains
To repeat its call

Only now would you long
For the ancient boughs
The moon overlapping the long white clouds
And the home life of a love
Who will never return again

No child at all
Would wake to the light
Of a sun that is reddening
Like a robin's breast
And no lioness
Boards a last, great hull
On the waves
That close
That close
On a world
That will never return again
No sound escapes
From the night to come

The ice covered everything
My friends got so threatening
You know

They shut the blinds
Cut day from night
But the beautiful day
Came in with the maids

I'd like to bash my head
On the rails of this beautiful day
You knew

Baby, hands in your lap
You touch your wounds so much they'll never heal
I fear you'll turn your back
On just the kind of love you really need

It's just the kind
It's just the kind you need to feel

Baby, I love your laugh
And everything you say is dire and dear
But "Cut the crap, you're still alive"
It's just the kind of thing you really need

It's just the kind
It's just the kind
It's just the kind you need to hear

Baby, hands in your lap
You touch your wounds so much they'll never heal
I fear you'll turn your back
On just the kind of love you really need

It's just the kind
It's just the kind you need to feel

Baby, I love your laugh
And everything you say is dire and dear
But "Cut the crap, you're still alive"
It's just the kind of thing you really need

It's just the kind
It's just the kind
It's just the kind you need to hear

Your warm sweater
Your torn letters
They're all that matters
They're all that matters
At the window watching
the elegant traffic
It's all fantastic
It's all fantastic
And when you find these things that make you shine
Don't let them too far outside of your life

The set table
The friend smiling
The bones piling
The smoke hanging
And the soft mention
Deserve attention

So when you find these things that make you shine
Don't let them too far outside of your life
But don't try to hold them too hard Inside your mind when they slide
When they slide
When they slide

Your warm sweater
Your torn letters
They're all that matters
They're all that matters
At the window watching
the elegant traffic
It's all fantastic
It's all fantastic
And when you find these things that make you shine
Don't let them too far outside of your life

The set table
The friend smiling
The bones piling
The smoke hanging
And the soft mention
Deserve attention

So when you find these things that make you shine
Don't let them too far outside of your life
But don't try to hold them too hard Inside your mind when they slide
When they slide
When they slide

"the way is to climb
the way is to lie still
and let the moon do its work on your body

and then to rise
through forests and oceans of lives
and through the way of the black rocks, splitting, wide,
and flow
ten thousand miles."

well, i've had enough,
wasting my body, my life
i'll come away, come away from the shallows

but can this sullen child,
as bound as the ox that i ride,
climb to the heart of the white wind, singing, high,
and blow
through my frozen eyes?

"When our column advanced, and we saw what we'd done, we were sure that we could never tell the folks back home," said my father to me, I had just turned sixteen, and we were walking from my school to his apartment alone. And he said, "You'd think the world you're in would always remain, but some worlds can just disappear. Some worlds you enter just for seconds at a time, and some last until you're forgiven.

When my mother and me take the drive into town, I can't tell if she's lost in thought or lost where we are. She turns the radio to 92 Star, where Ronnie Milsap sings what he would not have missed it for, and she says, "What do you think you're gonna do with your life?" And I say, "You've got to teach me to drive." She just laughs at that, and musses my hair, and says, "Kid, you're lucky to be alive."

"When our column advanced, and we saw what we'd done, we were sure that we could never tell the folks back home," said my father to me, I had just turned sixteen, and we were walking from my school to his apartment alone. And he said, "You'd think the world you're in would always remain, but some worlds can just disappear. Some worlds you enter just for seconds at a time, and some last until you're forgiven.

When my mother and me take the drive into town, I can't tell if she's lost in thought or lost where we are. She turns the radio to 92 Star, where Ronnie Milsap sings what he would not have missed it for, and she says, "What do you think you're gonna do with your life?" And I say, "You've got to teach me to drive." She just laughs at that, and musses my hair, and says, "Kid, you're lucky to be alive."

There's a mark where you were breathing
On the whitened window pane
And the snow collects in shadows
On this ordinary day
But I've gone away
I've gone away

There's a bird where I lay dreaming
When you came to change the sheets
And the rooms where we made love
And read the signs in the streets
But I've gone away
I've gone away

There are dishes to be gathered
And there's glasses to be filled
And there's time to fill with talking
And there's time for lying still
But I'm gone away
I'm gone away

Well, Benjamin
You crashed your plane again
A beautiful tailspin
It was going to happen soon enough
The only question was when
'Cause I could smell the flames
Just sleeping on your skin

And I love you for the things you do
And I don't care who you do them to
You can wrap your stupid suffering around me
Because I thought it out, in the time I've got
And I don't care if I drown or not
I just want to crash into that same cold sea

On an airport "USA Today," in a dark black ballpoint pen
You write, "These people are like skeletons
Wrapped up in perfumed skin"
And it's such a stupid sentiment
But write it once again
Let your anger fill the margin
And I'll kiss your shaking hand.

'Cause I love you for the things you see
And I don't mind if you see me
With my wrinkled hands and glazed eyes
As obscene
You're right in ways that you don't know
And you're untouched by the undertow
All that speed and anger burns your body clean

And I love you for the things you feel
So thoroughly that they turn real
As the sea comes rushing toward us
Dark and cold
And your rowmate, this nonentity
As the screams and salt sea smother me
Will reach out a wrinkled hand for you to hold

But now the landing gear is starting to unfold
The captain points the runway out below
Where the Kent account is waiting to be sold
And where you're going, down there
I don't know

I won't go traveling tonight
I won't go back to the wolves, now
There's something singing in the ice
In the deepest part of the world
And a film across my eyes
As I'm watching all the waves turn white

He took me out on the tide
To make pearls of my eyes
And uncover me, oh, without asking
Tore every stich, every line, every hook, every eye
Between him and the diamonds, diamonds
I would not give, but maybe tonight I will
With you holding my arms and my stuttering heart
As I'm bound and flayed alive

Oh, don't go traveling tonight
Hold that child in your arms
Well, there's no more canaries in the mine
And a cloud, black over the water
And a voice, low in my ear
Says, "The things that we did here will never die"

They're more prepared to deal with pain perhaps
Than you could be in all your life's long years
The lazy lip of sea, it calmly laps
Beneath the looming disco's tens of tears
Or sure their fondest love is for a fake
An obviously fake contrived ideal
In hotels high above the foaming lake
Above bone plates he'd tie with lamb and veal
And breathing smoke since folded into air
And waving bills since spent on kid's grand schools
Some fat cat calculated it right there
The thing they'd turn so selflessly such tools
The polished plate betrays a vacant host
But they're more prepared to deal with pain than most