1. |
Trident
07:07
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Ships are turning, leaves are burning
Captain said he’d send me overboard
Half of every third word is true
Come to find out from my crow's bough
Flocking down upon the deck below
Briny wash me up and now I’m new
Share in seeing a searing being
Poseidon’s nephew has his uncle's eyes
Trident poised to gash you anew
Cords, cut hands and ropes for landing
Captain said to call when you’ve see it all
Half of every third word is true
Faded eyes and a weary smile is all you have to show
Trade your anguish now relinquishing your lightened load
A furrowed brow and a primitive scowl tether you below
Toiling the tundra and the office and sea
Yields are thinning, springs beginnings
Seeds are saddled in their rocky beds
A tenth of every harvest goes to him
Matches tossed from falling silos
Ashes land among the budding corn
Cut a path through thistle and through thorn
Swine and cattle poised in battle
Warring for the trough and the water there
Leaving no room for the other beast
Sun baked necks, trails, leading back rails
Tread hangs loosely from your tattered boots
Sit atop your Massey Harris throne
Raw feet on a hot clay path carry you weightless to
A clearing in the bleached pines that surround the acreage
Wet your toes and forget your woes, they’ll be there for you
As solid and as porous as the ground you labor on
Meetings pressing, sharply dressing
Concepts running late and they're overdue
Half of every third word is true
Copy this to send to them their
Only wishing to be rid of you
And you could rid them easily enough
Need you Friday and early Monday
Don’t leave at all sleep below your station
Train and wave of endless cursed demands
Leaves are turning, leaves in turning now
Open water, field, stream, and leaning house
Not dependent on another's plan
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2. |
Tumbling Cans
03:52
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Rows of corn they greet my eyes, and welcome me back home
Down the foothills as we rise, and leave no place unknown
Passed the fruit stands and the second hand cars for sale
Going twenty over, hitting every pothole
I can’t afford another ticket, but we can burn through this whole tank of gas
Haven’t heard your voice in years but the radio’s on and I need you here with me.
Drive past the house head up the mountain, we crashed into a tree
40 cans rolls down the hill, and end up in the creek
We grab what we can, head back to the house to tell our friends
Revel in our apathy, our time seems without end
I’ve got two weeks left to be here, and I’ll spend them in a haze
Catch a ride out of Bluefield, and the whole way down I’m wishing that I’d stayed.
Sixty miles north of the one place that I’d rather be
And you can’t tell me to follow rivers, then lay down at the sea
Cause by the sweetest by and by, I’ve come to find you here
Worn down from the many miles, and overcome with fear
We could stay a while longer, we’ve got no place to be
The feelings getting stronger, with the radio on
I need you here with me.
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3. |
Fresh Coat
03:13
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A puff and smoke is gone, the record stopped spinning
The needle has laid to rest, no one is winning
The house has a fresh coat of paint, the year's halfway though now
Blow smoke rings at the moon, the big yellow bastard's grinning back at me.
Rains pooling in the street, the neighbors cats are swimming
Broke down cars rust out in the front yard.
Let’s quit while we’re ahead, and the put the drinks away
You tell me to go on, I wouldn’t know where to stay.
Just like that it’s fall again and everything evolves in the trees hanging bare while the sun hangs so low
The windows are painted shut, it keeps all the heat in
The frosted panes are your fingertips canvas.
Not much in the fridge these days or in the pantry six nights out of seven I’m laying down empty
Sunday is saved for you I’ll spoil you rotten, turn your mind from the lost and forgotten.
Blessed are the meek and I can see all that you’re worth
Can’t stand seeing you go
I hate I see you hurt.
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4. |
Fault Lines
06:55
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I can see and be myself in this soft summer light.
Slipped so woefully into a laced and tripped up slumber.
Bugs and bruised and untreated lacerations.
And oh my sweet you’ve gone and cut your thumb again.
Fall underneath your weight
Lost in your pleasure and a forlorn wish aside
Designed to be your roadside companion
A tree with its roots growing out of its side
I lay me down in fear and warmth, each one as needed as the last
Man of his heart, pleased with my sending your wish to the front lines
Curse you for trying, all lost in the fighting
Courses have run thin for the worry without
Fall underneath your own weight
Wrist on as swivel, an easel, a chisel
My chin on your palm, reciting the psalms
The valley awakes and the firmament shakes
Unknown in your absolute power and jealousy
Toiling under the sun of depravity.
Shard of clay, pierced and cut through the ribs.
Hollow creaks from sleep and wakes me.
