Our friend who had brown hair
& a brown horse & a fine bow
Who stood right here, whom we scarcely remember
Who had true aim, who had grace in the war
& a musical laugh & a lyrical heart
She was torn to pieces by dogs

Our friend who wore three stars
Cross her warm breast, who had seen the light
Who was struck blind, & whose deepest desires
Were close hold & yet writ on the wind
She was borne to the ground by the weight of the shame
Then was torn to pieces by dogs

On the mountain, high above the petroglyphs
Proud chin thrust heavenward, stands a pitch-black skeleton
In its marrow a truth is concealed
Truth: it can be anything that serves the King
Our fates sealed & His colours returned to the field

Our friend who had blue eyes
& a sharp mind & a sweet smile
Who was a true friend, who was the pride of the Forest
& whose warm praise made one glow like a flame
& whose faith in the Lord was coin of the realm
She was torn to pieces by dogs.

Our Friend

Just a quick note (riddle)
Whispered turtle-to-turtle:
It smells like eels down here,
How’s things up in the Third Circle?
Thought it’d be pain only
All these lost souls
All their moaning & their groaning
No one told me it would be so lonely
Every lunch break finds me
Munching eels & happy memories

You shoulda held your hand out
Joy’s what the Woods were all about
Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me
O, I’ve seen everything now
I can’t believe I never knew 
That that was something people do
You should’ve asked me
I’d’ve done it once just because it was you

Must’ve been forever
Back in that snowy weather
No one can touch me here
These panting cowards know me better
Clad in our fine copper
Proud in our time-honoured
Functions as minions
& ambassadors & cannon fodder
When there’s nowhere to go
We just stay where we are
& long as we’re stuck here
Might as well learn to play guitar

I’ll never stop grieving
Over that last evening
All our good friends singing
We knew that we were leaving
Misty & dark morning
Packing our tack up & yawning
Silent breakfast, eggs & eels,
Breaking seals & frowning
You sat across from me
I can still feel our knees touching

Christoffel lit a candle
It cheered the room a little
It made the news a little easier to bear
To the list of things nature abhors
Add missives from His Central Force
I never read mine
I just watched your face as you opened up yours.

Missive Traffic

1

This one’s a Cross & called “the minister”
(I’ll go how they’re arranged in front of me)
Grab a broom from that sinner
Push those tentacled limbs aside
I find it hiding in the Black Church
Where I unlearn everything I know
It leads down the Penrose steps
To the room where the pastor goes
To lie awake & doubt his sanity
Gets up & prays every morning
Trembling night & day 
For the horror of the thing-in-itself

2

This one’s a Plume, & called “the visitor”
I know that I’ll be blamed for some of it
The equivocal telemetry
Of a comical fall from grace
In fact we only share a cigarette
He’s unmoved by the Blood Moon
I’ll not rush to defend him
I would have it all to myself
I check the time, I think it strange
The lights are still on in the stables
I find him there in Ontario’s stall
& he stinks like rum

(This is a painting, love is a fiction
Faith is a cage, but it’s a great hiding place
For our diaphanous moth-eaten selves.)

3

This one’s a Knife
Called "the professor’s wife”
Back early from the seaside
With a prize nautilus shell
She finds our bluejeans intertwined
In a heap in the mudroom
A fist to the bridge of the nose
O it bleeds like Hell
A dinner for the King, he corners me
He’s got no mates, he is balding
Trips on his shame, means no harm
Spills wine on himself, bless his heart.

Three Fetishes

On the map that she left on the table
There’s a crease where a fold might have been
Like a line spanning all of Creation
Endless long, laser straight, razor thin

On one side those who deserve better
On the other those who don’t

There’s a stone that is loose in the corner
There’s a secret behind it, don’t tell
Out of sight from chaplain or jailor
Lest I fail whom I’d follow to Hell

Someone wise never known for her beauty
Someone who saw the truth for the lie
Someone kind, now known for her cruelty
Someone so much kinder than I

I abide in His infinite prison
It is in my nature to obey
Standing by for those natural causes
I will worship, I will wither away

Someone saved me, she’s now lost forever
Heart of the Forest and wide open sky
Someone good getting locked out of Heaven
Someone so much better than I

Only Song will remain when she’s gone
Would that I could have gone in her stead
There’s a family of mice in the wall
Now I feed them all of my bread

Someone brave dances with the shadows
Stands on the Mountain, looks Him in the eye
Someone brave is climbing the gallows
Someone so much braver than I.

