1. |
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the story opens on a baby
laughing and crying, told my son,
“you're dying - living and dying.”
so he slept and i
took my wand and waved it over him
took myself and made a ship for him
and he loves me
that's more than i hoped for
in my dreams and reservations
so i'm glad that i kept on
this baby had a close friend
who loved to build buildings
patient and kind
and willing to keep trying
one day they built a history
longer than their own memory
took a paper and they drew the angel bells
i'm watching them i'm learning to do that too
i'm learning to do that
the story opens on a baby
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2. |
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long haired angry broken seed
your knives and your stink of broken branches
don't scare me away
we fought in the sun
in a field of tomatoes
their broken fruit stung our eyes
the earth tasted salty
like a sandy bone of meat
our bodies lay there in the rain
the crows tore at our remaining anger
the flowers growing from our legs were sweet and sharp
a brand new day we couldn't tear ourselves away
we couldn't leave that great big sky
'til stone rained down
and we forgot our winters
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3. |
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been twenty years i'm sailing
across this sea of melted dreams
and clouds of purple gold and red
makes me sick in the head
but i'm alone, so no one cares
but the friends i have made
who climb aboard every day
i've been practicing burning
light into light inside my hands
it takes a man off balance
when light falls from his eyes
but it doesn't keep my table full
so i learned how to fly
on winds that i stole and i
hunted birds with my hands
straight out of the sky
if you believe that a man can fly
otherwise i've just been eating
daydreams from the ocean
like an organ out of tune
trapped myself in the wrong song
a thousand times a night
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4. |
broken white feathers
03:41
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broken white feathers
falling down hidden lines of light
the mistake was not made
to teach you wrong from right
i walked three days to reach a door
touched the mango to my eyes
kissed it gently set it down
grasped at time
to teach me numbers
numbers dance around my hands
count them all and there'll be more
filled my pitcher with sugar
drank my cup until it yelped
filed away the edge of fancy
found myself finding help
i asked myself if i heard the song
asked myself if i'd sewn it tight
folded cloth over my bolts
the scars that healed
still show
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5. |
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the light here is dangerous
the light here will pull you
the light here will knock you down
if it sees you standing up
that's the way of the world
that's the way we've been given
and i haven't found the crack
in the sky to let us out
so keep searching
remember what you love here
leave your blood to keep dripping
the ground could use it now
i offered you dignity
you said not on your life
wild foal, did you run this far all alone
would you like to keep my bell by your ear
i keep it forever if you just sing for me
if you just sing
that's the way we've been given...
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6. |
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there's a needle in the sky
gently sewing through it all
stuck the needle in your eye
and you cut the cords that held you down
carved your name into the bone
what a strange thing for you to do
now the whole world knows your name
better than you, better than you
melt your heroes into dust
the dust you thought you had to dream with
you are a captive of your heart
feeling ever more like a bird
sing your song into the earth
listen careful for the echoes
the bone of rock still pulses there
heart of earth the dreaming stone
and when you go will you burn your soul
to watch the flame to really feel it
when you go will you burn your soul
just because you thought you didn't need it
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7. |
my master gave me a note
03:17
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my master gave me a note wrapped hastily to hold
a secret
he told me to take this note to the moon
this morning
the road is very long, i travel one foot after another
i keep my eyes on my rough path
and i close my eyes to the nightmares and wonders
that fly above my head
i hope that none are hungry
if they are i might soon be dead
at least as dead as a man like me can be
when i reach
the gardens of the moon
her soldier says, “son, are ya dreamin'?”
i give him my master's seal wrapped in silken cord
and the soldier lets me pass
if heaven is a real place would i still be myself there
the moon takes my note then smiles
then frowns
then her light just swallows me up
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8. |
play me like a guitar
03:57
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play me like a guitar
i'll teach you how to sing
we'll sing about the memories
that caught us in their sleep
flying through their dreams
tell me you've been hoping
a lock would bind our soul
brass and steel the thoughts revealed
i'd hold us in this home and we'd never have to go
sing to me of your family
i'll tell you of my friends
my friends are wild and roaming
they teach me to befriend
the lazy ways of fighting
close enough to love
that i can't tell the difference
and i can't tell them no
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9. |
do you smell the scent
03:08
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do you smell the scent of the woods this summer
do you smell its old fur underneath the new
do you think we might find the milky pools this year
that bathe our bones and heal our woes
smell the rabbit with his heart all flaming
dreaming of his does, he closes his eyes
do you smell the water of the stream cackling
at the widows we've made
with our own teeth and claws
what a sorry tale
the tooth and the key
piercing through flesh that divine mystery
what a sorry game we must play
though the smells are sweet inside us this day
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10. |
her soft breathing
04:11
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her soft breathing tames the animal in my heart
the animal at my side is unafraid
my hair smells of dandelion, my face smells like sage
and the places i have been somehow soothe her
i smell the smoke of the hickory in her hair
i smell honey too
i smell her walking through a stone doorway
into a garden of soldiers' graves
i smell the bitter herbs i drank
to keep my eyes from drifting
and the woods soft cries i smell
in my sweat
its tears only there do sting me
i smell the snow from winters ago
it still chills me just to feel it
i smell the touch of my lover
in her room with the soft red light
and pianos quietly singing
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11. |
the religion of the fist
02:11
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the religion of the fist
biting into steel air
smells to me like death
stretched out across all my years
i found a cold lump of ice in my fingers
how do these cords of wood not rattle apart
with their loose tangles
my child drawing faces
on a troubled sea
draw me a map of the strings that draw me apart
into the north, and the earth
and the wandering herds of deer
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12. |
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i sing with a frog in my throat
while a thousand demonstrators
watch hungrily
with the lambs kicking at my shins
they don't know how much their anger pleases me
i'm not hungry for you to understand me
though i am a little scared that the world might teach you wrong
so i told the sky to hand you the amulet
of omen and bone
as the man once told it to you
your face is a beautiful writhing mass
in this darkness i know the deer have the right idea
and the fawn now
my prince in the field
i have sent him out to challenge the armies
and to seek out the unreal
i sing
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13. |
beat the star song
01:43
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beat the starsong on a pile of sticks
hotter it grows
hotter it grows
we talk about the owls
their fledglings are so brave
plucking bread from our hands
telling pictures with their eyes
I break a color on my hands
the sticks are still singing
beat the starsong on a pile of sticks
hotter it grows
hotter it grows
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14. |
yellow flowers
02:43
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the story opens on a baby
long haired angry broken seed
been twenty years i'm sailing
broken white feathers
the light here is dangerous
there's a needle in the sky
my master gave me a note
play me like a guitar
do you smell the scent
her soft breathing
the religion of the fist
i sing with a frog in my throat
beat the starsong
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Jan Lamberton Smith Cuyama, California
"...You can talk about the glory days my darling, but these evening stars just take my breath away, and the sky is so immense I cannot hear you. In the moonlight I forget what I should say. There's nothing on the dashboard for protection; there's no candle in my window for regret, and the beauty in this moment overtakes me. I'm headed out it's bowling night again." ... more
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