Story Once Told
Story Once Told
Cherry Wine
Would That I
Butchered Tongue Unknown / Nth
Abstract (Psychopomp) First Time
Work Song
Anything But Shrike
Like Real People Do In a Week
Cherry Wine Her eyes and words are so icy Oh but she burns Like rum on the fire Hot and fast and angry as she can be I walk my days on a wire It looks ugly, but it’s clean Oh momma, don’t fuss over me The way she tells me I’m hers and she is mine Open hand or closed fist would be fine The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine Calls of guilty thrown at me All while she stains
The sheets of some other Thrown at me so powerfully Just like she throws with the arm of her brother But I want it It’s a crime That she’s not around most of the time The way she shows me I’m hers and she is mine Open hand or closed fist would be fine Blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine Her fight and fury is fiery
Oh but she loves Like sleep to the freezing Sweet and right and merciful I’m all but washed In the tide of her breathing And it’s worth it, it’s divine I have this some of the time The way she shows me I’m hers and she is mine Open hand or closed fist would be fine The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine
Would That I
True that I saw her hair like The branch of a tree Willow dancin’ on air before covering me Under garden and calicos Over canopy dabbled long ago True that love in withdrawal Was the weepin’ of me That the sound of the Saw must be known by the tree Must be felt ‘fore the fight, the call Friendly fire, but that was long ago But that’s not tonight (Oh, oh) When I’m set alight (Oh, oh) And I blink inside (Oh, oh) Your blinding light (Oh, oh) Oh, that’s not tonight (Oh, oh) When you hold me tight (Oh, oh) All the fire bright (Oh, oh) Oh, let it blaze alright (Oh, oh) Oh, hope that you’re good to me Oh, you’re good to me (Oh, oh) Hope that you’re good to me, baby (Oh, oh) With the war of the fire My heart moves to its feet Like the ashes of ash I saw eyes in the heat Feel it soft and as pure as snow Fell in love with the fire long ago With each love I could lose I was never the same Watch it still live in roofs Be consumed by the flame I was fixed on your hand of gold Lay in waste of my lovin’ long ago That’s not tonight (Oh, oh) I’m set alight (Oh, oh) And I blink inside (Oh, oh) Your blinding light (Oh, oh) Oh, that’s not tonight (Oh, oh) You hold me tight (Oh, oh) All the fire bright (Oh, oh) Oh, let it blaze alright, honey (Oh, oh) Oh, hope that you’re good to me Oh, you’re good to me (Oh, oh) Hope that you’re good to me, baby (Oh, oh) So in awe there I stood as you Licked off the grain Though I’ve handled the wood
I still worship the flame Long as amber of ember glows All the wood that I’d loved is long ago And it’s not tonight (Oh, oh) When I’m set alight (Oh, oh) And I blink inside (Oh, oh) Oh, your blinding light (Oh, oh) Oh, that’s not tonight (Oh, oh) When you hold me tight (Oh, oh) All the fire bright (Oh, oh) Oh, let it blaze alright (Oh, oh) Hope you’re good to me Hope you’re good to me (Oh, oh) Hope that you’re good to me Baby (Oh, oh) Oh, oh, you’re good to me You’re good to me (Oh, oh) Hope that you’re good to me, baby (Oh, oh)
But feel at home Hearin’ a music That few still understand A butchered tongue still Singin’ here above the ground The ears were chopped From young men If the pitch cap didn’t kill them They are buried without scalp In the shattered bedrock of our home You may never know your fortune Until the distance has been shown Between what is lost forever And what can still be known So far from home To have a stranger call you “darling” And have your guarded heart Be lifted like a child up by the hand In some town that just means ‘Home’ to them With no translator left to sound A butchered tongue Still singin’ here above the ground
Butchered Tongue
As a child it was The place names singin’ At me as the first thing How the mouth Must be employed In every corner of itself To say “Appalacicola “ or “Hushpukena” Like “Gweebarra” A promise softly sang of somewhere else And as a young man Blessed to pass so many road signs And have my foreign ear Made fresh again On each unlikely sound
Unknown / Nth
You know the distance never made a difference to me I swam a lake of fire, I’d have walked across the floor of any sea Ignored the vastness between all that can be seen And all that we believe So I thought you were like an angel to me Funny how true colours shine in darkness and in secrecy If there were scarlet flags They washed out in the mind of me Where a blinding light shone on you every night And either side of my sleep Where you were held frozen like an angel to me It ain’t the being alone Sha-la-la It ain’t the empty home, baby Sha-la-la You know I’m good on my own Sha-la-la Sha-la-la, baby, you know it’s more the being unknown So much of the living, love, is the being unknown You called me angel for the first time, my heart leapt from me You smile now, I can see its pieces still stuck in your teeth And what’s left of it, I listen to it tick Every tedious beat going unknown as any angel to me Do you know, I could break beneath the weight Of the goodness, love, I still carry for you? That I’d walk so far just to take The injury of finally knowing you It ain’t the being alone Sha-la-la It ain’t the empty home, baby Sha-la-la You know I’m good on my own Sha-la-la Sha-la-la, baby You know it’s more the being unknown And there are some people, love, who are better unknown