The Map

1

Something there is deep inside us 
Beckons us to Love
 A spirit gentle & bounding
One night in the moonlight’s thrall 
Ten eternities worshipful 
By Fury’s counting
War in the morning 
& songs by the evening fire 
Compatriots drinking, adoring
Declared love ye who’ve shared blood in arms
 This is not your King’s due devotion
 No, nothing so boring
She hies to the Wood & its unknowable powers 
His face in the firelight, hours upon hours
 Is he just an animal the colour of flowers? 
History, see how Fury cowers!

2

Something there is deep inside us 
Beckons us to Madness 
A Figure crooked & hoary
Upright & condign to the sins 
Of these litterbug tribes 
& talent trebled, that was Fury
But now how would the King feel? 
What might the lover reveal? 
This un-goated Faun finds appalling
Our sunlight, our once-bright star 
Charming, confident, & kind 
Our fairy archer, our darling
Stumbling round some high wasteland 
Furs matted down by tears of the damned
 By the soot of the fire, by the blood of the Lamb
 Crying out: “Fury I nothing am.”

3

Something there is deep inside us 
Beckons us to Death 
For Whom we spend our lives rehearsing
However we imagine we exist 
By our own wits, no:
 It is only by His mercy
Slain in the schoolyard 
Decaying on some battlefield 
Grant some great reward to the deserving
In this shortened form
Horns shorn, more & more
 I abhor this grand illusion
 They imagine worth preserving
Atoms of betrayal alive in our lungs
 Horrible most of us, just miserable some
 “This is my dog, that’s my place in the sun...” 
What Fury is, why fear we to become?

4

Something there is deep inside us 
Beckons us to Song 
In a chamber like a heart’s, but larger
& to find a heart, tiny in all that darkness 
Takes unmatchable aim 
It takes a genius, it takes an Archer  
Exhume the villages! 
All the artists & arsonists
 Sworn in their boredom in the dark
We all sing now together as ghosts 
& only in the Song
 Do we remember who we are
Failing to fetch Her at first, carry on 
She stops & waits for you in the great beyond 
Just four things to each can e’er truly belong: 
Love, Madness, Death, & Song.

The Knowledge (band version)

[the music for the B section of this song is pilfered from "Catarì" by Mario Costa & Salvatore di Giacomo, as perfect a song as exists]

FOX

I saw a remarkable photograph
Hanging beside a charcoal’d hide
Some crazy reception in Germany
Walpurgisnacht eventide
Garbed in your faith & preserved in grace
& repose vouchsafed only those who’d attend
& remain until the bitter end
You receive your orders
& drink to a planet condemned
For a gaze mistook by a gentle brook
Dare, dare, dare you to look

TOGETHER

In sharp relief framed by mahogany
How they entice, those sparkling green eyes
Her smile like the cradle of innocence
At the shoulder of the Lady of Christ’s
& the Poet's Poet, axe to his throat
And the Lamb, all-knowing & already frozen
To the bone in his apartment in Rome
And the antihero
Meeting his gaze with her own
In a vain impulse your shameless Wolf
Drown, drown, drowns in the gulf 

CHRISTOFFEL

O the songs, the poetry
When I lived among them
Now it falls upon me
To go out and emend them
What takes for me but a moment
Feels to them like an eternity
All these gentle animals
He finds so expendable
I would like to tell Him
That I love them all

TOGETHER

How do you think they’ll deliver them?
Orbital post? Stentorian throats?
By couriers you probably won’t recognise
In undistinguished envelopes
Dribbles of lunch where interns enclosed
Not a verse, not a word, not a verb, not a noun
Just a card embossed with His crown
& a small red arrow
Pointing impassively down
That sagitelle you know so well
Damn, damn, damns you to Hell.

