Musicalization of "It May Not Always Be So" by e. e. cummings (TULIPS AND CHIMNEYS, 1923)

Recorded at the Artfarm (Accord, NY) in December 2021
by Sean Boyd; 
Mixed by Sean Boyd; 
Mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music

It May Not Always Be So

Lullaby from Asturias, Spain
Hidden track on 2014's WIND OF HOURS UNWINDING

Wind of Hours Unwinding

Agora non

Tell me the Webster difference between fragile and frail

She's porcelain-armed from the elbow down
Listless and lunarly pale
Fingers: spindles from their wool exposed
Clutching at nails
She builds a cross to be your pin-up girl
Full mast with delicate sail

Saline dreams in open wounds
It's raining on wilting blooms

Dead Reckoning

Saline

We sheep will move as one 
just before the rain. With the leaves 
of last year deep in our fleece, 
we’ll lie down on needles from the pines 
soft against the pain. 
We need to run, but we just dig in our feet 
and lie down. 

Whose guns destroy the slight echo of rain, 
echo of automobiles several roads over? 
Whose guns destroy the night? 
Little lambs want to play. 

The canopy sifts light just before the rain. 
We live bound to a fenced-in lease on life 
and it’s hard not to lie down.


Copyright 2019 The Warp/The Weft 
Written and produced by The Warp/The Weft 
Engineered and mixed by Dave Patrikios at The Orchard (Hudson Valley, NY) 
Mastered by Carl Saff (Saff Mastering, Chicago, IL) 

Trevor Larcheveque: bass/vocals 
Christian Lark: drums 
Shane Murphy: lead vocals/guitar 
Chris Pellnat: lead guitar

Move As One

Unwieldy fumes in the air. 
First eyes to tear 
are the sparrows' 
and next, the delivery boy's. 
He undoes bread, 
pushes it from his hand 
—a promise, a review of kindness. 
What does it say of us who say 
never-ending over everlasting 
over, over-extending the ever-present? 
How does it feel to be, she says, 
in denial? He says I'm not 
She says Wait, but 
—I won't 
—You will 
My first, last, security, 
my good name, my dynasty... 
What does it say of us who say 
never-ending over everlasting 
over, over-extending the ever-present? 
In no time at all we'll be walking over 
rolling over, starting over 
in the ever-present.​


Copyright 2019 The Warp/The Weft 
Written and produced by The Warp/The Weft 
Engineered and mixed by Dave Patrikios at The Orchard (Hudson Valley, NY) 
Mastered by Carl Saff (Saff Mastering, Chicago, IL) 

Trevor Larcheveque: bass/vocals 
Christian Lark: drums 
Shane Murphy: lead vocals/guitar 
Chris Pellnat: lead guitar

The Ever-Present

​Those pendants you wore 
before the war began: 
do you want them still? 
They say they're American-made. 
Does that mean something? 

No shortage of warmth 
on the hearth where our wet gloves dry, 
snow-soaked yet finding the form 
fickle hands left behind. 

This horoscope warns of a harbor 
where ships collide. 
Though no wake when we wake, 
somehow we've lost the night. 

In the middle of the city 
there's a fountain— 
ugly, concrete, waterless.


Copyright 2019 The Warp/The Weft 
Written and produced by The Warp/The Weft 
Engineered and mixed by Dave Patrikios at The Orchard (Hudson Valley, NY) 
Mastered by Carl Saff (Saff Mastering, Chicago, IL) 

Trevor Larcheveque: bass/vocals 
Christian Lark: drums 
Shane Murphy: lead vocals/guitar 
Chris Pellnat: lead guitar

Waterless

On the darker side of the lighter hours 
we trace the growth rings 
of the cut pine in the burn-pile 
We ache to remember 
what it was to organize 
those alphabet blocks 
into ideal cities 
for card-carrying members of the idiot elite 
When evil speaks, whose ear will bend to the sound? 
In the strongest light, those who were lost are not found 
but given a way to cast ever darker shadows


Copyright 2019 The Warp/The Weft 
Written and produced by The Warp/The Weft 
Engineered and mixed by Dave Patrikios at The Orchard (Hudson Valley, NY) 
Mastered by Carl Saff (Saff Mastering, Chicago, IL) 

Trevor Larcheveque: bass/vocals 
Christian Lark: drums 
Shane Murphy: lead vocals/guitar 
Chris Pellnat: lead guitar

Growth Rings

I thought I saw that airplane fly 
straight into the mountain. 
I expected a crash, 
a black cloud in the red night. 
Eyes fixed on where the ink will bleed, 
blurring all the headlines 
pressed for millions to read— 
life and death streamlined. 
I thought we'd feel our fortune give 
birth to bolder fountains 
gilt with reason. Alas, 
The womb sags with heavy lies.


