BROKEN ENGLISH

So take the miners, takes the signers
Take the iron from their blood
Spill the silver flood
Over dry and dusty plains now

And watch it seeping deep
in fissures far behind
Still we wither on the vine
‘Cause you can’t make up for rain now

There’s mysteries to parse
As we meditate in cars
As the medication starts
To work its way down

It comes on as sound
That’s pounding all around me
I think you’ve finally find me
And I can finally lay down

I feel the fire
It’s getting higher
I can’t hold on for long Not for long

THE SKIN OF THE EARTH

I was dropped here
Just writhing skin
Wet and cold
Outside and in

But long before
I was forged in fire
In the day’s indifference
And in the night’s desire

I’m the clay, I’m the porcelain
I’m the air, I’m the nitrogen
Consequence and the origin
And so are you

What worthless sounds
Cross my teeth
Turning endless valleys
In to dead end streets

Stampede of flesh
Into a single herd
Infinity
Into a single word

But it’s mass and movement
It can’t be explained
It’s like the book you gave me
In the morning rain

That said the skin of the earth
Aint got no name
And neither do you

And I can’t help
But noticing
My goddamn lenses
Can’t stop refocusing

And the column of time
It’s towering
And no matter the hour
It devours me

What it was, what it shall be
It’s as much a science as a prophecy
But neither ever meant that much to me
What’s it to you

STAY DARK

You wretched son
You’re Stretched to break
This ain’t your dance
You stowaway

So have a smoke
Some Dramamine
And cleanse your soul
Good Augustine

You’re stepping bold
On concrete paths
With your sacred skin
Your Roman baths

Your borrowed thoughts
Your stolen threads,
The dying fire
Inside your head

But when the end, it comes
You won’t find it surprising
How they speak in ancient tongues
At the horizon
And all the charms you’ve kept
The walls you’ve wept stay dark
And never will they brighten

I came to graze
What you harvested
The liturgy
Of charlatans

And I rise in praise
Of all you’ve done
With my supple hands
My broken thumbs

But when the end, it comes
You won’t find it surprising
How they speak in ancient tongues
At the horizon
And all the charms you’ve kept
The walls you’ve wept stay dark
And never will they brighten

The jury’s hung
The town’s in drought
I slipped one time
And they found me out

So I went to sea
When I couldn’t swim
I pulled the sheet
I settled in

TIME WAITS FOR NO MAN

As night falls
Around the edges of our stone walls
And no sound escapes the sinking
From my beginning to your end

Is it ungodly
To come unbound from this body
But the body’s just an appendage
Of something I cannot comprehend

But no, our flesh is tension
And it cares not for comprehension
It only hungers for the embers
That we surrender, that we transcend

Oh but time it waits for no man
It waits for no man
No, time it waits for no man
It waits for no man
Won’t wait for mine

But before this
I did my damnedest to ignore it
That In the orbit of your temple
I am celestial, I am not built

But I do not feel the distance
No, I feel the firing of your pistons
Your desires and your madness
All you’ve had and all you will

Oh but time it waits for no man
It waits for no man
No, time it waits for no man
It waits for no man
Won’t wait for mine

Time it waits for no man
It waits for no man
No, time it waits for no man
It waits for no man
Won’t wait for mine

BROKEN ENGLISH

We beg we steal and pray
Hallucinate
‘Neath your marbled columns

With hearts that are made to bleed
The trick’s to need ‘em
But never want ‘em

Our minds and backs grew soft
So you paid us off
With the shadow promise

That we could be like you
If our aim was true
And your boots got polished

We emerge from the forests we burn
With the smoke in our eyes
But it’s onward we march
There’s no use in us looking behind
No we’re just looking for something To kill all this goddamn time

So we build pretty machines
That could stand
Between us and our lives

And at once, just like a dream
With a violent scream
A white falcon landed

We knew, right there and then
This was the end
We’re either saved or stranded

So we lay at the altar
Of vanishing windows and words
But we don’t know if it’s Satan or God Who’s appeared as this bird
But anything that’s unknown
Or unowned by us is a curse
So whatever it is
It should be killed
And stuffed in our purse

There’s too much to say
Can’t be explained
In my Broken English

Except that you and me
And what lays between us
Can’t be distinguished

So if it’s all an abstraction
A worthless distraction by you
Where every word’s lost its meaning
But still doesn’t stop getting used
And all our method of thinking
Keep sinking away from the truth
We’ll be gone and forgotten
Our one final offering to you

‘Cause goddamn
Don’t you want us to be
Anything at all, man
Don’t you want us to be
Anything at all, man
Don’t you want us to be
Anything at all, man
Don’t you want us to be
Anything at all, man
Don’t you want us to be any– Goddamn!