The Small Red Arrow

Monday morning
Money spent
Lower your standards
As they raise your rent
Close to Heaven
But far from free
God save California
Maybe He’ll save me

The deepest ocean
The thickest blood
The cruellest Summer
The kindest bud
Observe the transit
Of His ’62 Mercury
God save California
Maybe He’ll save me

God save California
Maybe He’ll save me

In Your wisdom
Upon my death
Grace the canyon
With Your gentle breath
Carry me O you Angels
Up to His Majesty
If God saves California
Maybe He’ll save me

God save California
Maybe He’ll save me.

God Save California

Here's the text of the patch notes:

VCV

TEMPLATE

I'm just a friendly block of devices that keeps things under control.

SEQUENCE

Hello, I'm the sequence, inspired by "Only 6 Notes" by awezspierd. The seventh, eighth, and ninth notes are Bb, D, and Eb.

PAD

Hi, I'm the strings pad, a noise- excited resonator who only appears with a 25% probability on a bass hit, the same probability that the bass will "shrug" in time with the Braids beat frequency, which also pans me! My triads come from Tracks A, C, & D of the sequencer.

MELODY

Hello, I am the melody voice. I am a phase-modulated sine wave who gets a little sawtoothy when skewed by the LFO. The LFO rate is governed by Braids' beat frequency. My pitch comes from Track B of the sequencer & glides because of the slew limiter.

HARMONY

Hello, I am the harmony voice. I'm an octave down from the melody and a simpler waveform, also riding the cusp between sine and sawtooth, also gliding. My notes come from Track A of the sequencer, the same notes as, though an octave up from, the bass.

BUZZ

I am the inspired Braids preset called "Buzz" or "UUUU" which produces soul-churning beat frequencies by some unknown blending of undertones. I govern any timing in this song that is not controlled by the sequencer, including the delay. I have a 10% chance of revealing my true self, and you'll know it when you hear it, plus my friend Wow! says "Wow!" (I'm sidechained into the bass' compressor, so don't worry about your speakers. Much.)

BELL

Hello, I'm the bell generator, a clean and simple FM tone whose pitch is sampled from noise then quantised to Fm (with an added fourth, because it's pretty). I fire off with about 20% probability with the beat frequency from Braids, who also controls my delay frequency.

BASS

I'm the bass! I'm an octave down from the harmony, following the same sequencer Track A. I'm a clean sine wave who has about a 20% chance of "shrugging" a goosebumped shoulder up into the lo-mids. Whenever I do, my friend the strings pad blows warm air onto me and I settle down. The shrugging is caused by slew-limited trigger bursts modulating my feedback. (I have a dedicated compressor to keep Braids from blowing your speakers when he shows up in person occasionally.)

PROBABILITY & LFO

Hi, just doing our numerical and analytical maths over here. Yes, we know the LFO is also numerical, but we like to pretend he is a smooth curve.

WOW!

Hi, I'm Wow! Whenever Braids shows up in person, I say "Wow!" My pitch is a fifth up from the root, as provided by Track D of the sequencer.

789 (an experiment in VCV Rack)

If your love should end today
Just dry up & blow away
I want to be the last to know

If your smiles aren’t all they seem
If I’m living in a dream
I want to be the last to know

Go tell your Mother first
Go tell your Father first
Go tell your Sister first
Go tell your Brother first
Go tell your best friend first
Go tell your hairdresser first

Take your time & make the rounds
Cos every stolen moment counts
I want to be the last to know

The Fool

The Rabbit in the Moon is clear tonight
& everyone you’ve ever loved is out of sight

Guess this is where you belong
You finally found your place
Singing to his fine long ears
The moonlight on your face
They tell you that it’s just a dream
That there’s no sound in space
But he hears every tune

The Rabbit in the Moon is there all the time
Sometimes even in the afternoon, big and bright

Some see an upright man
Or never give it any thought
It’s a Rabbit, & and your song
Is holding him aloft
What else could conceive
A thing so sad and soft
A gentle thing like you

But the Rabbit in the Moon

Go forth now & sing the impossible
If you follow, just follow your heart
It’ll all come true

& don’t fall!  The world will try to bring you down

But you’re never gonna want for more
The moonlight is enough
Even in some distant land
Where rabbits aren’t loved
A guitar in your hands
The twinkling stars above
& the cry of a distant loon

