1. |
Ashton
04:11
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Ashton,
for once go taste your own strong salt
go touch the crowded tongues of mustard
go kiss the cormorant bones
but don't hold me; my hands can't offer help
Go find a frame where I am not the only thing
in which you see yourself
Ashton,
you wrap yourself up in that nice brown bag
You squint into that amber spyglass, and you spot steadier land
where I see stars above the softest marsh's mud
If you can stand there you'll be proud, but if you can't
what passing hand will pull you up?
Underneath the sacks of seed and bags of sallow hay
up comes the cattail reed
Up comes the bottom of the bay
Go sew your broken teeth between the rows of overwatered wheat
A mouth may grow, though the field lays fallow.
Ashton,
what billows at your front porch now?
If that's your white shirt on the fishing wire
I will not cut it down
I won't hold you - I cannot keep you still
The wind's been chewing and the sun's slight ribs
and now it's getting at you, too.
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2. |
Solemn Bird
03:55
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Come down from your ghostly perch
silver poplar, and congress of birch
Solemn bird, come down
Be a man who will not be cowed
a man with soft hands and a rubbery mouth
When one branch of the birch must be bowed
allow one banch to be bent, and one to be proud.
I take my sip from the fissured bell
I take what hits I can, and I raise my hell
Only time will tell which is free.
You take your sip from the lion's maw
You peck at his black lip, and you steal his barbed tongue
See what strange, strange harm a small bird has done.
Be a man who will not be feared
with a nest in your great russet beard
with a flush on your chest, and fierce cheer
and soft flesh where a feather once reared
Oh, my dear
be near
Bear away your gifts and your body of half-baked clay
Bear away your bottles of whistling beer
I am only a slip of myself just yet
you are only a faint frontier.
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3. |
Rampages Eastward
04:01
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You weren't much
just dust swirling in your car
smoke on my mother's porch
and your flippant heart
I don't know you
I did not count your grey hairs
I cannot say you'll die before you hit sixty five
though you're likely to
Oh, I was caught in some long summer
gone black-eyed from borrowing your steam
So I lose myself sometimes
but I'm not unredeemed
I envy them:
your hands, and the space they span
the attention that they demand
and do not seem to mind
But you curse and fold just as autumn is crawling in
Still, what rampages eastward, wet and slickly red
won't make you bold
Oh, I was caught in some long summer
gone black-eyed from borrowing your steam
So I lose myself sometimes
but I'm not unredeemed
I pace low lately, in this box with its windows barred
a big cat in a circus cart, sleepless nextdoor for the gallery
But do your neighbours know
about the crowding of aborted scales
the vanished signal in the static space of interstates
and your loud, loud voice?
Oh, I was caught in some long summer
gone black-eyed from borrowing your steam
So I lose myself sometimes
but I'm not unredeemed
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4. |
Bixby
04:15
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You lay your belly on the stone
You put your face down in the water
You wore my eyes, you wore your grandfather's sweatshirt
You wore that winter light as if it were a hood
You hung your head out like a dog
you drove the heat from me, you hollered
I turned the cliff
I turned my cold collar upward
You turned your lips to see your teeth bared to the wind
But send no call to cover me
no postman, and no pale grey gull
no road to the bridge above Bixby
In our aimlessness, we are faded
In our nights, man, we are all our own
And January is a joke
January is a fever
Your feet were cold, your faith could not be recovered
You bought me for a square of chocolate and a poem
I broke the turnstile and the phone
I broke the mouth of copper wire
I ate the basin with its clandestine orchard
I took your face in both my hands and watched it fall
But send no call to cover me
no postman, and no pale grey gull
no road to the bridge above Bixby
In our aimlessness, we are faded
In our nights, man, we are all our own
And we have both been castaways
but you're not sinking in these shallows
I am not letting go, and I do not agree to follow you down
You bear that heavy load; I am prepared to hear it now
But send no call to comfort me
Come quiet, or come not at all
by the road to the bridge above Bixby
On the face of it nothing's fated
but in the nights, man, we are right where we belong
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5. |
I Did Not Speak It
03:21
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As all those houses falling waterward, I fell
with your back to the hills, with your clothing all filthy
standing terribly still
Like a child just barely old enough
to see that she won't long be young
I saw it, but I did not know it, so I did not speak it
And I woke wrapped in your riding jacket
with a mouth full of sand
with a throat full of furtive sadness
Like a widow startled by some strange resemblance
I saw you, but I did not know you, so I did not speak it
One lost postcard from high country:
Does it master me? Am I captive
trading an honest thing for more silence?
And I drove down to your dry white city
with no place to call home
I was drawn past your door โ
I was drawn on and on and on
As if convinced by one small loss
that all that's gained comes at great cost
I called you, but I could not reach you
so I did not speak it
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6. |
I Do in the Dark
03:30
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I tried to count the bluejays my father shot
their tiny wars of ceaseless noise against his pellet gun
I was twelve
they were jumpers to be caught: brothers of my heart
Like them, I'd die before I stopped
And I had hoped I was a liar, not a fake
that I could take this name without taking its place
That I would be bold:
bald-faced as fickle snow, and stony roads
that told you they would lead you home
They told you they would lead you home
I am just this:
sullen, and stateless
just this artless thrumming
just this howling I do in the dark
"Song is nothing but a bully," says my love.
