1. SHE'LL KNOW YOU

Sing aloud (and stay your course) in dove-like song.
Without remorse, my lovely owl, offer loss.
I've loved you from the start.
Vision inside darkest night, with sharpest talon, down so white; you'll make the wrongs unite with right.
We'll never be apart.

Raptor-- seizing what you're after, with balance in your quiver.
Knowing to deliver, with violence in your chalice. Fertility : your ballast.
Levelling all hills and valleys with your wings.

Children of the icy ground, go burn your parents' chapels down and spread the word, from town to town : the feathered queen arrives.
She'll see you when the night draws near, her motives couldn't be more clear.
Close your eyes and have no fear.
She'll know you from afar.


2. HEART BEATING

At night I try to find some rest, a little solitude at best.
The silence hits me like the swarming of bees.
I try reclining in the petals but the flowers turn to nettles and the stinging brings me back to my knees.
It gnaws like cannibals and rats and rabid dogs and rabid cats, a tape recorder with an anvil on "play".
I've got to make you understand and hold you steady in my hands with both my lips a half-an-inch from your face :

My dreaming keeps me awake at night, my breathing measures the pace.
My dreaming keeps me awake at night, heart beating.

With cinderblocks and mortar, weaving rubble into order, I put cradles where there used to be graves; but when the wind came off the ocean and it set the waves in motion there was nothing I was able to save.
Now I feel I can't fight another goddamn night of lying beaten, staring off into space.
I need to make you understand and hold you steady in my hands with both my lips a half-an-inch from your face :

My dreaming keeps me awake at night, my breathing measures the pace.
My dreaming keeps me awake at night, heart beating.

Night after night, night night.


3. 1000 MYSTERIES

She knows a thousand mysteries-- explains them all to me, like, there are angels in the morning and they push the moon to me.
When the day becomes a suicide, the road gets hard to see, there are winged wolves at evening and they pull the moon to me.

I want to thank her but I just don't know which words to choose or where they go.

Casting kites like inverse anchors, lapping lines against the clouds, I struggle with my lexicon but speech is not allowed.
Of all the things I need to say and those I need to hide, my love is my humanity, her love for me : my pride.

I want to sing to her but just can't say which words to write or chords to play.


4. ELECTROPLATED

Some men can master a trade-- but only one.
Some men are jacks of all trade but master none.
Some men are blind to the forest for the trees.
Some men identify both with skill and ease.
Some men can educate masses with their words.
Some words will enrage the rabble when they're heard.
Young Simon, honest as heartache, truth-endowed.
Young Simon, speaking at length, a bit too loud.

Some men can educate masses.
These men are targets of wrath, like young Simon, honest as heartache.
Young Simon spoke too long.

Some men can master a trade, but some men are jacks of all trade-- but some men are blind to the forest.
Some men can navigate all, like Simon.

Is he golden or electroplated ?
And will he sink or swim ?
Indentured or emancipated ?
And will he sink or swim beneath the water ?
Down, down- down beneath the river.
Down, down underneath the surface.


5. CHURCH AND WAR

Circle the city with horns and with boots on.
Wait the command and we will sound the klaxxon.
It was determined through a voice and vision, clear as
the midday sun.
This is the tempo that we were born from, women and tides
and the stars all work from.
As it was written, it hits fruition.
Before beginning it's done.
Ramparts will shimmy and shake to the music, sexually
compromised, a structural forfeit.
Once we had nothing, now name it : we own it.
All bets are off as we've won.

We hold the keys to Jericho's damned and sorry walls.

Rock to the pulse of the holy artery.
Synchronize watches, man the battery.
Sound and power, solidarity : forge a brand new crown.
Deafened by machines of conquest, cancel coroners, cancel inquests.
Ring the alarm to the north, south, east, west; taking Lucifer down.
Mark this day with a twelve-span tower.
When in doubt, recall this hour : voltage, decibels, seas of power wash this wicked town.

We hold the keys to Jericho's damned and sorry walls.