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5. |
The Tulle Offering
07:07
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We passed as I was going down
And all the world applauded
Laced up in your Sunday best
With unmade bed and face unkempt
As subtle as I tried to be
We fell together primitively
All the weight I’d carried there
You divided into equal shares
Small parts of me fell away like scales from eyes in ancient times
Shrouded in porch light and sitting still, a momentary offering
Turn away from all the ways that brought you here
Fall into the arms of what was such an unattainable reality
Impervious to life’s demands, off where only I can see
No response to reprimands, submerged in some tenacity
Dragged out for so long it’s weak, bent but still unbroken
Retaining it’s rigidity like some battered token placed upon the head of houses, queen of time
Fall into the arms of what was such a an unattainable reality
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6. |
Texaco Number
04:05
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On the wrong side of the highway you’re waving
At the passing trucks, they’re not slowing down
They could pick you up and show you around
Do little more than getting you out of town
And that wouldn’t fix what’s wrong
You spent your youth just waiting for life to happen
Making all your plans as good years were passing
All your friends, well they moved on long ago
And you’re still waiting for the good times to slow down enough to push you out
You can’t blame your mother maybe your dad though
At least he waited until you were grown up to go
Now he’s living large and has a new wife
He doesn’t come around he doesn’t have time
And that’s alright with you. That’s fine
You spend your nights out with the boys from the band
Romantic aspirations passing from hand to hand
You’ve had your eyes on the same girl for years
I doubt if she’ll still be around when you conquer your fears enough to speak
As the sun is coming up on the seventh day
Your hands are shaking as you walk towards interstate
You thought you might have had it all figured out
Your head is pounding and your demons are starting to shout at you
On the wrong side of the highway you’re waving
At the passing trucks they’re not slowing down
They could pick you up and show you around
Do little more than getting you out of town
And that wouldn’t fix what’s wrong
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7. |
Companion Tracks
03:50
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Little things escape me now and then
It's funny how you wound up your own best friend
Sometimes things will change then change back again
Like buzzards in the night, alley cats will fight
Yesterday you knew me pretty good
And you might still but now I just can’t tell
You’re bumming change beside the wishing well
You're running out of dimes
You’re gonna be just fine
And I could let you walk right past
Despite you stopping me dead in my tracks
Always in your dreams there's a turning point
Confessing your real purpose when you join
You walk the holy ground with your lead feet
Time can make see that it told you so
And little things escape me now and then
Just like wax that’s rolling down the side
Of a candle that’s been burning through a night
That can’t end soon enough
In the morning we’ll be tough
And I just couldn’t let it be
Left alone and you chose to go back
I can’t let you walk right past
You’re not done stopping me dead in my tracks
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8. |
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The power over direction
Was taken from you right at birth
Tried through religious attention
To hold all the pieces there
Sprung forth in frightening abundance
Faith formed in the corners of your guilt
Keep your fear hid behind your eyes
Conceived and born in an instant
Hope fell from the rafters and the void
Kept in the company of sailors
Closet in your aunts halfway house
A witness to your own misery a roadside companion
Keep your light on the fear and the face
Pulled from a patchwork of sisters
And mother hen's fussing about
Framed face, brought from the home land
Displayed on your nightstand
Somewhere out on an ocean
A mandolins playing for you
Keep your fear hid behind locked eyes
All this to say
All this to say
We gathered to write your name
Lower you down and sing
Lived such a fitting life to rest in a box of white
Stamps sending you away, dressed up for your big...
...day on the mountain one day I will be there too
When you see Him, wrapped in dawn, command the Son to rest His weary head, well done, He wept.
Cincinnati sent her sons
The garden state her only one
The traveler rose from his long rest
Free of care was headed west
Isiah is there, one that blew to bring down the walls is there
Blowing in bastion
I am there
40 years worth of desert wanders stare
Weary and parched and approaching the fountain as Moses is coming back down from his day on the mountain.
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9. |
A Spire, Set
02:59
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I dreamt you as an arborist
Head under water
Hands in the soil
Raising a steeple
Spire. Set. Shiftless.
Make me a home in the ground now
Room to grow
Roots to burrow
Tending a sapling
Prune it back
Name it after me
You dreamt me as an architect
Angles at light
Range in the dark
Razing a tower
Good for me
Not enough for you
Spending all my time so close
At once so near
And so resolute
Trees talking to me
I’m talking to you
And you can hear me
Draw the look of worry from my face
Linen wrapped the delicate and porcelain like grace
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10. |
John Sings the Din
01:29
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John sings me home it's a song I’ve never known
Some Texas boxer lost a bout against a migrant giant
Slanting sun, wind in my window then
I couldn’t hear the song above the din
I’m gonna make it home to you again
Ants have made a colony in my field
Pork belly frijole and my gut is filled
Grease and grime are flying in my eyes
I can’t decide if I’m in heaven or even died
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Reuben David Knights Greenville, South Carolina
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