Noe Venable Complete Lyrics Archive

B i o g r a p h y
(by Official Site)

Noe Venable is a singer-guitarist, composer, and poet. Having honed her songwriting and musicianship within the context of San Francisco’s rich experimental and jazz music scene, Noe has gone on to wider recognition through the release of six albums, as well as national tours opening for many artists, from Ani DiFranco to They Might be Giants. She has shared stages with Patti Smith, Dar Williams, and Vienna Teng, who also covered Noe’s song, Midsummer Night’s Dream. Noe’s songs have also been featured in the motion picture, Cherish.

Musically unique, yet emotionally accessible, Noe’s songs have proven capable of reaching audiences across genre boundaries. Lyrically, her songs often explore the theme of lost or misplaced childhood as a place of wonder, darkness and possibility. Many songs also have a mystical strain. Here Venable cites David Abram and Wendell Berry as influences, as well as a winter spent as a composer in residence Caldera Arts in Sisters, Oregon, recording snowfall and listening to streams.

In 2006, Noe withdrew from touring and performing to broaden her horizons. She embraced a life of study, returning to finish her college degree at Hunter College in New York. Long interested in folklore and mythology, Noe there fell in love with the study of comparative religion, focusing specifically on the intersection between religion and psychology. The ancient stories, she came to see, were like medicine, their messages dearly needed in our challenging times. This was a natural expansion of what had compelled her as a songwriter: the search for the transcendent, hidden beneath the surface of every day life.

These interests led her to pursue further education. In 2009, she earned a masters degree from Harvard Divinity School. She also became a Waldorf teacher, earning a second degree from Antioch University in New England.

Noe’s upcoming album, Cascadia, synthesizes much of what she has gleaned in the five years since her last release. An acoustic album, Cascadia celebrates our connection with the natural world, the quiet power of human resourcefulness, and the discovery, amidst the challenges of modern life, of something which can be trusted.

Noe lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she enjoys writing, teaching, home recording, and leading several choruses. When not occupied with these things, Noe can often be found exploring Prospect Park with her young son, Ember, born in 2012.

Eurydice

Baby it's a dark world, hot and cold
Nuclear fusion wings unfold
Shuddering souls, gilded cage
Somewhere you and the world begin to age

Had a monkey on my back, man on my trail
Life fought back: death, don't fail
Gut the air, sky to floor
And you sang; you don't sing anymore

Here's from me to world
Here's from world to you
I can sing my heart out, sing myself away
Any day, any day

Flutter like silk in breath and lungs
I can call you, I can speak in tongues
And can you walk straight as a choice in mind
And can you know I'm sleepwalking behind

Corridors creep, decompose
Avalanches of dominoes
Follow your faith, follow my love
In the name of light, the name of what's above

Don't look back, I am here
I am mute, I am forsaken
I am

Here's from me to world
Here's from world to you
I can sing my heart out, sing myself away
Any day, any day

Danced with your tune and I rose with the sun
But the maker of all is the master of none
Longing has taught me how to sing
Someday to make ladders to the spring

Here's from me to world
Here's from world to you
I can sing my heart out, sing myself away
Any day, any day

I can sing this death out, sing myself away
Any day, any day

Do not feed the birds
Do not sweep the walk
Do not pull the weeds
Don't harvest the tomatoes

Do not get the paper
Do not check the toast
Don't bring in the mail
Can you hear her ghost?

Where were you?
I, I thought I knew

In the tap, in the tap
I'm the dripping from the tap

Do not close the window
Don't turn on the heat
Do not clear the table
Do not check the burner

Do not get the phone
Do not stop its ring
Do not shine the silver
Can you hear her sing

Where were you
I, I thought I knew

In the soil, in the soil
I'm the mushrooms in the soil

I have been and I am
Someone I don't know
This is also my resistance

Do not clip your nails
Do not cut your hair
Do not change your clothes
Do not leave this chair

Do not drink this water
Do not draw this breath
Do not make the bathroom
Come on, eat your death

Where were you
I, I thought I knew
In the wood, in the wood
I'm the whistle in the wood

Five on the dime

I saw a man fall through the street
At leavenworth and eddy
Where the asphalt's big fat lip was gaping wide
He was walking like a gentleman
The streets laid down in front of him
They jumping jacked and welcomed him inside

Luck's a dead dog howlin' at the sparrows
Tell me do you cry for what you can't find?
Take a little time...

I'm with you baby
Turpentine heat seeks the sewer stains
And scrapes its nails along your ghost
I said i'm with you like your baby doll
That's lost and found
And lost again just when you hold her close

Luck's a dead dog, howlin' at the sparrows
I have been a friend, so won't you do me right?
Dress tomorrow in white

Sympathy it runs like wine
But guilt flows like a soda fountain
Trickling from purses torn apart
When the temperature it drops like coins
From up in frozen heaven
You can hold the cold and eat it like a heart

Luck's a dead dog, howlin' at the sparrows
Hey there, won't you do us right?
Dress tomorrow in white

Five on the dime is almost time for a supper at last or a last supper
Spade he'll use to dig my bed
And when you gotta pay him there's a quarter in my hat brim
And these golden rings of you hear in my head

Luck's a dead dog, howlin' at the sparrows
And they'll cry a few and scatter like dice
And they'll dress tomorrow in white
Take a little time

Jawbone canyon

The ford was on rails once it rounded the turn
From trash am i come and to trash i'll return
I had said i'd drive on 'til the fender licked ocean
Broke down in ohio and i stripped her for scrap
Right down to the dashboard mary
And i lay in the shade of her shell

Dreaming of jawbone canyon
The jackal know my future
The jackal, he make moan
Jawbone canyon,
Cool of the day, i will find my way home.

Go ahead join the army, your bags are all packed
And talk to your memories, they seldom talk back
And jab at your spurs, 'til your boots trickle chocolate
And the horse'll run on 'til they chop off its legs
And they'll say doa and they'll grieve
But i reckon you never really leave

A place called jawbone canyon
The jackal know my future
The jackal, he make moan
Jawbone canyon,
Cool of the day, i will find my way home

Now we're blind as an alley in the wire rim of hell
Wishing on nickels 'cause the stars, they don't look so well
Now clatter your spoons, tap along with the hailstorm
The weather is strange but the dancing is swell
And the rain on the roof will fill me
With a place i got out of before it could kill me.

A place called jawbone canyon
The jackal know my future
The jackal, he make moan
Jawbone canyon,
Cool of the day, i will find my way home

Papa ain't comin' home

There are no curses here
We are alone, sloan, incognito, guido
That girl for rent, the firmament
Spread open like a fleshy fan
And my sweet know it all, he has the gall
To die and die and die and die and die and die and die
Of boredom

Kickin' up the red dust
Pointed shoes like a vaudeville baby
It don't matter if you can dance when you got shoes like that
Those shoes'll dance for you, they'll dance you right away

Your papa ain't comin' home no more
Your papa ain't comin' home

So i asked for doctor no one
With his gut bag of catfish scalers

Don't do it, don't do it
Don't cut me
I'm stronger than a blind man dancing wild
Stronger than his heartache

Your papa ain't comin' home no more
Your papa ain't comin' home

I said there are no curses here
I told a lie, sly
A little fib of omission
It didn't hurt, they did their work
I was mumbling under the sedatives
Don't let me feel
I don't want to feel

Your papa ain't comin' home no more
Your papa ain't comin' home

Of fat to chew, the seventh rib
Of ocean kind, the electric eel
Of heights, the crest of Jackknife Falls
Of table scraps, the rotten peel
Of habitats, the barren land
Of maps, the palm upon the hand
Of fools, the sentimental man
Of weaknesses, Achilles' heel

Of animals, the Steppenwolf
Of feline sort, the cat in heat
Of criminals, the petty thief
Who dares to cross the porker's beat
Of miracles, the unexplained
Of damages, the body stained
Of years, the ones it never rained
To wash the spillings from the street

Oh Alcina, oh Alcina
Come unstrap your broken wings
And tell me of your favourite things

Of sicknesses, the stealthiest
Of this, or that, the other
Of weights, those held within the flesh
Of he, or she, another
Of quitting times, the unperceived
Of passing ons, the least bereaved
Of tales, the not to be believed
Unless you're witness, mother

Oh Alcina, oh Alcina
Come unstrap your broken wings
And tell me of your favourite things

Of motions, how this marble turns
Of grins, the moon of pearl
Of dances how this fire burns
Of balls, the drunken world
Of lights, a face of chalky white
Of deaths, the fading of the light
Of lies, we are alone tonight
The wolves are at our heels

Oh Alcina, oh Alcina
Come unstrap your broken wings
And tell me of your favourite things

You talkin' to me

Didn't want to go there
And i didn't want to see her
With her dishwater gowns
And her jars full of dimes

I didn't want to see her and
I didn't want to go there
Where the grass bleeds brown
And the wind knows my crimes

And the boys on the corner
Still hanging around
Watch me slip
Watch me slither
Watch me slide into town

I didn't want to see her
And i didn't want to go there
Where the windows will sag
And the porch twitched for the lack of her

I didn't want to see her and
I didn't want to go there
But i didn't even knock
She's got eyes in the back of her

And the girls in their daisy dukes
Are waiting for the rain
Spilling slurpies on themselves
And i think it'll stain

Standin' on the doorway
I can smell her yellow smile
I say, "baby, i'm home."
She says, "jamie, i'm goin' out."