6. SIMPLE SERVANT

If they say I'm guilty, well, they might be right.
At this time in my life I don't want to fight.
I'm bunkered where the air is bright and clean.
I walk through the city with my feet in the stream, asleep on the bus with a pillow of leaves; enamored by my independant means.
Let them call it fancy, for I know it's real.
Let the tempest roar, for I am even-keeled.
The moment I stopped searching I was found.
As the fire burns, so I will chew the coals.
As the plot demands, so I will fill the roles.
When the water rises I have solid ground.

Once I stopped fighting nature and simply let it be, this simple servant simply served and simply was set free.

It's good to know that you are home no matter where you may be.
I may have nothing but this tempo's always going to own me.


7. JETTISON

Say goodbye to me, I walk away and want for nothing.
I am walking as I have to walk, the way the day decides.
File your complaints, but do it quick or they're for nothing.
I'm the only thing required and will not be left behind.
I've jettisoned those days, the way we used to boil and simmer with the glimmer in our eyes the child of idle hands and wine.
Say goodbye to me, I walk away and want for nothing.
I'm the only thing required and will not be left behind

I see you in my mind : you are a surgeon at a mirror trying to pull apart your face so it can fit some new design.
When the show is over what on earth can you return to, when the girl of smoke and mirrors meets the ravages of time ?


8. CERTAIN TERMS

She says, "He won't come around.
At least not-- y'know, the way he used to."
She's not sad, just a little down.
"'Cause some things, y'know, take getting used to."
And in the morning she forgets that maybe he won't be there.
The silhouettes that stretch across the bedspread are how the early light collaborates with memory.
She rushes to the red line.
The connecting bus arrives in due time.
She knows her empty office will be waiting-- the way she used to know his hands in certain terms.

With blackened faith and poisoned mind, in idle times commence the fire.
Let the land ignite.
May the flames be bright 'til your past takes flight on wings of cinder.

I say, "I don't have his eyes.
My ragged voice is not the same voice you are used to.
You can come around.
I am always down to empty bottles in the same way that we used to.
You can come around.
We can empty bottles.
We can open throttles.
We can get down.
You can come around."


9. GUNPOWDER TEA

Blow !

We finish the last of our gunpowder tea, improvise our explosives; walk to the sea.
Let the brine carry us, lend us its buoyancy.
May the current collaborate with us.
With love in our hearts and with knives in our teeth we've been planning for months, preparing for weeks.
If noone is watching send word to the meek : they can craft new munitions from ploughshares.

We're pressed at the hull like we're suckling calves and deliver the gift to split it in half.
The stars shine much brighter than I've ever seen, so
reach out for my hand in the water.
My woman and I drink our gunpowder tea.
She's a delicate girl--- you know what I mean.
She lights up the room with her radiant sheen.
We kiss and angels catch fire.

Fire !


10. RECEPTION

He wakes and shakes the muddy, muddled cobwebs from his mind.
He takes his time and makes his way across the chilly morning gloom, down to the room, the sink, the mirror.
Does he hear her on the stairs ?
No, he's forgotten to forget her.
He knows she's not really there.

His pained and pure desire pines to rewrite rules.
Her voice winds through the blankets with five words that burn like fuel : "lie and wait, you fool."

Her voice ignites a fiberoptic thousand miles.
He listens to it dance across these cold ceramic tiles: "Sit and wait awhile."

Though nothing good comes easily, he's patient, though, admittedly, the phone becomes her face.
He sees the calendar's a curse, and worse, the days are endless surgery dissecting him unnervingly; but leave will lead their carriage though he'd readied for a hearse.

Joy and sorrow holding hands.
I guess it's true that soon the meek will rise and they'll receive what they are due. Oh yes-- even you.


11. INTO THE WOODS

Whispering pines-- the only voice is shuddering needles of wind in tines.
The summer rain, the dappled glass of the rippled pond by the beaten plain.

Flutter of birds, dance of clouds, swinging branches replacing words.

Walk out of the sun, walk out of the light.
Walk up to the gate and close it.

Walk through trees. Shadows draw you-- they place your feet and bend your knees, and once you know you can't be found, close your eyes as inertia grows.

Allow yourself this bed of moss.
Condition : lost; a state of wealth.

Get into the woods. Get into the dark.
Get ready for night.