Copyright 2019 The Warp/The Weft 
Written and produced by The Warp/The Weft 
Engineered and mixed by Dave Patrikios at The Orchard (Hudson Valley, NY) 
Mastered by Carl Saff (Saff Mastering, Chicago, IL) 

Trevor Larcheveque: bass/vocals 
Christian Lark: drums 
Shane Murphy: lead vocals/guitar 
Chris Pellnat: lead guitar

Our Fortune

Settled down for the night 
with her head chamfered to his shoulder 
Wetter now the eyes 
with understanding and love to hold her 
Rose of Sharon round the streetlight 
a steel spine bent with flickering full moons 
Dark green and soft white 
their shadows merge and rise in full bloom 

Who's labored long can settle down


Copyright 2019 The Warp/The Weft 
Written and produced by The Warp/The Weft 
Engineered and mixed by Dave Patrikios at The Orchard (Hudson Valley, NY) 
Mastered by Carl Saff (Saff Mastering, Chicago, IL) 

Trevor Larcheveque: bass/vocals 
Christian Lark: drums 
Shane Murphy: lead vocals/guitar 
Chris Pellnat: lead guitar

Rose Of Sharon

"Milk-white," when used to describe skin, 
is hyperbole, though a shut-in life might lead one 
to that creamy lack of pigment 
at least a century unloved, but still it delights 
despite the sun in our eyes, 
the sun in the window, 
the sun on the teary refrain 
of a sad song that prisms 
on the whole of a rugged terrain 
and the milk-white lies that skim your soul again. 

"Rose-red," when used to describe lips, 
is hyperbole, though lipstick gives the look 
of a bleeding mouth on a milk-white face. 
Eyes like cultured pearls. A shut-in life 
despite the endless caress, 
the tongue of the oyster, 
the tongue of duress. And the sun, 
when the oyster dies, prisms 
along the glands, the shell, the sand-- 
the rose-red blood of life in clumsy hands. 

[Arteries send; veins return. 
The stars will shine if their fires burn.] 

"Milk-white," when used to describe skin, 
is hyperbole, though a shut-in life might breed some 
deficiencies and phobias 
in an endless echo of blood that almost delights 
despite the mettle we lose, 
the terror of loss, 
the rose-red language we choose 
for our pale song whose schism 
takes nature away from man, 
milk-white baby's breath from rose-red hands.


Copyright 2019 The Warp/The Weft 
Written and produced by The Warp/The Weft 
Engineered and mixed by Dave Patrikios at The Orchard (Hudson Valley, NY) 
Mastered by Carl Saff (Saff Mastering, Chicago, IL) 

Trevor Larcheveque: bass/vocals 
Christian Lark: drums 
Shane Murphy: lead vocals/guitar 
Chris Pellnat: lead guitar

Milk-White

Leave to sort them out, the sordid details 
knifing through the happy story. 
A decade here. An artful year. 
Highballs for the low-browed gladhands 
who sip with pinkies up. 
Deep in your darkroom, developing, 
developing your ghost. 

With whom do we share this mealtime, the seasons of rain and sunshine 
uncomfortably whole and rich? 
A lifetime here in a single year, 
An orb in the mirror, a mirror in a dream of Victorian drapes. 
Deep in your darkroom, developing, 
developing your ghost. 

Here, with the softening sunrise, 
the caraway seeds in the soft rye: 
a window open for sounds of birds. 
A ballad sent on the springtime air 
high up in the oaks that shoot new life 
from their wits' end. 
Deep in your darkroom, developing, 
developing your ghost.


Copyright 2019 The Warp/The Weft 
Written and produced by The Warp/The Weft 
Engineered and mixed by Dave Patrikios at The Orchard (Hudson Valley, NY) 
Mastered by Carl Saff (Saff Mastering, Chicago, IL) 

Trevor Larcheveque: bass/vocals 
Christian Lark: drums 
Shane Murphy: lead vocals/guitar 
Chris Pellnat: lead guitar

Developing Your Ghost

New album, DEAD RECKONING, now available.

The Warp/The Weft

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