Abstract (Psychopomp)
Sometimes it returns, like rain that you slept through The worst of the world the streets looking brand new I will not be great, but I’m grateful to get through The feeling came late, I’m still glad I met you The memory hurts but does me no harm Your hand in my pocket, to keep us both warm The poor thing in the road its eye still glistening The cold wet of your nose, the earth from a distance See how it shines (x 4) Oh-oh-ooh Sometimes there’s a thought like you choose what you’re doing But it comes to naught when I look back through it I remember the view, streetlights in the dark blue The moment I knew I’d no choice but to love you The speed that you moved, the screech of the cars The creature still moving, that slowed in your arms The fear in its eyes, gone out in an instant Your tear caught the light, the earth from a distance See how it shines (x 4) Oh-oh-ooh Darling, there’s a part of me I’m afraid will always be Trapped within an abstract from a moment of my life The weeds up through the concrete The traffic picking up speed All my love and terror balanced there between those eyes See how it shines See how it shines
Remember once I told you about How before I heard it from your mouth My name would always hit my ears As such an awful sound And the soul, if that’s what you’d call it Uneasy ally of the body It felt nameless as a river undiscovered underground And the first time that you kissed me I drank dry the river Lethe The Liffey would have been softer on my stomach all the same But you spoke some quick new music That went so far to soothe this soul As it was And ever shall be Unearth without a name Some part of me must have died The first time that you called me ‘baby’ And some part of me came alive The first time that you called me ‘baby’ These days I think I owe my life To flowers that were left here by my mother Ain’t that like them? Gifting life to you again This life lived mostly underground Unknowing either sight not sound ‘Til reaching up for sunlight Just to be ripped out by the stem Sensing only now it’s dying Drying out, then drowning blindly Blooming forth its every colour In the moments it has left To share the space with simple living things Infinitely suffering, but fighting off Like all creation The absence of itself Anyway Some part of me must have died Each time that you called me ‘baby’ And some part of me stayed alive Each time that you called Each time that you called C’mere Ooh la la Ooh la la
Whatever keeps you around, it keeps you around Ooh la la C’mere Ooh la la Whatever keeps you around, it keeps you around The last time it was heard out loud The perfect genius of our hands and mouths were shocked To resignation as the arguing declined When I was young I used to guess Are there limits to any emptiness? When was the last time? C’mere to me, when was the last time? Some part of me must have died The final time you called me ‘baby’ But some part of me came alive The final time you called me ‘baby’
First Time
Story Once Told
Work Song
Boys workin’ on empty Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat? I just think about my baby I’m so full of love I could barely eat There’s nothing sweeter than my baby I’d never want once from the cherry tree ‘Cause my baby’s sweet as can be She give me toothaches just from kissin’ me When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I’ll crawl home to her Boys, when my baby found me I was three days on a drunken sin
I woke with her walls around me Nothin’ in her room but an empty crib And I was burnin’ up a fever I didn’t care much how long I lived But I swear I thought I dreamed her She never asked me once about the wrong I did When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I’ll crawl home to her When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I’ll crawl home to her My baby never fret none About what my hands and my
body done If the Lord don’t forgive me I’d still have my baby and my babe would have me When I was kissing on my baby And she put her love down soft and sweet In the low lamp light I was free Heaven and hell were words to me When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I’ll crawl home to her When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I’ll crawl home to her
