• Lyrics: play full screen play karaoke
• This Confiscated House - Shearwater
• So Bad - Shearwater
• Long Ride - Shearwater
• On The Death Of The Waters - Shearwater
• Nobody - Shearwater
• You Took Your Mistakes Too Hard - Shearwater
• You As You Were - Shearwater
• Wreck - Shearwater
• White Waves - Shearwater
• Whipping Boy - Shearwater
• Well Benjamin - Shearwater
• Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine - Shearwater
• Uniforms - Shearwater
• The World In 1984 - Shearwater
• The Snow Leopard - Shearwater
• The Set Table - Shearwater
• The Left Side - Shearwater
• The Kind - Shearwater
• The Ice Covered Everything - Shearwater
• The Hunter's Star - Shearwater
• The Convert - Shearwater
• St. Mary's Walk - Shearwater
• South Col - Shearwater
• Soon - Shearwater
• Sing Little Birdie - Shearwater
• Silver Bodies - Shearwater
• Seventy-four Seventy-five - Shearwater
• Sealed - Shearwater
• Safeway - Shearwater
• Runners Of The Sun - Shearwater
• Room For Mistakes - Shearwater
• Rooks - Shearwater
• Red Sea Black Sea - Shearwater
• Palo Santo - Shearwater
• Not Tonight - Shearwater
• North Col - Shearwater
• Near A Garden - Shearwater
• My Only Boy - Shearwater
• My Good Deed - Shearwater
• Mulholland - Shearwater
• Military Clothes - Shearwater
• Mountain Laurel - Shearwater
• Mistakes - Shearwater
• Meridian - Shearwater
• Lost Boys - Shearwater
• Little Locket - Shearwater
• Leviathan Bound - Shearwater
• Landscape At Speed - Shearwater
• La Dame Et La Licorne - Shearwater
• Johnny Viola - Shearwater

This is the film of my death.
I am the only one left.
Let it all come down.
Let it all come down.
I'm stumbling over the blocks in this confiscated house,
my associates.
Let this be my testament.
Carry the work we have done.
Carry the plans we have laid.
I tried my best,
but there's so little left...
Someday the crows will couple in our ruins.
Someday the milkweed will bloom in profusion.
Please forgive what you can and remember the rest.
When I'm slept with the clover and tarragon,
slumbering under the lawn,
in one world less,

Jesus got my Mom in there
And beat her up so bad
He beat her up so bad
Who can save us now that God's gone mad?
Jesus got my Mom in there
And beat her up so bad
He beat her up so bad
Who can save me from the witch
That lives across the way
She lives across the way
No one will believe a word I say
Jesus got my Mom in there
And beat her up so bad
He beat her up so bad
Who can save me from the man
That wheels the grinding stone
He wheels the grinding stone
Watching as the witches burn my bones
Jesus got my Mom in there
And beat her up so bad
He beat her up so bad
From my brow she brushed my hair
Like grass from tiny grave
Like grass from tiny grave
How I thought that fretful hand could save!
Jesus got my Mom in there
And beat her up so bad
He beat her up so bad
Look What The Wind Blew In
When they see me coming all my friends will say
Look what the wind blew in, Hey
Look what the wind blew in
And I won't show up empty handed, no
I've got a tight little fist of gold
I've got a tight little gist of gold
Where I leave off and you begin
I don't want to know
No, I don't want to know
Darling, I don't want to know
Like the breath to a heart all welcoming
To a heart all welcoming I'll go
And when they see me coming all my friends will say
Look what the wind blew in, Hey

Amy Jeanne, you're in my dream.
Your eyes they seem like stars
and all this seems like scaffolding to lift up who you
are.
The hospital, the long ride home, your hands as new as
snow.