Think if i did it your way
There'd be stains on the tile
She don't wash the floors
If i did they'd find out

She wipes off her hands
And she heads for the door
But i'm rooted to the threshold
I'm a lead man on the floor

She ain't good she aint wicked
She ain't stupid she aint scared
She's just kissin' me hard
Just to show she don't care

She says, "i ain't no little girl
I invited you in, 'cause my time's
Been up a long time
But you ain't gonna win

Now i am in a pocket
Though my breath is hot and foul
I do not hear her gun go off
But from somewhere there's a howl

And three old women chewing tobacco and yarn
Called the sheriff
When they found her on the floor of the barn
Won't never go back there
No i won't ever go back there
With the crows as fat as turkeys
And the buzzards buzzing 'round
Where the trees are reaching up
Though they're buried in the ground

Broken Bird, Broken Bird

No supper for you, you sulky young thing
The Lord made you deaf and you still tried to sing.
He gave you this outfit to breathe and be alive in,
To rust and obey like a wreck behind the drive-in

X marks the spot where girl buried the ring,
A chip of your nail and a clip of your wing,
Who will write your eulogy and dig up your earth and set you free?

It's time to grow up now,
Broken bird, broken bird,
It's time to grow up now

Someone's getting thin enough to walk between the rain and
Someone's playing watchdog now and choking at a chain and
Someone's being born again to stagger up the road and
Somebody is one bale shy of a full load

It's time to grow up now,
Broken bird, broken bird,
It's time to grow up now

Hands come up empty, that's how it goes
Empty face show how little it knows
This is your day to wrangle free
With this in your throat for company,
For company

It's time to grow up now,
Broken bird, broken bird,
It's time to grow up now

Someone's getting sucked out of the trailer through the fan and
Someone's in a closet eating Cool Whip from a can and
Someone dreams of bullets 'cause they're stronger than a fist,
Well, me, I dream of something better than this

It's time to grow up now,
Broken bird, broken bird,
It's time to grow up now
My broken bird

Down Easy

Timebird

A kid I know got frozen
Making angels in the snow
They pulled her out and burried her
As if she'd died in prayer
The funeral was fitting
There was nobody there
Now if teacher's burned your walking shoes
Then barefoot you must go

Oh when the timebird's landed
When the timebird comes
Baby put away your sorrows
Put away your sums
They will just be white lies
Out where the timebird flies

If I could only whisper
I would pinch my voice and sing
Just to blow it like a kettle
As it slowly burns to clay
I dreamed a black-eyed dog who tried
To eat my heart away
Now the window softly shimmers
At the rattlin' of a wing

Oh when the timebird's landed
When the timebird's here
Baby put away your angry eyes
Sistern every tear
They will just be fireflies
Out where the timebird flies

There may only be seconds
I'm counting back from ten
So call old mister taxidy
To make of me a cast
And keep it out of the light of the sun
To be sure that it will last
And you can do with it just as you wish
It will not fit again

Oh when the timebird's landed
When the timebird's here
Baby put away your angry eyes
Put away your fear
There will be a sunrise
Out in timebird skies

Stolen thing

Where in the hell is big blue eyes
Where’s your virginity
By the side of the freeway
I lost it recently
Oh it didn’t take so long
Oh it didn’t take so long
Oh it didn’t take so long
I am a stolen thing

I have a dream of big blue eyes
In my hands is a genie
You know he wouldn’t ever want to surprise no one
Singing, "little girl little girl set me free"
Oh, I know what he means
Oh, I know what he means
Oh, I know what he means
I am a stolen thing

Never cry in the pouring rain
Never lie to a pirate king
He will beat you at your game
Everything will scream and sing
Oh you make it get so good
Oh you make me get so mean
Oh you make me get so good
I am a stolen thing

By the rumble of the roaring rain
By the holes that it drills in me
I was naked as a blue jay
By the side of the freeway
Oh, I was dancin’ slow
Oh, I was dancin’ free
Oh, I was dancin’ slow
And this is the dance of the stolen thing

Dear carolyne

Can't you just see
Flies' eye mirrors and bull's eye red
Can't you just taste
Blue brain juice from a tikki head
"there's money in the desert
We'll be lithe and sly
And make it groove our way
I like the desert"
I heard dear carolyne say

And don't you just dream down easy
As a "for you baby, first time's free"
And don't it just seem
Like your wheel of fortune rolled over me
There's somethin bout the desert
It don't speak english but we understand
Somethin bout the desert
From the car's front seat
You squeezed my hand

Dear carolyne

You are sour cream in a rubber dress
A wet dream in a newfound mess
You're a day come apart
In the sky's messy open heart
There's black holes in the desert
Where the slickbacks pay in cash
And trash the place
Black holes in the desert
Looking out from carolyne's face

Dear carolyne

Waited forever
I come back alone
I pull the lever
Like carolyne showed
Pioneer casino in reno nevada
Where a couple of kids like us
Could make our fortunes in an hour

Dear carolyne

Look, luck

I am out of change
Terrible and strange
Under a fake blue sky

You’re spinning out of sight
I been up all night
And every road leads here

Look luck
Do not disappear
I can almost hear you trying
But luck
Do not disappear
You’re the only one that’s left to

Love so much love
You can’t pay in love
Talk to the big machine

Please I pawned my ring
I bet everything
In hope of a little

Luck
Do not disappear
I can almost hear you trying
But luck
Do not disappear
You’re the only one that’s left to love

Badlands

I was drivin
Through the badlands
A woman screaming
Cause she stuck in the radio
(my heart will go on)
He was a biker
That's what he told me
"where's your bike then?"
"well, I burried the pieces
Oily steel and bone"
I aint hip on ditchin
A stranger stranded at the lip of alone

Liquid night
There's a moon in my soup
Liquid night
They hang you up against the sky

You are a feather
I made a wish once
You are a bluebird
I am blue
I just wanna get next to you

Liquid night
There's a moon in my soup
Liquid night
They hang you up against the sky
Liquid night
I'm afraid of what I read
Liquid night
And everyone's afraid of me

Thirsty gazer
Fraidy stare
Father empty
Are you there?
Now you see me
Now you shout
The de the de the de the de the de
The devil let me out

Liquid night
There's a moon in my soup
Liquid night
They hang you up against the sky
Liquid night
I'm afraid of what I read
Liquid night
And everyone's afraid of me

(to the microtonal weeping of a violin,
She goes loping, lonely, into the dark,
Bemoaning hercursed wretched state)
It aint a houseguest
More like hotel
And I have lived there
And I have lived well
The wind gets high and the fog gets low
There are days when the dogs know

Liquid night
There's a moon in my soup
Liquid night
They hang you up against the sky
Liquid night
I'm afraid of what I read
Liquid night
And everyone's afraid of me

Strange companion

They beat him til he broke in two
Bit harder than they meant
No driver but the aching world
It falls and loves descent

Trees on tiptoe looking up
A million eyes a blinking hill
No clutching hand to turn me on
No foot to force my thrill

They beat him til he broke in two
And half of him they locked in me
I didn’t see which half it was
They neutralled me and set me free

Does unattached a head still dream?
Do legs still ramble on?
The sun appears the forest screams
It is a flash and then is gone
Oh my strange companion
Oh my strange companion

And nature comes to welcome us
With tiny jaws and little grins
(I didn't know she's everywhere
I'd never ever seen her win)

We’ll cry you and I, be together til we die
It’s great just you wait, listen to the freeway
One year, maybe dear, somebody will find us here
But now, funny how nature has her way with me

Does unattached a head still dream?
Do legs still ramble on?
The sun appears the forest screams
It is a flash and then is gone
Oh my strange companion
Oh my strange companion

Pirates by the roadside
But they don’t want me
Pirates by the roadside
To set the metal free

Six prayers, no. 1

The melody of this song is based on fragments of a melody from ancient Ugarit.
The melody was written in an ancient form of notation on a slab of stone.
Many of the words were rubbed out, but it is believed to be a prayer to a sun god.

