TEENAGE HORSES
Winter Gala (Jesus Wasn't a Doctor Either)
(instrumental)
Despicable Cousin
With a beer in hand, at the bridge on Christman Spur,
the Night rolls by. Cut the lights on the car and in the dark
we listen to the tape rewind; and the fireflies--perverted
snow of a Summer night--and the lonely shoats float by.
I hope to God there's a horror lurking inside
this old farmhouse because in the dark all I'm left with
is the scent from her blouse. And painted on the walls:
the names of bands I don't even like. I write "La la la la la la la."
A pair of shorts in a field! Swimming trunks just to bind my hand!
With your lips to my ear to define a phrase I don't understand--
tonight a short song will end: a feeling I'm just starting to comprehend.
And we'll drive just to drive! We'll stay up all night just to stay up!
You never answered my letters--or maybe it was me
that never answered yours, but tonight, I know you're mine.
Tonight, I know you're mine. Even if it's only in our mind.
Even if it's April, May, June, or July.
Frightened by the Lake
Below the dam, giant catfish swim
and the branches all rot. She sits
on a mossy rock--or a tooth covered in clay
and I know I'm a city covered in snow.
She remembers waking up at dawn
and all the faces bleached bone white.
I'm just algea on the surface trying
my best to kill the light and I know
I'm a city cut with roads--
and she's Frightened by the Lake,
Frightened by the Lake, Frightened
by the Lake--and it's her own heart
she's going to break.
Rip the pages from your grandmother's
diary and in the margins bleed yourself dry.
Let's build a shrine to all the boring guys:
self-destruction's fine but it's not my cup of tea
and I know that neither can let it show
and I know that this love will never go away--
and she's Frightened by the Lake,
Frightended by the Lake, Frightened by the Lake...
Ghost City
I know she's got a problem mind and the stories
she tells herself break like brackish water on the shore.
And the tries but the mouths all gape like a cave
on a lake where she can go and hide for a little while.
The sun's just a disk of dust turing our tears into rust
as we water the financial page. What childhood is this,
colder than a God that may or may not exist, like your ear to my lips?
I wish I was a bullett from a gun, pressed
to your chest. I'd split the silence
with a shiver. I wish I was an arrow from a bow,
rattling through her bones--instead of an empty quiver.
I've got a Ghost City deep inside my heart
and a downpour will wash its streets clean.
And when she raises her voice to sing, she raises
it to sing with me; even though we pass in and out
of key. Ruined Towers and Broken Bridges--
my hand moves when your leg itches--
and I wonder: do you understand me?
We are TEENAGE HORSES--more bored
than the sun, more bored than the sun.
We are TEENAGE HORSES--but I've
got to let her run, I've got to let her run.
Let me take you down to the river
where we can play brother and sister.
Empire of Towns
"In the Empire of Towns I waste my years,"
she says as she calculates the tounge of tears
that hang pendulous from her lips.
"I had a dream last night that didn't make any sense,
but the feeling lasted all day."
I come home through backyards.
I can make digital time out through the blinds,
out through the blinds.
And if I see the sun rise tomorrow
I'll wake in another world.
"They were my eyes I saw in the painted print,"
she says to me as she pens her last lament
but I know that I get carried away.
Then she admits something to me
that I can't bear to think about--
with a laugh that saws me in half.
I come home through back streets.
"Next year I dont' know where I'll be.
I don't know who I am.
I don't know what I want.
But if I see the sun rise tomorrow
I'll be tickled with the world;
but if it's just a silent movie
I'll cut the piano springs with a word."
Fantasia on Ulalume Pts. I-III
[Redacted] sits on the floor. With a broken pen
she draws the Moon giving birth to a Wolf.
The Director of the centre takes her hand
and says, "Let's get you cleaned up,"
and they begin to wash away her name.
But, Oh, Isabelle! When will the world turn its eyes to you?
But, Oh, Isabelle! When we realize that it's you that we need?
[Redacted] tightens her bow and draws it slowly
across the bridge. Then she stops and says,
"I don't think that I am ready for this."
She's got a peice that she would like to play for us tonight
I think it was called "Fantasia on Ulalume Pts. I-III."
But, Oh, Isabelle! When will the song stop spoiling your fitful sleep?
But, Oh, Isabelle! There's someone out there even for you and me.
The werewolf's tears are fine,
but we'll never, ever know!
We'll never, ever know!
Sympathy for Youth
She says her heart breaks a little for everyone as she
shares its cranberry contents with mine. Exhausted bed
or exhuasted eyes? I feel like I'm not here even though
I know that I'm not. I have to have Sympathy for Youth
becuase I know what it's like to be too young.