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 hand's on the balcony
As a spine pricks the world
And the 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

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
And nobody would ever have known
No hand and no eye would have shown

Up from your room, down to the yard
You always took your mistakes so hard
Down to the side-strip covered in weeds
You always took so much more than you need
Describe the driver, describe the car
You always took your mistakes so hard
Up from the city, down through the trees

When you fell in the rocks
At the bend in the river
With the blood from your nose
Running hard on your fingers
And through the rest of your life
The electric charge
Of a change in the weather
You were touching my arm
You were holding a feather
And then I opened my eyes
And the World goes racing, suddenly changed
As the shock of the axe, it leaves you trembling
Like a busting shell in the small of your back
Or a job that's hard on the cast of your little lie
And an animal life was surging away
And you were back on the road
Through the worst of the Winter
Through the Valley of Lies
Passing through like an arrow
Oh, if your vision collapsed
And a storm from the river
Like a golden medalion
Clutching tight in your fingers
But on the slope of the edge
Will you recover your life
You could stand on the back of a shuddering beam
With a pistol firing shots into the air
You could run in the blood of the Sun's hard rays
You could drive the mountains down into the bay
Or go back to the East where it's all so civilized
Where I was born to the life
But I am leaving the life
I am leaving the life
I am leaving the life
I am leaving the life
I am leaving the life
I am leaving the life
I am leaving the life
I am leaving the life

Should I close my eyes and get in that line
Hold my bags in file with the boarders? Should I take
your name down on a penciled list
Or a tape recorder?
Or should I take you down in the nighttime
To the banks by the deep black water?
Time will make you mine, in an hour's time
Time will make you older
They're pulling wreckage from the lake
All night and day outside my window
The sky was quiet, cold, and wide
The night they died above my pillow
And God will take care of us, at least some of us
At least those of us that He wants
And disappear from most of us
Keep clear from most of us

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

If I told you once, then I told you twice
That I would have paid just about any price
Just to see him jump, just to see him laugh
I would have washed in the blood of an innocent man
Let the whipping boy ride
The boy says to the wolf, "You're gonna be my dog"
The boy ties the wolf to a fence post
The wolf says, "Boy, if you're gonna be my man
Let's see how you fit in those britches"
I found a river that doesn't run to the sea
I found a river through the dead lands
I found a river that's been beaten by the sun
But a river that never did surrender to the sands
Let the whipping boy ride

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
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

Went to see the new baby
And we smoked weed on the back porch
And lying on my back with the pool floatie
"Raining Blood" just thundering forth
I said, "What do you say
Your parents take your place for an hour?
We can drive downtown
To our old favorite place
Let the years just melt away
And find ourselves back where we were found"
There's not a soul down on the corner
And that's a pretty certain sign
That I shouldn't try
To play the reformer
Picking up pieces of that old gang of mine
But what would they say
If it went the other way
And we flew to today
Through ten years of time
They'd be ashamed
I'm so sure they'd be ashamed
At what I claim to be doing with my life
Now they're all paired off
And kissing the other half goodnight
And then falling deep into the same sleep
While walls and warm sheets shut out the light
And I'm the only one
At the top of my lungs
Who's still singing sweet adelines
They're all filled up
They don't need the love
That I'm bringing that old gang of mine
Not a soul down on the corner
They're all safe sitting down behind smooth sheets of
glass
I guess it's not going to get any warmer
And I guess it's raining slow

send back the uniforms
send back the generous reich
give us back to our lives
on the waving blue wild
and remove every mark
down to the waterline
and with your arms at your sides
turn homeward
over seas
over roads
over burning atolls
hurl your empire's crown
back in the heart
of the waves
rber im lok jiktok ikerele
kot iban bok hartu jonan an elap ippa
relay relay the unquenchable song through the wire
where your horses alight
on the shores of our lives

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:

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
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
Can this sullen child
As bound as the ox that I ride
Climb to the heart
Of the white wind singing high

Your warm sweater
Your torn letters
They're all that matters
At the window watching the elegant traffic
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