In the falling of the evening
Comes the fortune teller eating and consumed
When the folds of her dark flesh are all I see
Keep your big red eye on me
Keep your big red eye on me

Brushed your teeth up silver white as stars and knives
Patched your stockings up with
Oriental rugs and brothel silk
Someone told me "traveler, you'll go far"
I'll go with you if I may
I'll go with you if I may

Shadows don't believe in window panes
Entering and leaving as they please
Now your laughter rattles like fifty wrong keys
At how I think that every knock's for me
Come to take me home
Come to take me home

Shoeshine man

Who's that spankin' up the
Weather of the afternoon?
Exterminater for the legions of the
Cockroaches of gloom
Mister ears hang low
I'm barkin' at you

It gets scary in the morning
When the silver night has flown
We make merry in the gutter
Where rats like us belong
You try to rough ride against the tide
But the tide is awful strong
La la la la la la

Shoe shine man
I get hazy on my own
You get what I'm sayin'?
Shoe shine man
You leave them a shine
But they leave you alone

I been in my bed
Just a tossin' the night away
I been dinghy for a schooner
Row - rowin' the seas of grey
I was lost but now I'm found
And running down the drain
La la la la la la

Shoe shine man
I get crazy on my own
You get what I'm sayin'?
Shoe shine man
They leave you a dime
But they leave you alone

I'll be on my way
If I can keep it under me
Belly flopping for a medal
Or a nowhere I have seen
I'm gonna miss this emptiness
Like sailors miss gangrene
La la la la la la

Shoeshine man
Horse - horsin' 'neath the
Lady city's whip
Shoeshine man
I'll give you a dime and
I'll give you the slip

Dandelion hills

Overripe underage spin me a whirl
You with your face like a lemon in pain
Moon is a coin to be spent on a girl
Come to inebriate out of the rain

Days i have violinned tragic and crass
Weepingly bowing the people i'd meet
But now all the music is here in my glass
Three sips from the bottom one drink from the street

One drink from the hole
Three sips from my fill
Tonight i will roll
Down the dandelion hills
Dandelion hills

Blackberry patch stripteasing its leaves
You are naked and trembling and quiet and blue
You are a rock in my rocketing shoes
And i go where i choose and you do what you do
And sleepers in bundles they all look like lambs
The more that are slaughtered the fewer complain
Larry-lon-lie i'm a rag on the road
It's kindly to tarry here out of the rain

One drink from the hole
Three sips from my fill
Tonight i will roll
Down the dandelion hills
Dandelion hills

That one's a tearful and this one's a whore
Then there are spirits and then there is you
Here take my hand in your quietly mad
Quitting time's cruel but what can you do?

One drink from the hole
Three sips from my fill
Tonight i will roll
Down the dandelion hills
Dandelion hills

Tarbaby

Mud, leaves, roofing rot
Black tar tires are all that I got
So how can I have made
This rubber duchess in her rich brokade
Black dress, seven rips
Kissing coals, her burnout lips
Ask old Bruo, who salts the snails
She's sticky sweet, hard as...
Asphalt in winter

Tarbaby

His days are plain
But his dreams are gaudy
Rhinestone kisses on a
Backside nagahyde body
Propped in the rotten weeds
One whiff of at her and he was incomplete
She and I we had plans
Kicking cows and shooting cans
I know you were with her cause
I saw her stuck all over your hands

Tarbaby tarbaby

Clouds cry on a roof of tin
Like an ace high, I brave the din
I know you were with her
Cause I saw her stuck all over your chin
Like I said, we had plans, she and I
High as a rod on the fourth of July
She was gaping at me like an earthquake crack
As you took her away on your dirty old back

"she stuck by my side
Seemed to enjoy the ride
I threw her in the bayou
For she would not be my bride"
Tarbaby tarbaby born again born again...

Aren't captives

The pilot of the 747 couldn't stop thinking about the young pilot whose voice he'd heard over the radio.
In his hotel room that evening he imagined the successful water landing.
The torn plane sank down into the light eating water, a rope came worming down from above,
The young pilot was choking on freezing salt, until he was scrambling into a harness,
Until he was airborne, lifted for the first time since childhood without the womb of walls around him.
In childhold there were hands to lift him, now there are ropes, and machines that plow water and spit sky.
Dangling, salvaged. Limp. Live weight. Whale bait. Living meat. He's waving! Alive.
Now upward to dry deck and cheering strangers.

The next day when he got to the airport for his next flight, the pilot of the 747 heard about the young pilot who had been killed,
Crashing into the ocean after his cessna lost oil pressure.
This was the man whose voice had kept him flipping back through the channels to listen.
The voice had kept its balance as the slow descent began.
The strange limbo of a man who has time to think about it.
A man who has twenty minutes until question mark.
Until life or question mark? And the pilot of the 747 remembered the young pilots words.
The sky against the roofs. The warm rain in summer. His girl. Her favorite dress. Blue.
Air conditioned. She is transluscent in the light. She is soft and white.

The children they would have someday together.
She told him, they're always there, towing along behind us, like balloons tied to our ankles.
They aren't captives, just clouds. Only clouds.

He was thinking of you. Of you.
And blue. And aren't captives, tied to our ankles.

Angelyne

The sun hanging above the wing
I have no fear of flying
The stars lose height by morning's light
As slowly they are dying

My only eye my tiny light
The meter on the cable
An airy moon a silver spoon
The eaters at your table

Angelyne in your blue dress
Where's the meaning in a powdered night
Pressed between these memories of flight

If chance should spill her darkened cup
If one day we should marry
The crows would chortle in the trees
Our closest calls to bury

Or safe within your radio
I sleep til morning dawns on you
When weather or the telephone
Will tell you I have gone from you

Angelyne in your blue dress
Where's the meaning in a powdered night
Pressed between these memories of flight

I'm sad too

Any fool will tell ya
Not to look at toby mills
On a day you got a twinkle in your eye
He got hands like chew toys
From his work on the machines
And he waters them like roses when he cries

So I guess you got a secret
It gets bigger every day
As the subaru is filling up with rain
And the road is going nowhere
Though the arrow says New York
And the hour says it’s time to say it plain

I’m sad too
Me and you we got to
Stick stick stick together
I’m sad too
Me and you we got to
Stick stick stick together

The twilight says, "I’m outta here"
The evening says, "I know"
The kids are clowning up to hit the cars
I always thought you’d wind up
Like the ghosts on my TV
And they’d shine you up and hang you in the stars

Sometimes I get afraid but
These dreams they die so brave
They just flip their fins and whistle as they’re drowned
And I drunk up all my money
So I’d best forget to pay
And you haven’t finished dealing
And they’re wheeling you away
And the bus comes round to fill 'er up
The same time every day
But it’s looking like we better stick around

I’m sad too
Me and you we got to
Stick stick stick together
I’m sad too
Me and you we got to
Stick stick stick together

The new year is a stillborn
We are running through the streets
Setting all the Christmas trees on fire
Rooted down and clutching
At the sheet metal sky
Like a bird electrocuting on the wire

Doo doo doo doo do doo…
And I drunk up all my money
So I’d best forget to pay
And you haven’t finished dealing
And they’re wheeling you away
And the bus comes round to fill 'er up
The same time every day
But it’s looking like we better stick around

I’m sad too
Me and you we got to
Stick stick stick together
I’m sad too
Me and you we got to
Stick stick stick together

Down easy

Just let me down easy
Just let me down easy

They let you run wild
Trajedy's child
Geranium nose
Drunk as a car crash
You are what you see
A world stark and free
You get misty before me
And then we spin around
And around
And all of the memories that cry in your night
Spin around and around
And I catch on your thermals and fly like a kite

Just let me down easy
Just let me down easy

You can never go home
The sparrow has flown
The only one I have known
To remember to future
The prophecy's clear
Tomorrow is here
With eyes overflowing
And so we spin around and around
And nothing is ever as sad as it seems
Spinning round and around
With the starbreasted comic book girl of your dreams

Just let me down easy
Just let me down easy

Boots

Boots

I go to the corner where it all goes down
And i do things i'll regret but not right now
They say "angel, you been here before"
Yeah, i had my boots to carry me

Just like pandora with her box
I let everything out and spin around
And when they come to me, it's like a river to cross
But i have my boots to ferry me

And i remember how it feels
I always stop and remember but i do it again
And i jump up and slap my heels
Cause i have my boots on
I'd like to see my eyes in someone else's face
I'd like to see my face on a magazine
The things i want, the life i need
My boots keep me between