She says, "We can go outside if it doesn't rain;
or maybe we should even if it does."
Too young!
What did I throw away? What did I forget?
If I climb this tree, I can make it end.
Too young!
A Plum in Light and Air
I feel like a Plum in Light and Air. A glass of water
in each room. She skates across the surface--
the tension mounting on my face. Our eyes
are weightless, weightless; disappearing and reappearing--
I know you're afeared. I decide to just play the wall:
the DJ's light, they hypnotize, they hypnotize, they hypnotize me.
There's a cessura just before my jam comes on--
I see her sitting alone. I tap her on the shoulder
trying not to pass-out; her small gloved hand in mine.
Our eyes are weightless, weightless--closer and closer,
we are rocking back and forth. There's a gulf
between my cheek and her bangs but it's close enough for me.
We are lost in the light's gaze.
We are trying hard not be alone.
We are learning something we cannot name.
We are trying hard to be left alone.
With the sound all around,
to be left alone, with the sound all arond.
Broken Tooth
My retardation's like a Broken Tooth.
Googling girls I've known since youth
just to make sure they're still alive.
There's a box sitting 'gainst a wall.
When I sleep, I sleep in an endless hall
and my eyes are paying me back for the silence that I seek.
Can you bear to leave home twice?
A pleasant torture not of my device
but I've got a locket for you to throw away.
I'm half the distance from my finger
to the sound. I bury my face in the cold ground
and my tears give birth to silent chicks that cluck,
"Regret is a fuzzy song to let us know
that once we weren't so wrong.
Nostalgia always overcomes any peice of mind."
Oh!
Empty Choir at the Camp Meeting
When you go to the camp meeting, on Saturday night,
take along a little peice of pencil so you can write
all of the words that come tumbling out of your mouth,
put them in a letter and send it to my house.
I know that I want you to stay but you hear a voice
that asks you so much more. Is there really a choice?
I can see a lonely girl, rocking in a rocking chair.
She has grey in her eyes and grey in her hair.
When she was a little girl she used to sing along--
always forgetting the words to this song.
I know that you get tired of me, but that's alright.
My tounge lays dead in my mouth--a reflection on a pond.
Gum Run (instrumental)
Window Lifestyles
Something in your good-bye sounds just like an Indiana Friday night:
that terrible, empty sound coming through the corn.
You are back lit by a bright light in your black nit--
I just might hang that look hanging on the look in your eyes
like a parking lot after a thunderstorm.
Your hands are two dry riverbeds.
How much did the metaphor mean the night before?
Or should I say: did the empty object imbue the pink sign
with a tacky light? Like a disco ball, or Christmas light
or bales of hay; or favorite theme: an evening under the pale gree sea.
Like a parking lot after a thunder storm
your hands are two dry riverbeds.
I thank God I remember everything;
A bottle of MadDog in the Mulberry glistening.
I dyed my shoes to match yours. Your're like the prom!
The armory doors are locked and everyone's gone!
The band is tuning up for the last song!
At least I still have the pictures. You're like the prom!
Something in your good-bye sounds just like an Indiana Friday night,
and the empty field means everything to me.
Dowager w/ a Hatchet I'm in love with the memory of an awkward note I wrote.
It's 8th Grade and she's a drunk already
and I wish that I was wine as I watch her wipe the beer
from her lips with a forearm and a sigh.
And if I could go back in time and take away all the tears you've cried
I wouldn't change a thingle thing because I love you just the way that you are.
There Is a Blank
Oh Vera--I see you bathed in unnatural light, when not five hours ago
I held the hand of a man that I love as he died, but that's alright,
I've still got an orange blanket with which to dry my eyes.
And the fields are lush--
There's a Blank where I ought to be.
The crumbling walls are the walls that surround me.
And Cynthia, your vain sister's syllables are not the key.
Was it your hand or mine?
Oh Typee--we sailed to flee a land gone mad. Write these words
and place them on my tounge and watch me Spring alive.
A black and oversweet soil pours from my eyes.
I spent the Fall drawing my map and the Summer
washing it away--but you give me Hope!
There's a Blank where I ought to be.
The crumbling walls are the walls that surround me.
And Cynthia, your vain sister's syllables are not the key.
Was it your hand or mine?
---
COMPULATION VOLUME 2.
Ghettos of the Sun
In the Ghettos of the Sun I am waiting with my boyish smile slowly fading
and the looks that we get are so terrible. The languid laughter is lowing
across the mowers still mowing and the withering weeping
is just part of the cell.