A pretty one-eyed girl
From the state of Maine
Can't see the church:
It's on the left side of her brain.
But it's clothed in browning leaves
And it wants to take her in,
And there's a Parson's robe inside that wants to feel
her skin. And the sleeves of warm, black cloth
Are hungry for her wrists,
And the pages of the Holy Book is hungry for her kiss.
She'll go home all alone
On the right hand of the interstate
And the church upon the hill
It will sit in browning leaves
And it will wait for her, wait to be together.
But she won't want it, ever.
It's like a dream I had:
This girl I went to see
And I can't sing her name, she might be listening to me
In a room of missing tiles we felt ourselves entwine
And she bit my tongue and shouted as I crawled into her
mind.
It was full of singing mouths and apples in the air,
A soft, warm little room that was surrounded by her
hair.
And, alone, when we awoke,
We stretched our legs and spoke
To the people we were sleeping with in voices not our
own,
In the cool of our beds
With the words just dissipating
In the open air ahead,

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

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

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-lights fade
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

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

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
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

the lunar landscapes of the Hindu Kush,
as if borrowed from prehistory,
seem still to wait for the arrival of the animal world,
or perhaps to announce its end.

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.
Soon, soon, soon, come.
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.

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

Cull the silver bodies from the waves
their shimmering lives in your fingers
call the coral islands from the bay
and a mountain will rise
lay the little bones among the reeds
and hide in the light of the ages
curl the bloody moon around the clouds
and pull in the tide
and all will be carried away
in the surge and the wash of the waves
to arrive on the shores of the islands

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 frome the age, gone from the guards and their
hands. It's no different today than in years gone by. But
he won't come out tonight, with his hands so thin and
white…
Gone. Gone from the page, and then he is gone from your
eyes, as that splintering wave takes so many lives. And
now your hands are gripping the edge of such a waste,
where every angel looks dead, every face a lie. But 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 pulled you out
I would wash all the cinders from your eyes
And with silver and gold
I would adorn you
Let it all come out tonight, when they pull you out
alive.

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

Should I close my eyes and get in that line
Hold my bags in file with the boarders? Should I take
your name down on a penciled list
Or a tape recorder?
Or should I take you down in the nighttime
To the banks by the deep black water?
Time will make you mine, in an hour's time
Time will make you older
They're pulling wreckage from the lake
All night and day outside my window
The sky was quiet, cold, and wide
The night they died above my pillow
And God will take care of us, at least some of us
At least those of us that He wants
And disappear from most of us
Keep clear from most of us

How could I have seen them
Their faces and distant lives
Shells in the ocean
Just a mark
Laid on the map lines
To drown in the ocean's rise
Or burn in a heat wave
This is why
I turned away
To slowly break
Under the lashes
This is how
I learned a lie
That power breeds

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:

When the rooks were laid in the piles
By the sides of the road
Crashing into the aerials
Tangled in the laundry lines
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 millions
Would 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 light, and he cries
Amen, let their kingdom come tonight

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

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

Hurts so bad that you know it's not sinning.
The funny thing is it's just beginning to feel good.
And downstairs all your friends are waiting,
they're talking low and filling their stories with
angels,
and they imagine intervening in true crime photos
and placing meaning within them
- from blue to red to black-and-white.
Don't look too long,
you'll be up all night among them,
the sudden dead.
The last thing he said was:
"You should have been here before the camera arrived,
maybe I wouldn't have to die.
But just live out this long life jangling,
and as old men you could watch my hand dangling,
cold and white."
Baby, don't worry tonight;
I know it's too ugly to hold yourself upright.
So fill a clean glass, cold and smooth.
Take the reds, then take the blues.
Away, you can hear a voice that's singing:
"Angels could come but you wouldn't believe them,
and those that believe still can't see them anyway."
And The Suicide slides out of his skin
and he climbs inside of the bed you're in and touches
your face.
He says:
"What right had I to die
when all these little cells just tried to keep me
alive?
What right had I to leave the human race behind?
Do you really think you're better,
with your shotgun and your suicide letter?
Do you think you're right?
Well baby, don't worry tonight,
I know it's too ugly to hold yourself upright.
There's a light from the front room as it's filling
with all of your friends.
It doesn't get much better than this, and then it

