1. |
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End of Summer
BB guns aimed toward the sky
With shaky hands and lazy eyes
At crows perched so evil in nearly bare trees
I never shot for the kill
I pointed at branches or the steel mill
Off in the distance but you hit your target
As the days they waned in cooling air of October
We hid in dank and dark caves
Holding a candle under our faces
With the light dancing giddily laughing
Mostly though you were a brooder
Your rage bubbled up like your father
And you scared me always so nervous
Francis you’re just a picture
Yellowing in an old album
Your face a blur as we wrestle
In that swampy Kentucky river we called home
I dared you to cross that old bridge
Rusted and red across the dark river
And for a week I just couldn’t speak
Francis I’ll never dare anyone
I was a wreck and you were undone
And the end of summer leads me back home
Francis you’re just a picture
Yellowing in an old album
Your face a blur as we wrestle
In that swampy Kentucky river we called home
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2. |
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Avocado
You cut your hand cutting avocados
You stood there and watched the blood fall free
Like a faucet dripping in the tub
One of the many things inside of you
That you never see you don’t believe but everyone repeats
Like god and hope and will and love
Standing dripping pulsing you think about your heart
Wonder if it’s even there inside you
You touch your bleeding hand to your chest it’s a mess
Feel the rhythmic thumping of some intricate machine
Beautiful as anything
You wish you could cut your chest wide open
Like a surgeon like a butcher like a killer in a basement
And see it touch it with your hand
Standing dripping pulsing you think about your heart
Wonder if it’s even there inside you
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3. |
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Window, Broken
All I can ever hear
In this stupid brain of mine
Is the sound of a car door closing
The car pulling away
And the so specific lack of you
Not your shallow breathing
Asleep beside me
Or the rustle of your slender body
Sprawled out on the sheets
As the rain spiderwebs the window
While the wind rattles the broken window pane
And you exhale deeply
Dreaming something I’ll hear in the morning
Over Swedish pancakes and berries
Delicious lingonberries
Topped with powdered sugar
Tiny little pancakes
Rolled up like up like a smoke
The recipe you got from your mom
All I can ever hear
In this stupid brain of mine
Is the sound of a car door closing
The car pulling away
And the so specific lack of you
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4. |
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The Florist
I’m dating the florist
But I don’t know what to give her
She likes hard liquor
But it messes with her liver
Her mother worked with rhinestones
Sewed them into jackets
She wanted to be a boxer
But couldn’t quite hack it
Me and Cheryl Lynn
My lady of the flowers
We hang out at the gym
Working out for hours
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5. |
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Tracks in the Rain
Josie I’ve / Baking like a potato
How goes/ There’s nothing
I blew this/ broken and brown
found an out here
this dust/ necklace
found an out here
There’s a hole/ I’ve been wishing to drive
But my tires are leaking
I won’t make it past these county lines
Sorry I’ve been/ must be
You said I’m pretty
Slept on the bus/ stopped by
Guess who
You left your/ Last time
I’m making tracks
tractor with/ The pot pie’s
I’ve been broke/ Wasting my money
The horse she keeps getting knocked up
And I keep on betting on the Black Hawks
Margaret you old/ I’m missin’
Margaret you lovely I ran away
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6. |
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Mr. Mischievous
Lifted on the stage
Your mischievous eyes a flitter
You roll up to the mic
That booming voice sends shivers
You have us laughing
Then the dagger hits our chest
The places and the stories
We won’t soon forget
Didn’t I hear you say
Your sorrow seemed silly
Didn’t I hear you say
You weren’t quite ready
What a roller coaster you must have been on
Learned to play guitar
From you granddaddy in Zebulon
Running through the woods
Like a skinny Genghis Khan
You captured all those worlds
With a shrewd unflinching eye
And in the way you tell it
We feel like we’re inside
Didn’t I hear you say
Your sorrow seemed silly
Didn’t I hear you say
You weren’t quite ready
What a roller coaster you must have been on
Ain’t it funny and ironic
As a self-proclaimed atheist
You decide to leave this place
On the day of Christmas
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7. |
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Spring is Coming
Spring is Coming
Spring is Coming
The snow is melting
The birds are squawking
I found the keys that were lost
In the late autumn frost
All the days will grow warmer and longer
You’ll come back home even stronger