Don’t you want us to be
Anything at all, man
Don’t you want us to be
Anything at all, man
Don’t you want us to be
Anything at all, man
Don’t you want us to be
Anything at all, man
Don’t you want us to be
Anything at all

DUST AND CLAY

I was the first born on this western coast
Man, I was fed this destiny
With its painted deserts and forgotten ghosts
My roots begin and end with me
They end with me

I lost my coat and my hide then
In the mountain’s hollow rush
Still can’t believe how fast it turned
From a comfort to a crutch

I sat a while, I heard the mountains ring
They revealed it all and not a goddamn thing
I’m having trouble telling between
My life and my dreams these days
Or are they just
The same old Dust and clay

The sentence handed me was ruthless
But baby I became immune
When I learned to turn my exile
Into holy solitude

I sat a while, I heard the mountains ring
They revealed it all and not a goddamn thing
I’m having trouble telling between
My life and my dreams these days
Or are they just
The same old Dust and clay
Or are they just
The same old Dust and clay
Or are they just
The same old Dust and clay

THE WHEEL

We were lost to the wind
Now we belong to the wreckage
As the twilight thinned
A film formed on our eyes, lord
A film formed on our eyes

Climbed the steps in the wood
On that volcanic mountain
Never stopped like we should To breathe the dying sky, lord
To breathe the dying skies

Then we raced at the top
Past erosion and marble
Till we finally stopped
But the night had passed us by, lord
The night had passed us by

I seen the wheel turn
I seen it turn in you
I felt its steel burn
And I know you can feel it burn too

As the morning bent
Our words lost their meaning
And I realized what it meant
To feel the earth in spin, lord
To feel the earth in spin

Few words were spoke
Mostly we sat in silence
But now those words they’re smoke
And they belong to the roots and the wind, babe
Belong to the roots and wind

I seen the wheel turn
I seen it turn in you
I felt its steel burn
And I know you can feel it burn too

Come from hills and bogs
Before man was a monarch
We had the eyes of god
And he world was one bright beam, lord
The world was one bright beam

Not a thing has changed
Except our patience and vision
That’s why we’re here today
To let the light seep in, lord
To let the light seep in

CHEROKEE ROSE

We searched all night
Through the Spider Lily and Cherokee Rose
Those flowers of death and flowers of hope
On the same dirt that they grow

And you pointed out
The sword of Perseus up in the north
And I sang of Carina’s southernly course
And how they aim for us both

It was silent at midnight
Except for our steps Out of time
You knew I’s ahead then
I knew I was just a beat behind

And then we heard the low groan
Across the hill
Where the tide
Holds sway Even still

As dawn approached
We leaned on the other like they were a crutch
Stumbling down through coyote brush
As the coast came into view

The sound of the waves
Was thunder and violence, it rang in my head
But I didn’t feel frightened, no I felt instead
A little nearer to you

The first hit of sun came
Right as our feet
Hit the sand

We stepped to the water
I held like a vise
To your hand

And so we stood
In the churning Of the sea
And we were ready For whatever
We’d receive

WATER IN THE BARREL

You’d never notice there’s a war
Being here behind the reservoir
The fog it settles in this way
That turns roads below to seas of gray

The fog has got into my lungs
I brought my eldest up
To keep me young

But the smoke was rising high
Into the air
And it caught us unequipped
It caught us unaware
The water in the barrel holds so still
But when the plug is pulled
It’s ready for to spill

There was something off
About this place
Still we figured
We’d put down our stakes

It didn’t matter what we burned
Nothing warmed us
Like we knew it should

But the soot was my hands
And on my face
But the walls, the roof, the floor
It only made a cage

The water in the barrel holds so still
But when the plug is pulled
It’s ready for to spill

We woke and headed for the shoals
Cooked some trout right inside the coals
I still can smell the cedar smoke
Perfect way that it burned my throat

And she said you’re
The destination and the source
So stop your spin
And set your wild course
The water in the barrel holds so still
But when the plug is pulled
It’s ready for to spill
The water in the barrel holds so still
But when the plug is pulled
It’s ready for to spill

LEVIATHAN

I’ve traded my stillness
For the new century’s illness now

It hungers, it’s aching
A leviathan waiting down

It waits for the day
I surrender to the waves and drown

But Inside, it’s blinding
It’s bent and it’s winding
In each sacred
And each desecrated space

But if I catch it and brand it
I’ll still half understand it
Cause I can see where it goes
But I can’t see where it came

And I’ve become a relic
Faithless, but ascetic now

I’ve got nothing to write on
It’s just candles and ikons around

But the closer you see it
The less the word means anyhow

But Inside, it’s blinding
It’s bent and it’s winding
In each sacred
And each desecrated space

But if I catch it and brand it
I’ll still half understand it
‘Cause I can see where it goes
But I can’t see where it came

Holy libertine scholar
I’m trading my collar now

For where I can lay between the trees
Put my lips right to the stream
And drink it down

SONG OF JOY

The beholder’s eye
Held beauty still
But it’s not about taste
It’s about fire and willBut when the ice and blood
Crept in my voice
I sang a song of joy

You see I’d finally solved The mystery
When I was third in line
At the guillotine

And though my head was spared
I was still destroyed
So I sang a song of joy

I had lost my love Of the infallible
And my iron grip On the ungraspable

But faith is a fate
That you can’t avoid
So I sang a song of joy Like this-

I was Orpheus then a wandering drunk
A hedonist
Then a laughing monk

Oh but now I’m the signal
And now I’m the noise
So I sing a song of joy