& the Rabbit in the Moon

Rabbit In The Moon

(Paul Heaton on vocals)

I cannot say
Who should live or die
I keep away
From the how & why
& I only pray
To the open highway
  
I’m never far
When you think of it
From where you are,
Just a little bit
Don’t need a car,
Only need a guitar

The bough will break
That’s how you start
The earth will quake
But your little heart
Will only take
A little heartache

Highway, Guitar, Heartache (Rockside Arrangement)


That grin your pixie face is wearing
Well now, pardon me for staring
Just staring at your face
Yours is a beauty everlasting
Darling, pardon me for asking
Just asking your name

Time slows down, but I’m still blinding fast at blundering
Darling, pardon me for wondering
Just wondering your age
Because I’ve been getting worse at gauging
Oh well, pardon me for ageing
I’m ageing, I’m ageing, I’m ageing

& if I’m crude
Blame my solitude

You find me tiresome, & you’re leaving
Oh well, pardon me for breathing
& singing this song
Here’s hoping you’re forgiving
& you’ll pardon me for living
For living, for living, for living this long.

BeardPeople 1 (Pardon Me)

This is what you get when you leave me alone
When you leave me alone with them
Composed over seasons unknown
A ridiculous poem 'bout them
Ah, the Spring can be so colourful
This is what you get when you leave me alone
When you leave me alone with them

I like Tom, he was born in the snow
& he just seems to know some things
& I’d sure hate to see him exposed
But man, you should see how he unfolds
Watching Fury when she sings
Ah, the Summer heat’s unbearable
Uncle Apollo, he braces me so
I’m just like a bow he strings

Now the Fox slings his guitar low
On a strap that I sewed for him
It’s a copper-string baritone
First a twang, then a drone sets in 
Ah, Autumn is the miracle
I spin Jacques’ on Hemlock’s gramophone
& fall asleep by the stove to him

Every word that the Rabbit intones
I can feel in my bones, here within
This is what you get when you leave me alone
When you leave me alone, here with them
Ah, the Winter sky is beautiful
We just snuggle up & get stoned
& get stoned again.

Toffy Alone

Rearing up, whoa!, to your full height
Where you been, girl? You’re all skin & bones
High on the Mountain in the blinding light
The sun is setting
Looks like Armageddon, don’t it?

Straight from the greensmith, made with love
Eyes Heavenward, don’t look down
Over the petroglyph, high above
All that crazy weather
All together now:

I wrote a note to you in Canada Black:
“Falling asleep here feels like dying
If anyone gets past
I’m telling you it’s gonna be my ass”

I wrote a note to you in Canada Black
Told you that falling asleep here feels like dying
If anyone gets past
I’m telling you it’s gonna be my ass

The Heart of Autumn raised her sails
All alone here, since she’s gone
With just a heap of sawn horns & severed tails
Gonna go out now & tie one on.

Rockside Demo: Canada Black (can it be done with one guitar?)

Turns out Dusty never loved me
Eyes set wide & green just like a cat
Dirty blonde hair like rusty sunbeams
Pouring out of her ten-gallon hat

Turns out Dusty never loved me
Turns out it weren't that hard to figure out
Turns out everybody knew that 'bout Dusty
Just no one ever said it out loud

To Dusty, blue always looked orange
Some derangement of the chromophores
To Dusty the sea came in key lime torrents
Spewing lemon foam upon damson shores

Folk would say: "Aw, ain't the day just lovely!
Well now, what's ol' Dusty on about?"
Turns out blue always looked orange to Dusty
Just no one ever figured that out

No one tame goes by the name of "Dusty"
Well, at least nobody straight
I left while that green gaze was still just empty
Couldn't hang around to watch it fill with hate

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill, he's tryina hush me
Turns out everyone already figured out
Turns out everyone knew Dusty didn't love me
Just no one ever said it out loud
Oh everybody knew that 'bout Dusty
Just no one ever said it out loud.