I passed out on a subway train
And a woman she came and took my hand
But i'm alright i'm okay i can fall like rain
Long as i have my boots to help me stand

And the streets they empty hour by hour
Til they were finally drained and i was all alone
And just like pandora, i was sorry now
But i had my boots to carry me home

The sky is wild and full of holes
The wind is wild and it's full of coughs
Sometimes i think i'd float away
If i took my boots off
I'd like to see my eyes in someone else's face
I'd like to see my face on a magazine
The things i want, the life i need
My boots keep me between

Prettiness

I have never been one for prettiness prettiness
Thinking of lace 'bout makes me puke
But the thing i just bought has a little bit little bit
I'm putting it on and i'm thinking of you

When i was a child i followed some holy men
Going into woods to do their work
I had an overcoat on just to cover me cover me
Listening for anything i might learn

And there were stars up in the heavens
And if they caught me, what could they do?
They did not know i was a woman
At least i didn't think they knew

I think about it when i look at him look at him
Everybody hides from what they are
Take me, i used to think i was as empty as an emperor
That's what i thought but i've come so far

His turkish drums and two way mirrors
The way he moves, slow motion slow
He does not know i am a woman
But i think i might want him to know

My insomnia

I went down to the dock
I turned off all my clocks
But there is nothing left to dream

Get in bed and try to fall
Lay starin' at the wall
And like a prayer i say your name

My insomnia my insomnia

Tried to ask if it's alright
If we take off a night
But i couldn't find your head
Drowning in a sea of love
In the expanses of my bed

My insomnia my insomnia my insomnia

You exhaust me

Climb

Can you hear me?
I don't love anybody else
Keep you near me
Just like i try to keep myself near

All the givers
And all the rivers in the world
Cannot quench it
The arid desert that you
Bring to everyone you know

I see you counting lovers in the street
I see you kissing anybody's feet
You are a kitten caught up in a tree
I see you climb away

Tiny birdling
Scrambling for any scraggy tree
I am thinking
You make your nest where none can be
In the summer
The streets are waving in the heat
I am thinking about the water that you keep
In the corners of your mouth

Climb away

I see you counting lovers in the street
I see you licking anybody's feet
You are a kitten caught up in a tree
You are unreachable by me
I see you climb away

Happiness

We were sitting in a t-bird
It has not consented to run since 1970
Brothers bent on the destruction of innocent t-birds
Crowbarred everything but the
Radio, windshield, driver's side mirror
Love is alone with the radio on
And love is a newly blind
Fumbling fumbling
Tell me what to do with all this
Happiness

Lobsters nesting in a dead man
Waiting at the bottom of the lonely ocean
Neighbors swimming in their fishbowls
Television blue glow if you go i won't know anyone
Taking a bath in the deadly sunshine
Time is a car with the radio on and
Time is a broken boat
Ruddering ruddering
Tell me what to do with all this
Happiness

Busted and broken didn't get very far
Busted and broken sittin right where you are
[let it last another summer]
But i'm a feather flying, i'm a leaf on the wind
There's no school like driving with the wind on your skin
[let it last another summer]

Love is a newly blind
Time is a broken boat
Taking a bath in the deadly sunshine
Time is a car with the radio on
And time is a broken boat
Ruddering ruddering
Tell me what to do with all this
Happiness

Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell busts her brains
Bashing into window panes
But who is gonna need a light
In the buggy buzzy neon night?

Tinkerbell takes off her rags
Empties out her saddle bags
And watching all the cracks in the wall rearrange
Tinkerbell is open to a change

"probably time i looked into
Some other things a girl can do
Could sell my body
To light up someone's t.v..."

But something comes through at last
So it doesn't come to that
Luckily a girl lost her ring in the rain
So tinkerbell is dangling down a drain

And there in the sewer she
Sees a thing she's never seen
A constellation <---(crossed out) thousands of shiny useless objects
Glimmering

Stolen thing

Where in the hell is big blue eyes?
Where's your virginity?
By the side of the freeway
I lost it recently
Oh it didn't take so long
Oh it didn't take so long
Oh it didn't take so long
I am a stolen thing

I have a dream of big blue eyes
In my hand is a genie
You know he wouldn't ever wanna surprise no one
Singin' "little girl little girl set me free"
Oh i know what he means
Oh i know what he means
Oh i know what he means
I am a stolen thing

Don't ever cry in the pouring rain
Never lie to a pirate king
He will beat you at your game
Make everything everywhere scream and sing
Oh you make it get so good
Oh you make me get so mean
Oh you make it get to good
I am a stolen thing

By the rumble of the roaring rain
By the holes that it drills in me
I was naked as a blue jay
By the side of the freeway
Oh i was dancing slow
Oh i was dancing free
Oh i was dancing slow
And this is the dance of the stolen thing

Look, luck

I am out of change
Terrible and strange
Under a fake blue sky

You're spinning out of sight
I been up all night
But every road leads here

Look, luck
Do not disappear
I can almost hear you trying
But luck
Do not disappear
You're the only one that's left to love

So much love
You can't pay in love
Talk to the big machine
Please
I pawned my ring
I'll do anything
In hope of a little

Luck
Do not disappear
I can almost hear you trying
But luck
Do not disappear
You're the only one that's left to love

Julia

Tell you who i miss the most
Dressed in see-through like a ghost
Julia julia
She pulled me in and she locked the door
Gave me wine and gave me more
Julia julia

If you need a place to go
You can always crib with
Julia julia
If you're sick she'll cool you down
Til you're only sick for
Julia julia

Julia don't take this wrong
It's not to say that i'm the one
To take more than an hour or a day from

Taken with pills, taken with beer
Many come for love is
Julia julia
What i'd give to taste again
All the dreams i left in
Julia julia

Funny, that last time i left
The wind was howls the sky was cleft
And summer clouds were dumping on the harbor

At times i think of goddesses pissing love on everyone
Goddess piss is sunny and full of tears like julia

Julia don't take this wrong
It's not to say that i'm the one
To take more than an hour or a day from
Cause you deserve a quiet place
That doesn't move or change its face
And everywhere i ran, i ran away from

Wild blue & yonder

Wild blue and yonder
Which way to go
Wild blue and yonder
Wear white in the snow
Pack seven sandwiches
It's farther than you know from here

Witch in the kitchen
Gin and a knife
Christmas is outta here
Tinsel and fife
Lover, how shall we spend this
Ribbon-flannel life she spared?

There must be a way out
Tossed by the side of the freeway
Shackled and shamed as a blue jay
Jacked up on whiskey and death
And we will find it
Slip through the cracks of the evening
Grinning as memory leaves me holding
Nothing but my breath

Wild blue and yonder
Riding the fright
Wild blue and yonder
You shine like a light
Lover it's been so long
Tell me where you are tonight?

There must be a way out
Tossed by the side of the freeway
Shackled and shamed as a blue jay
Jacked up on whiskey and death
And you will find it
Blow in the breeze like the reeds do
Grinning as memory leaves you holding
Nothing but your breath

Don't stop crying

April morning
In '85
You came to visit
I came alive
The things you'd speak of
The tales you'd tell
No one would guess you'd been through hell

But i was dirty
I was unplanned
And i was born to feel and understand
Your falling pieces in my tiny hands

Whichever way we'd go
Whichever way we'd go

You're so much older
It's really strange
Everyone grows colder
You never change
It's like the ocean when you rush in
It's like you're standing here again

Don't stop crying
You'll flood the street
We'll take our boats out
Just you and me
And we will see the things we see

Whichever way we go
Whichever way we go

In memoriam

When she takes out
Her trusty switchblade
Maddy can bring
Enormous men to their knees

And in the night
Came to my window
Flushed with the running
Or whatever it was

All of our days
Obliterating
I will remember
Swear to you that i will

Anna lisa

Oh anna lisa
Who are you now?
Somebody's pisspot or somebody's crown
You throw up your hands and let destiny steer
Oh anna lisa
How long has it been
Since i crawled out of your
Generous dream
Waking up early with drums in my ears

Anna lisa
Anna lisa

So Anna lisa
I decided i'd go
And that if i came back
I'd have something to show
And we'd laugh at the people who're laughing at you

Anna lisa
Anna lisa
None of it came true

Oh anna lisa
Your sex and your spark
Winter companions that glow in the dark
There's love in the way that you held out on me
But though anna lisa
I'd love to believe
In the cheap magic tricks from your cavernous sleeves
I'm not at all what you thought i would be...

