Advent Song #3.

Lyrics:
A plate of cold turkey in the lamplit den
when everyone else is asleep.
Armchair banished from the main house
last century's dresses laid across it in a heap.

And I hear you on the stair,
but no one's really there.

Videotapes on the built-in shelves,
dates scrawled on the spines;
no new dispensation since "Christmas '02",
but I put the thing on. I must be out of my mind.

But I see you on the screen,
all whorled and ghostly green.
I saw you on TV,
waving at me from a memory.

Saw You on TV

Advent Song #11.

Lyrics:
Come home from my daily walk
ruddy and aching from the cold.
The hotel lobby's like a mall at Christmas:
plastic greenery, fool's gold.

Stop to chat with Wendy at the front desk,
ask about the kids.
She says: "They can't make it up this year;
you know how that is."

Well, I don't, but
it must be tough.
I put a face on, half between "I'm sorry" and a smile.
It's one that I've been working on a while.

I take my meds, brew some terrible coffee,
and watch the sunset from my room.
A view of dumpsters and a ribbon of road.
Looks like heaven in the gloom.

Nothing to write home about,
no home to write to.
Could you believe it if I said I was happy?
Well, anyway, it's true.

If I was mostly invisible,
if I was usually unkind —
well, thanks for the audition, anyhow;
it was an honor to be here, and I'm so glad to be here now.
Yes, thanks for thinking of me, that was kind.
Would you please keep me in mind?

Room 205

Advent Song #1.

Lyrics:

You're a wasp's nest in the attic.
You're a spider in the drawer.
You're the first sound in the morning.
You're a scraping at the door.

And I don't know the first
thing about hope.
I don't know the first thing
about hope.

You're a wild dog in the city.
You're a sapling in the snow.
You're the dead leaves of the evening
when the gold has nowhere to go.

And I don't know the first
thing about hope.
I don't know the first
thing about hope.

And the houses sag
and the day is a drag
and I imagine them so alone
that I can't find
the first thing,

the first thing.
I don't know the first
thing

The First Thing

Advent Song #2.

Lyrics:
Dreaming on your front lawn,
counting all the friends gone
away; in a strip mall
nothing more than two stories tall
can grow.

There's a sinkhole under the Dave & Buster's, they say.
I hope you're not on shift when it finally gives way.

Meet me by the thrift store.
Bring your chorus pedal.
I've been adding up numbers, but the numbers never add up.
I've been adding up numbers, but the numbers never add up.
I've been listening day after day to the same old stuff.
I've been adding up numbers, but the numbers never add up.

We're probably doomed, but it's too early to tell,
so we're just waiting here in strip mall hell.

We weren't meant 
to live 
this way.
No, we 
were meant 
for love.

It's Friday night and the moon is in the well,
and I'll see you when I see you in strip mall hell.

Strip Mall Hell

Advent Song #3.

Lyrics:
I was thinking about our old bus stop
and all the buses that went by.
I was thinking about a million things
I was a coward not to try.
We could sit for hours talking
and never say a thing.
We're trained birds; we never knew the meaning of words,
we only know how to sing.

So let's toss off a song
waiting for the world to end.
I never did you much good, did I?
Sorry, a friend.

Maybe we got our lives together;
it seems that way sometimes.
You've got your midsized city,
and me, I live in mine.
It's the kind of hard world that softens
everyone in time; you'll see.
Some pair of disappointments
we turned out to be.

So let's throw back a beer
waiting for the world to end.
I had no business making promises.
Sorry, a friend.

Sorry, A Friend

Advent Song #4.

Lyrics:
The end came at last.
Dappled light on the glass.
Your soul had to go
wherever souls go
when they're gone.

The medical bills 
and the reading of wills.
I called up a priest;
they're laying a feast
for the dead.

And all night long
the ceiling fan's singing you songs.
See you in my dreams from now on.

A week on the phone
in the shape of a home,
the room I was born,
the curtains all torn
down and furled.

Oh to lie in the leaves
deaf and blind as you please,
forget all the names
of buses and planes,
unlearn every way of the world.

And all the while
birds flocking across the sky,
all waving a long goodbye.

Enough of this place.
May we both go in grace.
I'll never know how
everyone in this town
learned my name.

Last walk at the lake.
All the families in rows.
They're teaching their kids
things nobody knows,
like names for the sky
or saying goodbye
when you go.

And all day long
the traffic is humming your song,
the trees are all swaying along.

Saying Goodbye

Advent Song #6 (for #5, see: https://badgerland.bandcamp.com/album/christmas-bazaar-2023).

Lyrics:
One day you'll quit this business
but you'll never quit the fight.
Ten thousand bucks a month
to feed the flame
that keeps you dreaming every night.

But the basslines don't cut through.
The kick don't move you.

When did the luxury suites on major streets
start to feel like such fun?
The light flips red to green.
Floor the gas
and crank up the new one

but the dueling leads don't chime,
the drums fall out of time,

like on the self-titled album.