Dusty

Things are good
My life has turned out better than I thought it would
I don't ever dream about you baby
Let that be understood
Work is fine
I quit smoking and I don't have cancer yet
Cos my wife & children really need me
No that ain't easy to forget

Tell me true
Did you ever really love me
Lay me down in my sweet dreams
& just hover there above me
Don't know why it's so hard to speak my mind
So I wrote this song for you
Because darling I adore you
But every sentence of the first verse is a lie

Times are strange
I wonder each & every day
Can you sum up a man using variables the terms don't contain?
What kind of man so tempts the Fates?
& makes a lifelong project
Moving some immovable object he creates?

Tell me true
That's what you told me
Lay me down like a budding flower
& let your honesty unfold me
Don't know why it's so hard to speak my mind
Well the second verse is me, babe
Giving it a try
Cos every sentence of the first verse is a lie

Perfect woman
You are a phantom of delight
A lovely apparition sent
To be a moment's ornament
Upon my sight
A perfect woman, nobly plann'd
To warn, to comfort, to command
& shine with Angelic light

Tell me true
Straight & true, that's you, Matthew, if you please
Lay me down
Andy, lay down some tasty licks
Brett & Sarah, lay me down some of those white people harmonies
The second verse is the last one I will write
Cos every sentence of the third verse
Is stolen straight from Wordsworth
& every sentence of the first verse is a lie

ROCKSIDE DEMO: Tell Me True

Babe, I’m here with you now
As much as I’m with anyone
If these arms could reach you somehow
Make me one with everything
You think it’s a joke
I hear you ha ha ha laughing 

Why are you looking past me?
It has to be tonight
Right on the money 
Right down the line!

High in the Tower of Song
Feels like I’m just dangling
Maybe you’re right: maybe this is all wrong

Why do I spend night after night
Bound in irons
Of my own fashioning?

Why are you looking past me?
It has to be tonight
I’m out of money
I’m out of time

Babe I’m here with you now
You take a shine to everyone
While I drown in a river of doubt
I can hold my breath forever, once
You think I’m a joke
I hear you ha ha ha laughing

Why are you looking past me?
It has to be tonight
Right on the money
Right down the line!

Babe, I'm Here With You Now

There will be a road
I’m hoping
Through the trees
From the enclosed
To the wide open

Beyond the Sea
Beyond the Seahorse Valley
That’s where I’m going
Mercury couldn’t catch me now
No shoulder-deep snow to drag me down

The booster needs
Another operator
Route the leads
To & from the notch filter
Feel the heat pouring out
From that low, slow dragon’s mouth now

Who would be a God
Must reckon
Who’s to be
Redeemed or forsaken
Look at me
Just look at me
Look at the monstrous form I’ve taken!
Mercury couldn’t catch me now
No shoulder-deep snow to drag me down now.

Seahorse Valley

I’d compose myself
I would wash my hands
I would cleanse my very soul
If there was anyone here to hold

I would open wide
I would feel no shame
I’d tell her things I’ve never told
If there was anyone here to hold

She’d mean everything
She’d have all my heart
She’d be worth her weight in gold
If there was anyone here to hold.

ROCKSIDE DEMO: Anyone Here to Hold

There’s a Devil
On my shoulder
Come to tempt me?
Join the crowd
Call me Rufus
Half an hour I’ll meet you down
On my corner 
Of the poorest part of town

Here comes Daphne
Warm & ample
O she’s a handful
&  I’m her clown
If she asked me
I would burn this city down
I ain’t joking
I would burn this city down

There’s a Devil
On my shoulder
Come to tempt me?
Aw, just look around
How’d I end up here?
It ain’t that hard to figure out
God above me
He put His own Boy in the ground.

ROCKSIDE DEMO: Call Me Rufus

Winter, ice on the lakes
A soldier, his homesick heart aches
He falters, then the entire Newfy line breaks
Sometimes that’s all that it takes

The monster bristles & shakes
& gathers with talons like rakes
Offers of poems & prayers, biscuits & cakes
Sometimes that’s all that it takes

The banker screams as he wakes
“I’m rich now, I thought I’d have mates”
Jesus died for all of our sakes
Sometimes that’s all that it takes.