Come here to me, I wish I was a may fly on the River Tay I’d fit all my joys and my pleasures in one perfect day I wish I was the sunlight just sitting on The Mississippi I’d settle for a shopping trolley in The Liffey In a shot I’d swap my body for a body of water Worry the cliff side top as a wave crashing over I’d lower the world in a flood or better yet I’d cause a drought If I was a rip tide I wouldn’t take you out I don’t wanna be anything But I would do anything just to run away I don’t wanna be anything like this at all But I would do anything if you’d hear me say Oh, yeah, hey Go look another way Yeah, hey Look another way Look, I wanna be loud, so loud, I’m talking seismic I wanna be soft as a single stone in a rainstick I wanna be the thunder of a hundred thousand hooves moving quick If I was a stampede you wouldn’t get a kick I wanna be the shadow when my bright future’s behind me I wanna be the last thing anybody ever sees I hear he touches your hand, and then
you fly away together If I had his job, you would live forever I don’t wanna be anything, love But I would do anything just to run away I don’t wanna be anything like this at all But I would do everything if you hear me say Oh, yeah, hey Go look another way Yeah, hey Look another way I don’t wanna be anything, be anything But I would do anything (Go look another way) I don’t wanna be, wanna be, wanna be, wanna be, wanna be Don’t wanna be anything, anything Oh, yeah, hey Go look another way (I don’t wanna be anything) Yeah, hey Look another way
Anything But
Shrike
I couldn’t utter my love when it counted Ah, but I’m singing like a bird ‘bout it now I couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted Ah, but I’m singing like a bird ‘bout it now The words hung above But never would form Like a cry at the final Breath that is drawn Remember me, love When I’m reborn As the shrike to your sharp And glorious thorn And I’d no idea on what ground I was founded All of that goodness is goin’ with you now Then when I met you, my virtues uncounted All of my goodness is goin’ with you now Dragging along Following your form Hung like the pelt Of some prey you had worn Remember me, love When I’m reborn As a shrike to your sharp And glorious thorn I fled to the city with so much discounted Ah, but I’m flying like a bird to you now Back to the hedgerows where bodies are mounted Ah, but I’m flying like a bird to you now I was housed by your warmth Thus transformed By you’re grounded and giving And darkening scorn Remember me, love When I’m reborn As a shrike to your sharp And glorious thorn
Like Real People Do I had a thought, dear However scary About that night The bugs and the dirt Why were you digging? What did you bury Before those hands pulled me From the earth? I will not ask you where you came from I will not ask you, neither should you Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips We should just kiss like real people do I knew that look dear Eyes always seeking Was there in someone That dug long ago So I will not ask you Why you were creeping In some sad way I already know I will not ask you where you came from I will not ask you and neither would you Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips We should just kiss like real people do I could not ask you where you came from I could not ask you, neither could you Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips We could just kiss like real people do
Like Real People Do
In a Week
I have never known peace Like the damp grass that yields to me I have never known hunger Like these insects that feast on me A thousand teeth And yours among them, I know Our hungers appeased Our heartbeats becoming slow We lay here for years or for hours Thrown here or found To freeze or to thaw So long we become the flowers Two corpses we were Two corpses I saw And they’d find us in a week When the weather gets hot After the insects have made their claim I’d be home with you I’d be home with you I have never known sleep Like the slumber that creeps to me I have never known color Like this morning reveals to me And you haven’t moved an inch Such that I would not know If you sleep always like this The flesh calmly going cold We lay here for years or for hours Your hand in my hand So still and discreet So long we become the flowers We’d feed well the land And worry the sheep And they’d find us in a week When the cattle show fear After the insects have made their claim After the foxes have known our taste I’d be home with you I’d be home with you They’d find us in a week (Lay here for years or for hours) When the weather gets hot (So long we become the flowers) They’d find us in a week (Lay here for years or for hours) When the cattle shows fear (So long we become the flowers) And they’d find us in a week When the buzzards get loud After the insects have made their claim After the foxes have known our taste After the raven has had its say I’d be home with you (x 5)