I am finding for the first time the jewelled display of my mind
slung open so all can find the relequaries.
A dim pre-birth impression of a clumsy outward expression:
Alta-Mira or Lasceaux. I see you standing on the shore
and you're waiting for your next to stop hurting this evening--
the lonely world turning its face away.
I am finding for the first time the jewelled display of my mind
slung open so all can find the relequaries of saintly birds
packed with lime they are so absurd, but they laugh because
they know we're gone.
---
BANDWIDTH
The Blasted Heath
A cow died during the Winter.
It tried to walk on the ice
and feel part way through. Its hind and udders
stuck up like a wheelbarrow, greying,
and in the Spring it grew.
They built a machine that recognized
the sound as she turned the key
to the gates of Hell and
gives us a good look up
the bell of her dress.
It's a boring story I must confess--
every line sounds just like th one before,
sounds just like the one before.
Your mother's laying out your clothes
and your father's talking in his sleep.
Your feet are shaking in your hose
but you feel so much less than complete;
and you're listening to the Cure
but the tape breaks when you hit rewind,
and the everything that you are
is so much less. Now you will find
the Blasted Heath is alright!
--- CROOKSHANKS ON THE ISLAND OF MISSED DIDDLES
Tonight! The Church Van
When they lock the door to the narthex I can't get to sleep
because the pillow fight by the fellowship hall is speaking out to me.
I will inch my sleeping bag a little closer to yours.
Every room is darkened and I'm telling a ghost story now
about a time I saw a small blue light run to you.
I will inch my sleeping bag a little closer to yours.
Go to the Ant You Lazy Bones
The toffee tree by the lake woke up too late
this morning to get anything done.
In a small house I crouch
in the corner and wait like I know I should.
Maybe the days are too long,
the longing is all gone,
but it's a terrible choice I have to make.
Maybe the hair is too long,
the cutting is all done
but I know with whom I want to pray
And take me away, a strawberry in my eyes.
When all the vegitables animate: I'm waiting.
Tree Full of Snakes
So we stop at the wax museum and 3-D haunted maze.
Fingers melting and Jefferson in a jumper:
At the story's end Christ's resurrection and Dolly Parton singing,
"Islands in the Stream."
In the dark hang some Day-Glo masks
and behind the counter the man is missing some teeth.
Oustside a sink is growing grass. To find our way
we cling together and at the EXIT sign a pale voice says, "Hello."
Aghhh.
---
ANGRY BEES OUTSIDE, THESE BEES INSIDE
Bardstown
In Bardstown they don't give a shit--they're writing on the wall.
Sparkling bottles of TAVERN loll empty in the hall.
Heaven hold my little hand and pray for me tonight.
My academic team is leaving for the state meet.
And if it works out right I'll get to walk you home tonight
and if we're flush with luck we'll see a real bar fight.
Snowy
Oh, my poor wife: you had to get off the bus
in the middle of the worst snowstorm that there ever was.
You climb down an embankment beneath the darkened sky.
The snow is gleaming but soon you're going to melt it.
And you wonder if you could just let go
but it's a brand new dress and a brand new coat.
You stick your arm out and climb into a Jeep
and on your way to class you learn all about Bombay.
Oh Register! Why Are You Crying?
Register is sleeping in the window sill. His little ears
are flicking silently. I wonder what he's dreaming
as the sun slowly moves across his back.
He's laying into my bare leg with a ferocity that's seldom seen
in Carrboro. He's be the best cat in the world this I know.
He's the best cat in the world--tell me that I'm wrong.
The Loud Half Hour
You've got a Washburn with a Locking Floyd Rose. I've got
a broken four track underneath a pile of dirty clothes.
Everybody is studying for the ECON mid-term but in my room
ahe Audition PLUS smells like it's about to burn
It's the loud half hour tonight.
My friend Rob just bought a brand new TKO and he said
he would loan us the floor tom for the school talent show.
I don't know how I feel about the fact that your father
says that we are his favorite local band.
It's the loud half hour tonight.
Green Refuge
Green refuge come back to me: these teeth so willing to eat.
Reedy fields call out my name. The ticks are so beautiful against your body.
A calamity of hollows and knolls--red trails and living bales.
Does the joke know it's not been told and if so does it feel lucky?
The dormitory of brand new ghosts. A craft still unlearned tonight!
A pale palm print against the window. "Let's sing together in the shower."
The comfort of machines offers no piece of mind
with their whirring and their clicking they are sadder than I
as they stare blankly and hope to find
a kind, loving God who will paint them a sign
saying, "This way, this way! Come with me tonight."
But in the pile of calculations on the floor we miss the light.
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