All That It Takes

OTTER

A gentle breeze across the glades
 A bonny lass reading Yeats 
& swans, two by two, floating on the lake 
Enough to cause the gentle hearts of gentlefolk to break 
All I feel is: eat swan

FOX

An overture, a white tutu 
A pirouette, a pas de deux
 A swan, her dreams, her white enormous wings 
& une danse des quatre adorable petits cygnes 
All I think is: eat swan

TOGETHER

Eating swan is frowned on, let’s go eat
Somewhere that serves swan meat
 Completely conscience-free!

FOX

Primitive man swept away

OTTER

 Sparta’s queen, clutched & raped

TOGETHER

 By a swan, well, perhaps it was a God in swan shape 
Her trembling hands draped tenderly about his downy nape 
All I think is: eat swan

Eating swan is frowned on, let’s go eat
Somewhere that serves swan meat
Free of sentimentality!

Eat Swan (live at Walpurgisnacht)

The morning sun already warm
And the river is running clear
A gentle breeze carries the breath
Of the honeysuckle by the weir
And the clouds are high, soft, & white
Even the gulls are all good cheer
I take off my shoes
I skip a stone
I can’t stand being alone

There’s a protest in the square
We’re befouling all our lands
There’s a concert in the park
And they’re cheering all the bands
There’s a story on my phone
A kid lost both his parents & both his hands
To a grenade dropped by a drone
I can’t stand being alone

I don’t recommend
This taking stock
I look around &
All these flowers tend
To represent
The people I’ve let down

There’s a nuthatch at my feet
If he’s not careful he’s gonna choke
On the surfeit of sunflower seeds
I’ve been throwing down
With my bad guitar
& my cigarette smoke
But he hangs round like a friend
One who’ll lend you a buck when you’re broke
I’ll be alone once he has flown
& I can’t stand being alone.

I Can't Stand Being Alone

Father, what am I gonna do
When the bough breaks, as boughs sometimes do
& I’m on the ground alone & afraid?
Daughter, you’re gonna be brave

Father, what am I gonna do
When I come to doubt all that I once held as true
& those demons come to test my faith?
Daughter, you’re gonna be brave

Father, what am I gonna do
When Man breaks my heart, as only Man can do
And where I once saw love I see only rage?
Daughter, you’re gonna be brave
 
Father, what am I gonna do
When I go inside myself, as I sometimes do
& find things that I just can’t, I just can’t, I just can’t face?
Daughter, you’re gonna be brave

Father, what am I gonna do
When all this sunshine finally sets on you
& I’m standing by your grave?
Daughter, you’re gonna be brave.

Brave


Tuscany sweltering in the cauldron of Summer
I find him passed out again: it’s not a brothel jakes,
& he’s not Percy, & she’s not a whore in his fevered mind
It’s a palace of marble & they’re Aeneas & Dido

When the hound he’s been caring for finally dies of distemper
He prevails on a farmer to garner the beast last rites
Oh, but the man is a drunk & a liar, he spends the fees on wine
& leaves the poor mutt to rot with the grain in his silo

Percy fancies the prize of all liminal scribes:
Just to gaze in the eyes of those sweet Sorrows
As the hearkening cries of their satires in tribute guise
Pierce like arrows

The very same afternoon we embark for Lerici
He will not be dissuaded, he utters some tired old line
About a man & his urge to the North, he says “the sea looks fine”
It looks pretty rough to me, but hey, what do I know?

The angry horizon is lit from behind
We trace the arc of his life under those dark forces
& darkening skies, towering thunderclouds form a line
And rear like horses

I draw my dagger as his lungs fill with water
The look on his face, oh, I’ve seen so many times before
Right when a man isn’t brave anymore, oh, the grief in the eyes
That gaze on the Γ as he prays to the ☧

At last he’s denied those Seraphs of his mind
With their silver voices & golden wings & their white panties
& come-hither eyes, I tell him: “Percy, those all are lies:
They shriek like banshees.”

Percy Drowns

I like drinking, I like crowds, so they say.
I like singing way too loud, so they say.
When they lay me down on my dying day,
When I go down hard, they're gonna carve on my grave:
"Here lies a man born to misbehave." So they say.