Anna lisa
Anna lisa
None of it came true

The World Is Bound By Secret Knots

Riverwide

The mirror must be broken
Or else how do you explain the scattered light
The mirror must be broken
And the day dissolving into night
They think I am sleeping
But I woke up on the edge of the river wide
Of all the broken pieces
Of all the pieces I can find
Of all the diamond splinters
There is one keeps sticking in my mind
Hurry past the border
Everyone is waiting for you on the other side of
Where you hide, love
By the riverwide

Juniper

Mama oh mama I don’t wanna come down
Not if it’s all like it was on the ground
Hiding my feet 'cause I’m too shy to dance
Hiding my face behind both of my hands

Mama oh mama don’t make me come down
'Cause I don’t know what will come out of my mouth
People will hear they won’t know who I am
People will hear and they won’t understand

Mama i’ve seen them the others like me
Once I could see it was all I could see
The silent procession that crosses the snow
In which skeleton ladies like skeletons go

Mama oh mama up here where I’m free
I have seen beauty you wouldn’t believe
Juniper’s ledges and Juniper’s birds
Where Juniper’s edges and mine become blurred

Mama oh mama if you only heard
The reasons for living the freedom of words
The blooming balloon of a thought being born
Safe in the branches of Juniper’s arms

Mama oh mama I’m not like you think
Some harrowing walker down narrowing streets
If I had my way I would bring the whole world
Every sleepwalker and each hungry girl

Mama oh mama and old uncle tom
My father the thinker my daughter the song
Tell every bell to just wake up and ring
Tell this whole choir to just shut up and sing

Mama oh mama I’m holding your hand
In these glorious dreams in which you understand
Mama oh mama we’re spinning around
Mama oh mama don’t make me come down

Tower

There is an ocean
I have been holding in my hands
There is an ocean
I have been holding back for years
Where I was standing
Now I am rocking to and fro
Will you still love me
After you see this tower come down?

We used to play at
Light as a feather stiff as a board
We used to play at
Listening in to the darker world
Oh how strangely
Applicable those games seem now
Will you still know me
After you see this tower come down

Girl i’ve forgotten
How to be brave could you show me how
Girl I’d forgotten,
Where did you go? I’m lonely now…
That’s when it struck me
And I rang out just like a bell
She’ll be there laughing
In the place where the tower fell

Bricks and mortar
Raining down on the little ones heads
Bricks and mortar
Raining down on the little ones little ones

You will awaken
Your sensuality
You will awaken
It’s an eventuality
Here comes an ocean
I’ve been holding in my hands
Here comes and ocean
I’ve been holding back for years

Black Madonna

Black Madonna will come down for you
With open arms and a veil to hide her face
And Black Madonna will come down for you
And there is no sickness and there is no suffering
And there is no anguish and no anger that she cannot erase

You might see Black Madonna walking between the sheets of an angry day
Or you might see her smile a strange-sad smile as she steps out of your way
Or you might not see her at all
But she might be coming down for you
With her arms spread wide and her head on fire
'Cause she sees you been down so long

There isn’t a sin that you could make that she will not forgive

But oh, Black Madonna, I did not believe her beauty
I thought I did not need her mercy
I thought I did not need
Traded my belongings and my body
My memory and my mind
My center of gravity and my sense of direction
'til I woke up half an hour from the city
And realized I had lost all sense of the passage of time
So I don’t know if it’s been a day or a week or a year
All I know is I’m still here
And I always thought you’d lift me up
And you never did
What the fuck

There isn’t a sin that you could make
That she will not forgive
No there isn’t a sin that you could make
In the ways that a stray must live

So what I wanna know is this
If you believe in everything fitting into a kind of place
If you believe that everything and everybody has a certain space they fit into
Babies entering into a welcoming world in jubilant curls of star gazing wonder
And the sick yes even the sick just a shuffling into sleep’s dark brother
And the sleepers in the sleet
The heaps in the street
Nestled under trestles for to get a little heat
And if the trestles watch over the sleepers
And if life ushers her lucky winners
Through fleshy gates to four star dinners
And if sleep ushers his population
To plug into the dream life radio station
And if thin souls whose bodies haven’t wrecked them
Walk smoky streets that know and expect them
Then what I want to know is this
What of strays who have turned their backs on the god of strays

>>what of strays who’ve turned their backs
On the god of strays, yeah, what of them

Oh Black Madonna I was thinking about the days that I spent with you
'cause now I doze and daze and drown
And cling to the wreckage of a sinking town
And I walk your dire streets in search of anything that’s still pure
'cause I once thought you watched over me
But now I’m not so sure

Garden

I lay my head upon your chest
Bones of iron bones of lead
And death is rattling the cage
Like a bird that would escape
But there’s no room for thoughts like these
In the garden where we sleep

And I am on a burning ship
Clothes all flying in the wind
But I am beautiful like this
When you hold me in your hands
But there’s no room for thoughts like these
In the garden where we sleep

Always searching for those breasts
Pumping morphine
Always searching for
Don’t you fly to them
Don’t you fly to them
You can fly to me

I’ll take the moment in my hands
Pull it open 'til it sings
Before the motion of this place
Where nothing stops to have a name
Will leave us hanging like a tear…

Is the spirit here

You’re tuning out like a snowy television
You’re turning into something you don’t understand
Caught amongst the hungry ghosts
Fluttering in windows
Caught amongst the hungry ghosts that take you by the hand
You used to dream that you would meet a stranger
You used to dream that one day
You would catch a whale
But now you walk alone
It is not a walk through pansies
Where did it go
Is the spirit here
No

Broken bottles broken bones
She had a man who used to beat her
Don’t let anybody know
Heavy hands, hair of cedar
And they come and use you up
And then leave you where they found you
'til you sigh and let it go
Is the spirit here?

Definitely no

Swollen bellies hungry souls
Swollen cities hungry nation
Their opinions are a crutch
For a dead imagination
Empty eyes and broken homes
And I wonder, have I joined them?
Well at least I’m not alone
Is the spirit here?

Definitely no

Like a flatline, without pain
Like a doctor who keeps talking
Catch a bottle full of rain
Like a robot I went walking
Then the roof came flying off
Like a border open wide
Like a flower where you died
Like a sinister banister slide
Into the minds
Of the houses you’ve abandoned
Through a sea of shattered lives
Like a swan without my pride
Like a monster in a dress
Near forgotten left a mess
Like the only one you can’t impress
Is the spirit here?

Yes

Midsummer night's dream

Aslan and the Silver Queen
Couldn’t stop time
Although they tried
Now just look at me
Seventeen and seventy
Turn it around
Follow me down
Midsummer night’s dream

The bite of wind the taste of rain
Getting called names
Comets of pain
And other bright things
My favorite things and favorite places
Covered in kisses
When all of this is memories
What kind of creature shall I be

How’d you get in here
Shh! It’s a secret
Tell me
On flying heels and wagon wheels…

So I run out but not away
Shooting off sparks into the dark
Out in the street
'Cause one day I am going to bloom
Patient and proud
With fish in my mouth
And eyes in my wings
What kind of creature shall I be

Aslan and the Silver Queen
Turn it around
Follow me down
Midsummer night’s dream

Feral

I wanna run 'til my feet start bleeding
I wanna make it all the way to the ocean
I wanna live for life and no other
Cause I don’t ever wanna be like my mother
I wanna learn to walk on the water
Cause I don’t wanna be like my father
I have a sister and I got a little brother
And I don’t ever wanna be like them either

Uh uh Uh
Feral

I had a place I’d go in the garden
Where I’d pretend that nobody made me,
Watch the sun going down on the day like a
Gentleman going down on a lady
And I had friends who would come and meet me
And we would stay 'til early evening
Singing, “we’re not gonna die away so easy
We’re not gonna die away die away, no”

Uh uh UH!