All the one-note hacks and throwback acts
with empties for a soul
are buying each other money
on the 10th floor.
They call it rock 'n' roll.

But the room sounds too pristine,
can't tell what the words mean

like on the self-titled album.

Self-Titled Album

Advent Song #7.

Lyrics:

All the men
and all the women
who saw the end
from the beginning

come be
with me.

Watching the headlights swerve.
Oh, give me another day I don't deserve.

I've been here once,
maybe twice.
It was in the fall,
it was late at night

and someone laughed
on the TV
spilling out
into the evening.

Go on, laugh at me.
Go on, laugh at me.

You can't give this stuff away
but it's all that I have to say.

Canned Laughter

Advent Song #8.

Lyrics:
They're parking cars under the billboards late at night
as the major turns to minor,
and something's dead between the trash cans and the wall
behind the chain diner.

God smiles
over the children of America.

They're watching pictures in a dark red room
in a warehouse forty feet high.
They're seeing the scene now from the monster's point of view.
Now they're watching someone die.

God smiles
over the children of America.

They're buying up land, extending hours, adding weekdays,
learning to serve two masters.
They're closing distances. They're making straight a highway,
everything moving farther and faster.

And God smiles
over the children of America.

Children Of America

Advent Song #9.

Lyrics:
Standing on the threshold,
why, it's the death of all desire!
The clouds pulled taut as a blindfold.
It's the end, and we're all tired.

Are those the feet of the horses?
Is it the death of all desire?
Turn back the stars in their courses.
It's the end and we're all just tired.

Are Those the Feet of the Horses?

Advent Song #10.

Lyrics:
Traffic lights have fallen out of sync,
one long ellipsis, red lights on the blink.
Bus brake opera sing, the world's a cage!
Train horn fanfare, praise the living wage!

And the day is narrowing
to one frigid slash of light
and the smell of car exhaust
on the torn hem of the night.

All the nightmare years of missing every point
all the failing senses, bones gone out of joint —
maybe your back hurts, maybe you'll never feel your best,
but a heart's still beating somewhere in your chest

and though the day is slamming shut,
and it's leaving you outside,
there's a crack beneath the door,
hair-thin, but infinitely wide.

Bus Brake Opera

Advent Song #11.

Lyrics:
I've been reading the first page of a book.
I've been finding rhymes for the way you look.
I've been losing track of the days,
saying the same old thing in a different way,
but I finally learned my lesson once more.
It turned out to be the same one I learned before.
Let me lie down the floor;
I want to listen to the storm,
as useless as the day I was born.

Leaves blow through the open door.
Why don't we quit keeping score?
I lose every round.
I know it's a bore
and I know how this sounds.

The cruelest light of all:
the bluest sky in the deepest fall.
We could lay aside our coats
for an hour or two at the very most.
I've been wasting all my time, no doubt;
now I'm wasting some of yours just to even things out.
Why was it always impossible
to take a picture of the sky?
I love you, but we're going to die.

Lights out on the avenue:
they're shutting us down.
The cool of your face,
the blue of your gown.
They're gonna knock down the place.

I've been playing catch and release.
The doctors can't say what was wrong with me.
I've been in a sort of waking dream.
I'm a washed-up legend of the silver screen.
I've been working on the same old song
in a room I never meant to stay in for quite so long.
Will you say it to me once?
Will you say it nice and slow?
Tell me something that I already know.

I'm sick of all the metaphors.
I'm sick of the past.
I'm sick of the pain.
Can we make peace at last,
while the daylight remains?

See You Soon

Advent Song #10.

It’s the kind of bitter evening
that demands an explanation,
so you bundle up and leave the house
against your doctor’s recommendation.
Broken glass and plastic wrap
in the gravel-speckled snow:
there’s nothing worthless
but thinking makes it so.

Space walled up like murder victims
in disused retail buildings;
naked broken mannequins,
hands raised in absolution;
flapping scraps of ads for things
we wanted long ago:
there’s nothing worthless
but we have called it so.

Steal into the graveyard
through an adjoining city park,
say a prayer for people sleeping
in the earth so cold and dark.
Names no one remembers
and names that you well know:
there’s nothing worthless
but thinking makes it so.

Cosmic Death Blues

Advent Song #2.

The wind is tearing a mean streak
through the charcoal sulfur sky,
and the streetlights glow that sour green glow
that always makes you want to die.
O dirty orphan city,
lay your wounded head to rest:
it will all be over soon,
but it isn't over yet.

Somewhere a siren sounds like Gabriel's horn
(though that happens every night).
The world in all its splendor
will surely soon give up the fight.
And the mood down there on Main Street
is as low as it can get,
and it may all be over soon,
but it isn't over yet.

Groan under the weight of it:
what good can ever come of this?