Spring is Coming
Spring is Coming
The snow is melting
The birds are squawking
I missed you lying in our bed
With the stars overhead
When I see your smiling face in the doorway
All my fears will be allayed
Spring is Coming
Spring is Coming
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8. |
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Defiance (poem by Tom Daley)
She is stepping backwards now
And laughing
The twin straps of her bathing suit
Looped over her upper arms
The afternoon coppers her hair
Her rebuke has softened like chalk
The tide is yanking the wind out to sea
Beyond her ears
At her feet the magma has
Forsaken its fire
All her life she has warded of
Caution with her mouth
It is not for nothing
That the world has left her so
Bare-legged, wanton,
Bristling like a vapor trail
In the trap of the sun
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9. |
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Dom
It must have been so hard
To leave your old life in Ohio
Quit that engineering job
Dropped your plans to become a lawyer
And you grew your hair out real long
You moved out to that cabin
In the woods of Vermont
To make such beautiful stories
And somehow you picked up the guitar
And wrote the funniest, saddest songs
That I’d ever heard
You got the call from your cousin
To move out to the seacoast
They wanted you to come join the band
They thought you could make a pretty good team
So you packed it all up again
Drove your car toward the water
Got a job at a news shop
And wrote like your pen was possessed
You wrote the funniest, saddest songs
That I’d ever heard
And I know you got so sick
You thought you might keep your long hair
When it fell off in clumps in the shower
Your band, they cut their hair too
I wish there were more bad times to see you through
You sang I wish there were more bad times to see you through
Your songs will just live they will breathe on still I wish…
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10. |
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Revealed
Waiting for a sign
Like I’m waiting on a train
Can’t believe the summer’s dwindling
It always goes so fast
You were looking for a change
I was not one to complain
Helped you load your things in boxes
I watched as you drove away
Swimming in the river we called our home
Wishing that these days weren’t so long, they’re so long
There was something like a spark
Sped up my beating heart
Now I feel it slowing daily
I’m running out of time
Said you had to clear you head
Just a chance to catch your breath
Now I feel as I am drowning
Waiting for a sign
Swimming in the river we called our home
Wishing that these days weren’t so long, they’re so long
All these night I lay awake with the air upon my face
I wonder where on earth you are are you still driving your car
Everything will be revealed
There’s a sound that I can hear
A tiny quiet calling
Racing through my veins
If you feel this summer heat
Fall away like a leaf
Know I’m waiting here anxious
As you drive your way to me
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11. |
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Star Stuff (for Jesse & Sarah)
All the things you both have been
Floating through the atmosphere
Dancing tango through the nights
Who supposed we’d find you here
Every twisting spinning move
Led you to this very place
Separate planets in the void
Colliding happily in space
Stardust in the ether bound by unseen thread
Written in a novel still unread
Funny how you find something you weren’t looking for
Now you’re a team of four and soon more
See these handsome caring boys
Watch the way they thrive and grow
Planted in this very earth
Shooting stars set hearts aglow
Promises made in the dark
Harvesting once empty fields
Finding solice in this world
Now we see your fates are sealed
Stardust in the ether bound by unseen thread
Written in a novel still unread
Funny how you find something you weren’t looking for
Now you’re a team of four and soon more
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12. |
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Asshole
I never beat you at bocce still I try and try
I never beat you at washers and I can't figure out why
You think you're such a bigshot
With your steady, steely aim
But I think you're an asshole just the same
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13. |
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California
Streets are bare on a Friday night
Power lines all caked in ice
I’m sure I’ll lose electricity
But the lights don’t mean that much to me
Always dreamed of a bi-coastal life
Home-making ain’t my brand of wife
I was sure I’d always be single
But you made me feel like I could grow
Drunken Santa wanders listlessly (had too much to drink myself)
While I wonder if you’re missing me (of course I am missing you)
I can’t remember feeling this goddamn cold (goddam I miss seasons)
There’s no need for mistletoe (all my houseplants died without you)
I can’t believe you’ve gone away
Some snowless Christmas in LA
Palm trees and surfers, the Hollywood sign