I’m not scared to walk like a lady
And I’m not scared to cry like a baby
I’m not scared I’m not scared I’m not
I’m not scared I’m not…

Simple song

A traveler stops at the old inn yard
It has been so many miles and it’s been so hard
I’ve grown silver as a widow since then
And now a traveler’s come to see me again

He has the mouth of a river the face of a child
But don’t forget what he’s hiding underneath his smile
And that old silver splinter that he left inside of me
Oh don’t forget hmmm

I could not walk it off

Then he began and slow slowly
I could feel his web beginning to undo me
Slow rivers awoke in my shoulders and my legs
Slow rivers awoke I was floating away
And beauty is tired of playing dead
And beauty is tired of hiding her head
I go over to the window
I go over to the window

I could feel the droplets hanging on the edges of my leaves
I could feel the tears coming and I couldn’t believe
I go over to the window
I go over to the window
And beauty is tired of playing dead
And beauty is tired of hiding her head
Yeah beauty is tired of playing dead
Oh beauty is tired so tired

So I gave up and sang along
And rode off on the wings of a simple song…

Wings again

I have wings again
Can you see them
I can’t but I know they’re there
My wings again
Now you’re gone there’s
Nothing left to keep me here

And you can tell my friends
They won’t believe
When I broke down like a plastic heart
That I had them then
But for some reason
I would rather fall apart
Than notice them

Nights I spent puzzling over where they went
Caught like an act on your high wire
Plummeting like a bird on fire
Tumbling over
Believe it or not I nearly forgot
The stumps where my wings were cut off oh
Cut off oh

You’re standing on the ledge
You watch the empty sky fade out
And there’s no one
To pull you back from the edge
I raise my arms above my head
And I close my eyes
And I hold my breath
I wonder why would you rather fall apart than notice them?
Nights I spent puzzling over where they went
Nights I spent puzzling over where where where where they went
Puzzling over the stumps where my wings were cut off oh
Cut off oh

Lilies

I lay me down like a truth amongst the dares
I lay me down and someone cut my hair
I lay me down I cannot remember where

I think about it less than you’d think
The thing that happened when I was asleep
I think about it more than you’d know
The things that waking I myself chose

I dreamed a woman where the night sky met my eyes
I dreamed a woman she had lilies in her eyes
I feel that something inside me wants to rise

I think about it less than you’d think
The thing that happened when I was asleep
Sometimes it weighs heavy on me
The things I did when I was awake
Sometimes it weighs heavy on me

Doll comes to life

Canopy of light and sound
Moving freely
Rising up from falling down
Can you see me

Find yourself another doll
To pin your dreams upon
Find yourself another doll
Cause this one’s leaving

In the dark

Ask this girl
You for me
In the dark
What did you see?

First I stopped listening 'til I couldn’t hear
Then I stopped living out of books and mirrors
Then I stopped looking 'til I couldn’t see
When I say darkness this is what I mean

Ask this girl
Eye to mind
In the dark
What did you find?

And in the dark I touch with all my toes
And in the dark I taste with all my teeth
And in the dark I kiss and dance and scream
I’m not afraid of being anything

And I remember when I was a kid
Feeling about unicorns the way I did
First I poked through to it like a stitch in time
Now I am reuniting horn and mind

I will buck up against the city lights
When it goes blurry and I am afraid
'Til I can feel you uncompromised
'Til I can feel you

Woods Part of When

You can take my body all apart
And my apple heart
It will grow again
You can take these words
In your lips two hands
You can take these words
From the woods part of when

I have worn steep heels
And a dress too tight
I have pressed my life
Against sharpened things
And bled sentences
And shed innocence
Like unwanted skin
In the woods part of when

I’ve wed the sun
And his golden man
Just to hold some gold
In my hungry hand
But a silent bride
Is a death too tight
So I left by night
For the woods part of when

Like a groaning chain
I have worn beliefs
But now link by link
I have shattered them
For a soldier’s soul
Is a bootless thing
Since I found my feet
In the woods part of when

And now love will
Take us both apart
Like a wave I play
On the shores of him
Into sea shell ears
I am blowing words
Just a song I heard
In the woods part of when

“You can take my body all apart
And my apple heart
It will grow again
You can take these words
In your lips two hands
You can taste these words…”

Prayer For Beauty

Say a prayer for beauty
They keep coming to take her apart
So many ways I’ve tried to say it
Oh my life oh my gods oh my heart

Say a prayer for beauty
Like a ghost at the edge of the world
She runs out in her stockings
As invisible cities they burn

Say a prayer for beauty
That she’s holding your hand
Even when you can’t see her
I think mercy waits to take your hand
At least til you can
Admit that you need her
Well I need her

And in my hour of darkness
When I need you and find you so far away
And it all seems without purpose
Anything you could dream or could say

Just say a prayer for beauty
That she’s holding your hand
Even when you can’t see her
'Cause I think mercy waits to take your hand
At least til you can admit that you need her
Well I need her

Oh, the edge
She’s out on the edge
She’s out on the edge of the water
Say a prayer for beauty
She’s out on the edge
She’s out on the edge, forgive her
Say a prayer for beauty

Sea of Possibility

I woke up inside a dream
Where rivers all were running red
Thought everything I loved was dead
I thought last night that I had reached the end

Thought that I had reached the end
The window open, you came in
To light the temple in my head
To light the temple in my head

With you I want to taste this freedom
With you remember life’s divinity
But without you this love I take with me
Into the sea of possibility

I woke up inside a dream
Where dirty things were coming clean
And I chose life and you chose me
I thought last night that I could finally see
I stayed up into the dawn
The window open, moon shines on
The door was open you were gone
The door was open you were gone from me

With you I want to taste this freedom
With you remember life’s divinity
But without you this love I take with me
Into the sea of possibility

Waves as far as I can see
A thousand horses rise in me
I’m tapping out the rhythm of your poetry
A thousand horses rising up
The ocean comes to fill my cup
Today is the beginning of the death of me
Oh with you I want to taste this freedom
With you remember life’s divinity
But without you this love I take with me
Into the sea of possibility

Ice Dragons

Time keeps rushing
Whirling dervishing by
Can you feel the white furry hooves of time
Catch me, catch me
Rocketing ever closer
Closer to the bright white eye
When I dream I see the world turning
Oh, do you remember

How we used to breathe and watch it
Oh and feel such power
And feel such joy
To be ice dragons and to be so free
(awake you lie awake you lie)
To be a dragon and to be so free
(awake you lie awake you lie awake)

Who were we back then?
Someone got left
In the wet black dream pool–
Shining tragic in the rhythm of the blackness
As again and again I reach for euphoria
Potent enough to distract
Something’s howling
Like it’s trying to drown me
Once we were moving too fast to hear it
Do you remember

How we used to breathe and watch it
Oh and feel such power
And feel such joy
To be ice dragons and to be so free
(awake you lie awake you lie)
To be a dragon and to be so free
(awake you lie awake you lie awake)

Ice dragons, ice dragons
Who fly like arrows
Into the unknown
Just show me where to go
Steamy mouthed, steamy mouthed
Ice dragons, wind tossed
Hoping for a good gust
Hoping, but love I’m wingsoiled, heart sore
Wingsoiled heartsore
’Til I remember

How we used to breathe and watch it
Oh and feel such power
And feel such joy
To be ice dragons and to be so free
(awake you lie awake you lie)
To be a dragon and to be so free
(awake you lie awake you lie awake)

Into the Wild

I have your love
And I’m taking it with me
Into the wild, into the wild
I have an anchor that
Drops from inside me
Into the wild, into the wild that
Always was hidden for you
For you to find
Always was hidden for you
For you to find

I have an instinct
That’s going to lead me
Into the wild, into the wild
Call out his name
And my father goes with me
Into the wild, into the wild that
Always was hidden for you
For you to find
Always was hidden for you
For you to find

I have a charm
That my best friend made for me
Into the wild, into the wild
The genius-est magic is
That which is spun by the
Small movements of lady fingers
Into the wild, into the wild

Always was hidden for you to find
Always was hidden for you to find

I have your love
And I’m taking it with me
Into the wild, into the wild
Into the wild

Onion, One Day

Emily, do you think
Your luck has deserted
And so has your chance

Emily, can it be
You spent it on nothing
And paid in advance

Emily, do you think
That dreams are just layers
That get peeled away

Onion, one day
You’ll be completely naked
With the roses in your head
And your beaches racked with glass
And your shadows as they pass…

Emily, there’s a stream
Where wishes grow wild
And boats twinkle by

Emily, sleep now
And I will sing you
A lullaby

Swim With Me

Babe, I can only follow you so far
Babe, I can only imagine where you are
But nothing’s quite the same
Bottom of the sea
Nothing’s quite the same
Since I asked him to swim with me

And your secrets can seem so sacred and so sane
Until one day you find you’d give them all away
To never be the same
At the bottom of a dream
Never be the same
Since I asked him to swim with me

Who I was, covered up in leaves
I’m so frightened I might never be the same
Never be the same
Since I asked him to swim with me

Flower in Time

I am the prisoner
Of sweetness, of sweetness
I am the prisoner
Of sweetness, of sweetness
I am a flower in time
Like the sun, he opens me
I am a flower in time

Isn’t it funny
Isn’t it strange
How a door can open to eternity
Through hours galloping by
I will keep you safe inside of me

You are a flower in time
Floating down love’s river
You are a flower in time
And I am your prisoner

To enfold and to awake
He lies sleeping, I am
The prisoner of sweetness
Over him I climb like vines
Makes me want him
Makes me wait
He lies sleeping
–complete this!
–complete this!
Bite my lip and bide my time

In order to transform the beast
You first must make it beautiful
In order to conquer the beast
You first must make it beautiful

Sparrow I Will Fly

Sparrow, where did you go
I’m in the window
Look at the rain
Bad news, bad words
To be kept like a clipped bird
Whistling away

I’m still waiting
In the cyclone’s eye
For the day when like the
Sparrow I will fly

Higher, higher
My mind’s on fire
Who’ll bring the rain in this
Wide and reeling
Bright and revealing
Sky in my mind

I’m still waiting
In the cyclone’s eye
For the day when like the
Sparrow I will fly

Ah, sparrow, I will fly

Fangs of Discipline

Heart is so much bigger than you might dream
Than you might dream
Heart is so much bigger than you might dream
Than you might dream

Enveloping, encompassing, sweet and wide and wild
The largest pink blossom could just enfold one in the midst of howling darkness
In the midst of howling darkness

Heart is a little older than when it was young
When it was young
Heart is one tin soldier beating its drum beating its drum

Life abounding, ocean pounding, green and garden wild
The strongest rhythm beats on to lead and draw one through the midst of howling darkness
Through the midst of howling darkness

“Some have tried to use their will but our way will be gentler
Gentler still than the fangs of discipline!"