War is coming with sharpened knives for the King.
Fetch me my blade, I'm gonna lay down my life for the King.
And it's not going down in prose, I don't think,
More like a "wash me out with a hose" kinda thing.
We were honor-bound, but We chose to sing for the King.

[Smitty blazing solo.]

There once was a City high on hill, so they say.
If the right one don't get you, oh, the left one will, so they say.
When they lay Us down on our dying day,
When We go down hard, they're gonna carve on our grave:
"It was the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. So they say."

ROCKSIDE DEMO: So They Say

Save yourself
Heartbroken elf
Tumbling down the well
Raise your chin
Don’t hold those dark thoughts in
Can’t keep them all for yourself
Feel the kick drum
The meeting of skin
& felt

A tiny bird
Sings a word
Hope
It goes unheard
The melodeon groans

Fury & Ontario in the Fall
Sometimes it helps to step away from it all

Hearts like embers under the snow
Falls, galls, gashes, & glows
When Hobby’s copper cornet blows
& echoes cross the meadows
Martens bow cellos

Fury & Ontario in the Fall
Breathless, impatient for the End
When she’s cast into battle
When she’s back in the saddle again

Climbing His Mountain all alone
Longing to hear him sing
Feeling a stranger in her own home
Slowly unraveling

Know your place
Try to embrace
That strange feeling
That your happiness is just a heartbeat away
That heartbeat belongs to the King
No one’s watching

Fury & Ontario in the Fall
Listening to the howling of the wind
Is it the voice of her lover
Or the voice of her Sovereign?

Drifting in the fractal of her mind
Standing defiant on His rock
Nobody’s following
He’s just a God taking a walk.

Fury & Ontario in the Fall

The lines that frame your smile are painful to see
A mountain range of longing towers over me
Desire burns in my breast now with the heat of a thousand suns
Shouldn’t we be lovers, just this once?

Perhaps you find me foolish, perhaps you find this absurd
Something so uncertain, in every sense of the word
Everyone will have something to say & friendships will fall where they may
We’ll just go on & be lovers anyway

You always say we might have been, but it’s so hard to believe
But if you’re going to lie to me, lie to me with your body, please

Something in that smile suggests I might take you by force
Me & what army?  You know me:  I’m just not the sort
Rather I stand on your charity, I’m standing by
Shouldn’t we be lovers, you & I?

Shouldn't We Be Lovers?

You found me down here in my Hell
Know me better than I know myself
   & still you think I’m good
Not put off by this life of sin
Not fooled by this animal skin
   I’ve been hiding in the wood
& the cool, cool mountain springs
From your ah! bright wings.

I should have known, I’ve got eyes to see
Long suspected you’ve been following me
   For a long, long while
& I am led by my fancies round
Of course you know this & so you sent her down
   In your gentleness and your guile
These are sweet, sweet sufferings
And yours are ah! bright wings.

Emissary of your grace
Evidence of a better place
   High above me
Her face without a grin:
A resort town in the off-season
   Heartbreaking & lovely
& of course, of course she sings
Of your ah! bright wings.

Ah! Bright Wings

Brother Hare regards the field, eyes wide, the world to attend
A long time ago he was my closest friend
Sister Otter wades the brook, eyes fixed on an eel in the bend
A long time ago she was my closest friend
Brother Swan drifts on the lake, eyes closed against a gentle wind
A long time ago he was my closest friend
Sister Fox ranges the wood, eyes bright, picking up my scent
A long time ago she was my closest friend
Brother Man builds a home, eyes squint, joining beams end to end
A long time ago he was my closest friend.

My Closest Friend

Could that be my Haystack Girl singing so believably?
I remember you, I remember those clothes
I recall those overalls not concealing you entirely
I could learn to live very happily with those unrestrained pink-nosed roes

So let us play a guessing game:  who really needs your harmonies?
Who will rise above these dumb coffeehouse songs of unrequited love?

Maybe you'll remember how they used to have to rhyme
Strolling ornamented with some blonde cheerleader through each line
How my tastes have changed:  I like my girls mousey now & unrefined, like you

So would you be my City Girl?  You would be completing me
But what I offer you dries up rapidly & goes unreplenished, so drink slow.

Ordinary Rabbit

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