It's hard to tell the difference
between a symptom and a sign,
but you raise your eyes to heaven
through the crooked power lines
and say a prayer to Jesus: "Jesus,
help me with my death."
And it will all be over soon,
but it isn't over yet.

Ohio Song

Advent Song #12.

The city is hiding in a long grey cloak of rain
and the store is inviting, so you duck inside.
There's a mannequin wearing the sweater you're wearing
but somehow raised and glorified.

It's not bad to be wanted, if only for something you have;
no, it's not half as bad as it seems.
The lethean glow of windows decked from head to toe
like dreaming someone else's dream.

Crystal perfume bottles like rare exotic jewels
glowing with a light almost their own;
neat little boxed up Kitchenaids all singing praises of the secret
they could tell you if you'd only take them home.
At an infinite distance they flutter like angels around it,
casting their crowns in the sea that surrounds it:
money, money, money.

Mall Song

Advent Song #14.

The dawn stirs in mortal agony,
shuffling off an unimaginable weight.
Its brittle light is the bleakest thing your soul has ever seen.
The world might end today.

The evening shades appear at midday
like the black and heavy burden of the law;
the traffic groans uneven verses
as blank and inaccessible as God.

Two months of insomnia and involuntary tremors
and a slowly burning question in your head.
So bored, so bored to be an operational machine and nothing more —
in the wilderness, our fathers ate the true and living bread

but nevertheless
they're dead.

All Flesh

Advent Song #12.

Lyrics:
When the cities of the world go by
no one taught you how to close your eyes,
So you fell in love with Baltimore
from the window of a train.
You've got friends back in Atlanta, and
prospects, and a life you planned,
but it all adds up to nothing
next to that old familiar pain.

Oh, what a longing!
Around you they're thronging,
a whole world full of things you'll never hold.

Your mama says it's his;
your daddy says it's hers;
it's only the family curse.
There's nothing that you've ever done
you wouldn't just as soon reverse;
call it the family curse.

Maybe you'll head to Colorado, where
there's snow and pines and mountain air
and no unwanted memories
to spook you from behind.
There are lights up on the mountainsides
blazing bright as idol's eyes;
a thousand hidden lives like jewels
spangled through your mind.

Oh, what a longing!
This never-belonging —
the unmet person,
the unseen place,
the unheard song.

Your mama says it's his;
your daddy says it's hers;
it's only the family curse.
You might feel a murmur in your heart
but there's no need to call the nurse;
it's only the family curse.

Maybe you tried to be the better one,
tried not to be your father's son,
but it was doomed right from the start.
No power on earth can give a man somebody else's heart.

You've moved five times in seven years,
and disappeared, and reappeared,
but somehow any Wednesday evening finds you
feeling low and mean.
You love a good beginning
and you'll tolerate an ending
but you never found a taste
for all this living in between.

Oh! What a longing,
always after the wrong thing —
whatever's elsewhere, if it hangs helpless, out of reach.

Your mama says it's his;
your daddy says it's hers;
it's only the family curse.
It may not be the better part,
but it's the one that you've rehearsed:
call it the family curse.
It's only the family curse.

The Family Curse

Advent Song #7.

Lyrics:
Still as a lake frozen over,
stuck as an engine turning over,

some nerve have I when
I wake up alive again
alone in a room,
clean sheets, sunshine,
lungs and heart doing their thing
through no will of mine.

Still just as lost in the forest.
Still trying hard to ignore it.

And oh, some nerve have I when
I look to the sky again
and whisper a prayer,
the same words as ever,
but dog-eared,
a little the worse for wear.

I wasted my life
on the fear it was already gone.
Bring me to life;
I want to hear your song
just one time,
and for all time.

Mercy

Advent Song #9.

Lyrics:
Haven't seen you
in so long
and the airwaves
crackle with song
I've had one foot
in the grave all the while
I've had one hand
on the dial

but I will
change my whole life
to be worthy of this.

To Be Worthy of This

Advent Song #13.

Lyrics:
Escaped dog leaving news of himself
on a battered fencepost.
Graying hump of a snowbank
like a rotting halloween ghost.

And maybe some angels came looking;
maybe they even found the spot,
but there's no inn, no field, no stable,
just an empty parking lot.

Check the local listings,
check the forecast for today.
No one was ever born in a manger
in Bethlehem, PA.

Three old vagrants on the corner —
you can just see their cigarette tips burn —
their eyes peeled for the conjunction
of Jupiter and Saturn;

and there's Odin and Freya
in a long black SUV,
listening to the radio,
circling for a vacancy.

Check the local stations
but static bears the signal away.
All quiet in the air tonight
in Bethlehem, PA.

Anunnaki in an unmarked van,
headphones over their ears,
waiting for the biggest bust
of the last ten thousand years;

all good waiters and shop clerks,
counting the money they've made,
turning signs in the window panes,
looking sore afraid.

Check the morning paper.
Clear skies for today.
No one was born in a manger
in Bethlehem, PA.

Harrison Lemke

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