Take this thought and keep it with you like some windy morning
When you see the sky through the trees
Like the dust of diamonds carried on a wing, on some breeze…

Ambassador

I know a country
Wild canyons and seas
Red roots wave in the fissures
So wild the space between
My love and me
Running in my midnight feet
River through every gateway
Where you runs into me

I’m going hunting
My heart like a battle rings
To you out in the country
Where true birds find their wings

Where we might
Tear the veil from beauty
And see her dancing down the street
Where I might cry that I was drowning
And you might laugh and drink the sea

Out in the jungles,
What if you should be the beast?
Sometimes love is a toothache
To heal in a howl
Out along the warring sea
Breathing breaths of bravery
As love roars into me

’Til we might
Tear the veil from beauty
And see her dancing down the street
Til I might cry that I was drowning
And you might laugh and drink the sea
And I might cry that I was dying
And you might whisper, “wait for me”

Army of Nows

Army of Nows
Tonight I am so free
That my feet are in flower
I could sow a garden for you
But tonight you are so far away
And I don’t know what to do
Facing down this army of nows
Tonight I am so restless
And the moon is coming down
In a gown of eyelets of blue
She says “worry not about the future
You have plenty here to do, lucky you!
With an army of nows”

Come to carry you with them
Safely, safely through the night
Carry you with them
Safely, safely through the night
Warm, over towns, fields and roads
You’ll be warm
Under mongolian coats

And don’t you weep
And don’t you fear the approach
Of an army of nows
Don’t you weep
They’re almost here
The approach of an army of nows

Come to carry you with them
Safely, safely through the night
Carry you with them
Safely, safely through the night
Warm over towns, fields and roads
You’ll be warm
Under Mongolian coats

Can you hear the drums
Can you hear the bells

Lion Dreams

Sleep, my child
Lion dreams
Someone changed the world
While I was sleeping
Turned the sky
Into the ground
I took off my armor
And I laid it down

In lion dreams
Lion dreams
Shelter me in lion dreaming

Sleep my child
It’s nothing much
Close your eyes and rest a while
And I’ll keep watch
No need to fear
Or to fight
Only to be patient
And to be kind

In lion dreams
Lion dreams
Shelter me in lions dreaming

Lights and Fences

Howl to the eternal wind
I howl to the undivided sea
Oh the agony of separation
Oh the agony
I spoke to the almighty wind
I called to the undivided sea
Oh the agony of separation
Oh the agony
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
Where is my garden out of time
We had one face, we had one name
In restless spirals of attention
Were we one and were the same
As the undying wind
Same as every shore and every shell
As if in us the world awakened
To look at last upon itself

Oh, have I a hunger to arise
Escape my size and lose my name
And every hour of inattention
Al the vestiges of shame
Rain will come to wash the castles down
Waves to throw the fish over the sea
Rain is pouring down in exaltation
Rain pours down on me

I’ve known the world of lights and fences
Every animal’s afraid
I have known pain and subjugation
In a word, within a frame
And so I whisper to you, love
My other heart, my only trust
This is my one purification
Wash my body from the dust
To wash my body from the dust

Plant the garden in the world

Sorrow's Ending

If all the bells in the forest shook
So at once the birds began
They couldn’t sing this love out to its end
No they could not sing it, sing it, no
If til sorrow’s ending they kept singing

Hold it in my hands
I turn, turn it over in my mind
Sorrow’s Ending
Sky wide and gentle as a mother
I want to find
Sorrow’s Ending
If that road can ever be known
Be it low, steep or wending
If that ground can ever be found
It’ll welcome us somewhere
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
My song, my song
Grows stronger, stronger
The song beyond my song
Grows stronger, stronger

If all the sleeping colors woke
So the night reached out her hands
She couldn’t reach this love out to its end
No she could not reach it, reach it, no
If til sorrow’s ending she kept reaching

Hold it in my hands
I turn, turn it over in my mind
Sorrow’s Ending
Sky wide and gentle as a lover
I want to find
Sorrow’s Ending
If that road can ever be known
Be it low, steep or wending
If that ground can ever be found
It’ll welcome us somewhere

My song, my song
Grows stronger, stronger
The song beyond my song
Grows stronger, stronger

Goldenrod

Was I given this life
Just to spend like a bird in a mine
Was I given this life
To work all day, all night
When the mountains call
With the goldenrod
And I call my God
I call my God

Was I given this life
To bind and trade
Was I given this life
To rise some other day
Like the Pleiades
In Orion’s sky
Where I call tonight
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
Was I given this life just like a bird in a mine
Was I given this life to grind and while away
Was I given this life to rise some other day
Like the Pleiades
In Orion’s sky
Where I call tonight

Was I given this life, just to spend like a bird in a mine
Was I given this life to barter, bind and trade
Was I given this life to rise some other day
With the Pleiades
In Orion’s sky
Where I call tonight
And I call

Hidden Word

They say she lives here somewhere
Where, they do not know
When storms jangle the valley
She wears a robe of snow
They say she lives here somewhere
For the soul on foot to find
And makes her morning rounds
Leaning on a cane of pine

And if she lives here somewhere
Then all of this she sees
From spring’s remembered beetles
To the last bones of the trees
The owl in the twilight,
The hour that lifts your eyes
From the question in your pocket
To the wandering of the light

And as I behold the autumn’s
Fiery eyes beholding me
There are times when they must see her
Other times they must see me
Are we one and are we only
Like a wind moves through the world
Like a God moves in its garden
To become the hidden word
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
When the autumn smells of ashes
Where your feet have left the road
When the road is just a memory
And the future just a word
When all that is of value
Lies hidden in the world
I lie down beside the river
To become the hidden God

Water Carves the Mountain

Far across the skies of gold
Clouds will slide
Clouds do scroll
All of these things come and go
While water carves the mountain
Water carves the mountain

Water, water, mystery
Drawing mazes in the rock
Arcing through the trees
On and on I followed your streams
How yielding you seem
Yet shape this dream
Of centuries

Oh, it’s gonna take a long, long time
It may feel like the world is slowly dying
But in the mountains of my mind
I can feel
There’s a new world softly winding
Winding

Softly you sing
With the will of the wildest ocean, rushing
Gushing in your rain fed streams
Clean and wild I mean
One sweet drink in the mouth of another lover
Lying on your banks of green
And when it may seem
All our striving may come to nothing
Struggling up against their fears set free
Remind me
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
“Just as water carves the mountain
We will move this stone.
Just as stone gives way to water
It will move, it will move.”