Each stray reminder of your home life
is hung on the wind that pulls away from you
as the walls of the mountains in the cold light
glow red, in an echo of the flares on high
in the vault of the night
In the forest on the branches and the clotheslines
a fierce little wren singing loud, and high
while his eyes, insisting on their own life,
gave legs to the lie
that there was world, and time
to grow old in its light
In the last of embers of the twilight,
the gunmetal air has come alive with birds.
They burst from the clouds above the snow line
and bloom in the ashes of the old, black sky,

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

My only boy, be not so blind.
Open your eyelids wide. In through your mouth, breathe
soft, light…
There are no words, no hands, no eyes,
to show where a door stands wide.
In through your mouth, breathe soft, light…
Let your heart stand open,
when silence trickles down, bright,
and softly, slowly surrounds
your little ghost town
Set all the silver lamps alight.
Open the windows wide
(come to me now, in soft light).
Show every world in its separate light-
(A gull’s wing, a crow’s dark eye)
Where all the city’s foundlings lie
When your heart stands open,
and offered to a crowd,
draw lines around your chosen life.
And let it burn, bright -
over all the lovely faces
(In place of the sun,

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 him
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

Georgeanna,
the berylline hummingbirds are back in California.
We've been frozen here in Dakota,
and I'm thinking the sun could warm you.
And I've been talked to, and I've been talking, too...
You stopped coughing.
You lay in my lap while the headlights
lit the almond trees of some state park.
You lay there so still,
I was afraid I might have lost you.
And I've been talking to you.
I wish you'd talk, too.
Mulholland,
each little light's a soul outside of Bakersfield.
You shut your saltwater eyes
while the radio played soft and clear.
And I was talking to you,

The river runs swollen with the spring rains.
How will you pay for it?
In your tinfoil armor,
coming up singing as you were born again.
Washed in muddy water,
will you recover from the stain
when they call you by that unfamiliar name?
In the flat land of west Texas,
telephone poles and the evening train.
I saw you at the station,
waiting for the slow release again.
Washed my hands of diesel,
but it burns my eyes like smoke to see you standing in

I peeled the shirt from your back, had a look at your
scars. They healed over so well that you forget where
they are, but they radiate like stars.
When the cataract falls from 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 until we start to go numb.

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

in the burning days
of unnatural light
i took a long drive
into the evening
on the barracks road
past the generals' eyes
down to the seawall
where the waves stand by
the enourmous lull
then the roar in the sky
and then the searchlights
over the airfield
and over the ocean
winging low
I saw the first wave
and the flares that fall
like fireflies
on the islands
in the boom and swell
from the waves to the heights
reverberations
of our old lives
like a golden bell
that would ring through the night
and then the front moves
and we raise our eyes

My blistered feet turn bloody
So I take to the air
And I am everywhere, I am starlight
Oh, 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
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

He's got a little locket picture of the maids'
commission.
With bees blowing through the bushes,
he makes the first incision,
and these dolls race through the garden.
A chef on boneless roses opens the bandages,
and this empty house discloses
what the guest's dreams are hiding,
as he rests above the arbor with little flowers
crying for all their heads he's harbored.
And the then midnight market stalls fill with up
chloroform,
the face within his locket mouths "take off your
uniform."
They kiss him before parting,
then melt into his pockets.
He's trampling through the garden and he's got a little

the hollow light
is still on the fields
where the winter has warmed
and the snows have drained away
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,

in a power dive
in a slow burn
over ancient fields
over islands
from the slope and the rise
of the mainland
unfamiliar shapes
through the atmosphere
over rain clouds
to the brimming bowl
coral-inlaid
how we lit them up
everlasting

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
My head is aflame
my body is distant.
And I am 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

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/your life, 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,