But I’m gonna be fine
Wind is howling like a basset hound
Plastic reindeer getting blown around
Piles of snow like castles in the streets
With days bleeding into weeks
You know you love my vim and vigor
You’re a house I’m a van down by Big Sur
I gotta ping pong thru the universe
But my heart always ever wants you first
Your Siamese cat sleeping in my lap (thanks for taking care of him)
Like some lavish aristocrat (he’s a fancy fancy boy)
Snowflakes stick to the window (a pantsless man yelling out my window)
I know you had to go (sorry I had to go)
I can’t believe you’ve gone away
Some snowless Christmas in LA
Palm trees and surfers, the Hollywood sign
But I’m gonna be fine
It’s all by design
Orange juice and orange rind
We’re gonna be fine
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14. |
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Nothing There
Walking to the car tonight I remembered what you said
If I could apply myself the world would open up
But I'm lazy and dissinterested
Everything I've ever done and all I've ever known was
A hurdle and burden that I couldn't overcome
I'm a rat at the bottom of the hill
You see the form in the cliff
You hear a song in the air
You say potential lurks in me
When I see nothing there
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15. |
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|
Dispossessed
Stars are made irrelevant I can barely pay the rent
Every night I read the news and go to bed confused
Watching as the scene unfolds I’m losing all control
Everything has gone to shit how do we see through it
There’s not a stratosphere far enough away from here
To get me where I need to go
Feels like I’m hovering floating up here suffering
Watching as the world explodes below
Words are so divisive I’m on autopilot
Sometimes I get so mad I can’t talk to my own dad
There is such a disconnect we are dispossessed
Everywhere around me it rings so profoundly
There’s not a stratosphere far enough away from here
To get me where I need to go
Feels like I’m hovering floating up here suffering
Watching as the world explodes below
Maybe there’s a recipe maybe we need therapy
Maybe we should stop and start again
I don’t have a fucking clue how do we keep chugging through
Blow the whole thing up and make amends
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16. |
Boise (unreleased demo)
02:50
|
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|
Boise
Playing the chicken game
With a knife at a bar
In Boise with your father
Or who you thought was
And now over buckets of whiskey
Has confessed that he’s just some guy
Some guy who met your mom
While broken down en route
To see an ailing uncle
Who as fate would have it
Had already kicked a bucket
And was cold in the ground
“But God-damn, didn’t I act like a dad?”
He asks drunkenly, slicing a bit of your finger
Playing the chicken game
In a bar in Boise
And when you think about it
You guess he did
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17. |
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Little House
Our first night
In that shitty little room
Closed up tight – and smelly
Our little lie
We couldn’t tell your parents
A secret time – a secret
Your brother drove up
Those three hundred miles
A pick up truck – for moving
When he got back
He called you on the phone
He said you looked happy – and you cried
We were trying to figure out
How to make a little house
Like one we’d never seen before
We were trying to figure out
How to make a little house
Like one we’d never seen before
Neighbors arrived
The ones we’d never met
Started to fight – it was ugly
Should we call the cops
You asked in a whisper
Then it all stopped – and got quiet
The heat of the fight
Turned into a passion
That rang through the night – and then some
We should have known it then
We should have know it then
We were trying to figure out
How to make a little house
Like one we’d never seen before
We were trying to figure out
How to make a little house
Like one we’d never seen before
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18. |
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|
Walking on Ice
My breath like a cloud in the night
I’m walking on ice
The moon is a hole through the sky
I’m wanting to slide inside
Inside
I remember this water so blue
Accessible easily touched
Reminds me of summers with you
I kissed your neck and you blushed
The way the air turns on me
I’m so obsolete
I feel how my body grows soft
Wanting and freezing and lost
So lost
Looking down through the cracks in the ice
Searching for some purpose
I’m drifting a satellite
Longing to break through the surface
How do I break through the surface
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Two-Ton Santa recommends:
Such a weird and wonderful ride.
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Gorgeous and plaintive times that bring it all to the fore.
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A devastating lyrical juggernaut that never fails to deliver.
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