Song for Dan

Dan, If you can hear me let me know
I never got to say farewell, oh Dan
How swiftly all of this goes by
Now visions of your thread-cut life
Become my mothers hand to hold
Become my lover’s eyes so old

Beauty out and beauty in
Forget all you know about it
Years ago and years again
I’ll find you in the world
I’ll find you
Inside a baby’s waking eyes
Outside a crow flies high
Carry wide, wide
These dreams, these prayers, his soul, his life

Beauty out and beauty in
Forget all you know about it
Years ago and years again
I’ll find you in the world
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
Beauty in and beauty out
Water comes to drink the ground
Mountains rise and years like whales
And find you in the world

Dan, if you have flown I understand
If you have found your wingspan again…

Honey of Experience

Take my life, a small sip of eternity
This is how the thimble taught the bird to drink
Stars will die but oceans live their lives in me
All of my life

All my loves, how one by one I drank their names
All our lives like lights upon a single string
In the rain one or another held my hand
All of my life

Beloved, return me to my innocence
Carrying the honey of experience
For the friend I have been missing all of my life
All of my life
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
Take my life and tell it with your laughing words
All of our lives, like feathers on a rising bird
All of the time, I was possessed of all the world
All of my life

Beloved return me to my innocence
Carrying the honey of experience
For the friend I have been missing all of my life
All of my life

Horns of life and music in my champing hooves
Pound through time and die the way that oceans move
Stars will die and none of this is what I love
All of my life
Stars will die and all of this is what I love
Stars will die

The Feather and the Quill

Dans mes rêves…

Hold fast to me
Hold fast that you may see
High climbs the wall
Long gone, the creatures of the fall
Loud shouts the gun
Long gone, the feather and the quill
Long have I run
Long will be running still
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
And as we ride
The dream mare cries
All life is falling from her eyes
All life is falling from her eyes
The world so precious and so wild
They were so precious and so wild

Look there, the dream mare
Cantering through the rocks and clover
Look there, the dream mare
Black as the galaxy above her
Wild as a blooming rose
Come and we go, the ones that love her
Wild as she first arose
To run forever

Hold fast to me
Bright blossoms falling from the trees
I’ve watched them fall
Long gone, the talon and the claw
Bright blooms the flower
But for an hour, and is gone

Look there, the dream mare
Cantering through the rocks and clover
Look there, the dream mare
Black as the galaxy below her
Wild as she first arose
Come and we go, the ones that know her
Wild as she first arose
To run forever

Let me raise these ragged words
Like feathers on an autumn wind

Antlers

Massive and strange
Was the beast in the streetlamp
Trembling and grand
In a halo of light
There in his eyes was the look of surprise
Of a wandering king
With a face long forgotten
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
Where will he go
When the last night star has faded
Chased from your gardens and into the hills
Why has he come
Will he come back again
When the last tree’s been felled
When the last hill’s been taken

I did weep to see him so
I would kiss him
Would go with him
To shiver when the cold winds blow
Follow him where he would go
Where, where did he
Follow him where he would go

Father, brother oh,
Where did you go

Daughter, I don’t know
To the sea, or through the snow

How will I know

Spirit House

I lived in a spirit house
Of blood and clay designed
And though I was a guest within
I lived like it was mine

At times I felt its poverty
And I thought that poverty mine
But when I needed shelter
Into that house I would climb

For the rain it poured like music
While the lowly hearth did roar
And I sang inside my spirit house
As the wild wind raved at the door
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
The night I left the spirit house
I didn’t say goodbye
Just heard the plainchant of an owl cry
And then I went outside

Where the night was strangely sonorous
And more fragrant than before
And I reached out for my spirit house
But those walls were there no more

And when I found it was a dream
I knelt down on the floor
And thanked those beams, so long-strong and so unseen
And gently shut the door

Bless this house
Doorway hung with oranges and cloves
Altars of cinnamon and rose
It’s granted you to live a while and know

Bless this house
Morning when another day’s begun
Find me on the hillsides where I run
Gathering the white rays of the sun

Fathering Sun

Clouds, unlace your fingers
Let me see him
Through your hands
Raise my palms
To the fathering sun
With his heels of clouds
With his fists of wind
Where, where have you gone
With your mouthful of air
I need something strong
Give me lungs of wind
Give me wind

Travelled round the world
When I was a girl
He was there
With his fiery mare
With his herds of clouds
With his beasts of wind
Where, where have you gone
With your baskets of fire
I need something strong
Give me tongues of fire
Give me fire
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
Where have you gone

For love of you has
Grabbed me by the color
In naked summer light
Barefoot summer light

I Was Unnamed

Our hidden love is wilder than we know
A let out breath of evergreen and spruce
We cannot hold, we could not ever hold

Before I was your love, I was that loose
And captivating dark, I was unnamed
I was the shake of fur on shaggy buttes

And rivers swollen with the sheeting rains
And I have been the valleys that were drowned
And I have been the mountain that remains

As brown and certain as a muddy mound
That lived its lifetime in a rocky brook
Before I was your love, we were the ground

Where through the heated centuries we shook
Beneath life’s smoky, undulating plume
Watched men like starfish spinning in the soot

Where life throws up its colors in a bloom
And earth will take their ashes back again
Each certain that his time has come too soon

But how we can forget these things, my friend
Beneath the clanging changing of the hour
Where clambering word over word, and hand over hand

In endless search of permanence and power
In hurry as if the throne were never far away
We trample over perfect, blazing flowers
I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake
The glinting willows stop me where I stand
I can remember long forgotten names
I can remember stretching wide my hands

To summon something sentient and strange
Our fire beating back the dark, we call
All human only this side of the change

From something into something else
I fall into the space between their names.
The age of mountains, the age of waterfalls

Must flood our human frames, the age
Of oceans drown the sound of clocks in singing whales
The dreamer turns the page

There, on the evening shore, we stop to talk
Where crabs bend their machinery to pray
The moonlight carving faces in the rock

The city’s cloak of noises falls away
The ocean tumbles, tossing in its bed
I hear its fiery waves
I taste its spray

I touch your fiery cheek, I taste the red
Of our lives’ rivers, singing as they go
To meet the midnight sea where they were bred

Colossal tideline, generous and slow
Our hidden love is wilder than we know

Let us welcome a new star
It may take a billion years
For her far-flung light
To reach us again
On a cloudy eve, she wanders singing
Through the rain and the wind
Every night I want to let her in

Let us welcome a new star
Drifting like a raft or a photograph
Of a tesseract
Many are her worlds, I wish I knew them
Where they are, what they are
Many are the worlds I wish I knew

May you be dressed in light

Let us welcome a new star
Somewhere she is dying and
Somewhere she lives
In these images

Oktober 29th

Wallgreens opened her door to death today
And she rode in
Taught and saucy from the facelift
Beaming her made for this little while smile
Tall as a tale, legs long as a lie
Cross my heart and hope to die, I'm mulling over which razor to buy
Hey baby, says a voice like a song
You drippin' sorrow, you lookin long!
She smacks her wet and wild lips
Snips her scissor thighs, says
Come on, lithe and on the sly
I'll give you a hand, you give me a try...
And I never let nothin pass me by, but she's slippin round on the linoleum like she's sweating petroleum
So I excuse myself back to the nail care shelf, into
Which one, bluest midnight, or jealous jade?
Bluest midnight, you got it made, she say
A tear of spit lands as she presses my hand to her jaw
I'm having a vision of eyes in her hair
There there, she says, you're so young and alive
So in your prime
So BI-O-LOG-I-CAL
(the syllables roll around like marbles in her mouth)
Bluest midnight like the window of a magic eight ball that when it finally comes to
LAUGHS at you in the midst of its endless blue
Your future might be drowning around in there
If you could just smash it out
But those balls are unbreakable
And past that lucky little laugh, into the oil night
Aint nobody gonna see in there
Aint nobody gonna see in, understand me?

Unhand me
This is the part where I bustle away

Take my card, she say
Eyes by the pair blink in her hair
And she reaches into those inky nylon tresses
And pulls out
A red eyed cleft lip buck toothed knock kneed little mister something or other
And I say
What's that?
And she says
That's a promise
Not now, but some day

And the little thing grapples onto my hair and burrows and is gone
And I'm gone, got the hell out of there and tried to bend my mind back to nail painting
But on my lonesome, with the trees septembrin'
I get to remembering about this time a bus spit out a blind woman
And she fell into my arms like a long lost lover and said
How come you look like that?
And I say how do you know what I look like, you're blind?
And she says
That's how come I know
I say what you see?
She says the hospital's that way
The doctor can look at you
Have a little lookie while you have a little shut-eye
Tell them it hurts, they'll ask you where
But aint nobody gonna see in there
Aint nobody gonna see in

I'm Sick

So the next time I see you in the hygiene aisle
Cracking your back like a whip
Lighting the tabloid underbrush on fire with your matchstick fingers
I'll take one good long stretchmark look and say
Who are you really?
We girls shrink from inside our skin like aging fruit
You were born shrunken with a hundred different skin bags
Who are you really?
Weaving promises in our hair
A mask like a million dollars
Sign of the times plastic skin
Eyes too blue not to be new
Like two of a kind
But what's behind?
Aint nobody gonna see in there
Aint nobody gonna see in!

So
Pants on fire if I'm a liar
Tree me down if I tell a lie
I'll be mulling over which razor to buy
To raze myself slick as an eel in the fountain of youth
Soft as a new lamb with ears perked up white and wide...
My dawns will dress in their winter clothes
Their hurricanes and rain
When you press up against the frosty pane
Crowned this time in waving insects
For we two shall suck on sweet memories of living days
Red eyed
Promises
Broken