"It takes your money. It'll take all of your trust
and wake your polaroids, and whittle down your poplar chest
and make you a real boy, with a bruise bloomed in your bonfire ribs.
I've got a bruise, too; I am proof that you get used to it."
I am just this:
sullen, and stateless
nothing but this artless thrumming
just this howling I do in the dark.
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7. |
What in Bob's Name
02:55
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Go with old Impatiens, bursting coiled and green
with your brothers bruised like summer
pale petals on your cheeks
Go, and take your quick words with you
teach me nothing more
Sweet, your brothers went and brought you a slow, barbed snail
But what's that happy scent they caught you?
What in god's name is that smell?
Iron swimming on your shins in old mosquito swells
teach me nothing else
Your whip
your whistle
your history of hot needles:
can I cast them off?
Can I - can I - can I go?
And can I please be brave?
And can I treat these comforts (like pepper,
like all sharper things) as a trade?
I'll raze our house and wave the dust away
But give me just one dripping plum, give me a July bath
and I will drag my tongue down every surface and each salty back
And I will let you plunder no good ground again
but give me what I had
my whip
my whistle
my history of hot needles
and I will cast them off
I will go
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8. |
Bodie
04:35
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Goodbye, god; I'm going to Bodie
to lie down in sage and hard, dry snow
It's bright, god, in Bodie:
those wide streets do not bask in your shadowv
Goodbye, god; I'll marry a miner
and lie down and bear him a miner's son
A child, god, of silver hills
high on thin air and pale bottled poppy
Black mouth, ready mountain
carry me home by the bad road
Half-grown, bitter water in the ground
carry me home, carry on
Goodbye, god; the parish has been emptied
and I cannot find its flock
They've all gone away, god
or they've gone beneath the rock
Goodbye, god; the wind has grown peckish here
It bites hard, chews your lips
and it chaps your ragged ears
I'll walk on, god, to the valley where your bones are bared
where the tall salt towers, and the water repairs
Black mouth, ready mountain
carry me home by the bad road
Half-grown, bitter water in the ground
carry me home, carry on
Don't bury me where the parish has been emptied
and I cannot find its flock
They've all gone away, god
or they've gone beneath the rock
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9. |
Big Desire
03:42
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Do you remember Pescadero?
Sunflower men outside the county store
they spit their seed out. They spit it so far
And in the boneyard of St. Anthony, behind the town
you wished for one of them sunflower men to lay you dow
and he laid you down
Now all your dates are at the deli
He plugs your belly with his country fare
but it won't fill you up; you've got to go somewhere
And you've been thinking about the city, with its million eyes
You'd think a million more might do you well
well, you'd be surprised
I could sleep soft in your kitchen
like the kettle whistling far too long
like the hat hung on your door knob
or the radio that's never on
So I'll be driving up to Albion
a thousand faces in a plunging bay
someone must love them all - someone must know their names
And they will sleep soft in their kitchens and their parlors
they will sleep soft in their river soil, and
go back home
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10. |
One for a Second Son
03:52
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Son, tell your feet
tell your feet not to hurry
Let them be; let them season like pine
and blue columbine
Let them lie
Son, tell your hands
tell your hands they're too heavy
How they carry the air
as if air were a stone or a spear
Let them spare me my only heart
Fill your breast like a beaten hull or take the metal off:
silver, bronxe, or tin, or gold, or cold
cold copper to cover what you ought not
You'll have your turn
Have no thirst but your brother's
Pass the urn and the earthenware cup
when the first's had enough
you'll have some
But have no pride
have no pride but what's offered
How you rise form the wine
as if wine were his shield or his shrine
How you shy from him
you shy from my only heart
Fill your breast like a beaten hull or take the metal off:
silver, bronxe, or tin, or gold, or cold
cold copper to cover what you ought not
You'll have my ways
and the face of my father
and the trace of my hand in your hide
where he laid his own line down on me
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11. |
Sibley/Joaquin
03:16
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Thought I saw the stag's head pinned high on the blue gum tree
just a broken bough, a torn t-shirt tied round the leaves
I came home all thistled, with deep purple knees;
I was tired to the bone
An outside cat will still come home, if it's cold
And if it don't come back, kid
it's just that home is wherever the light goes
Cap the bottle's whisper and catch the water's cough
Tear this cotton dress away from me, take your coat off
moss'll make a bed on the slippery rock
when you're tired to the bone
You drink your whiskey - I will drink my thistle milk
from the bowl of that belly I know
we both ought to try harder to fill
Who will climb the slope of that green mosquito hill?
Who will sleep in that soft grass again?
Who will swell like a red, red fruit, and let the land have its kill?
When you're tired to the bone
you will
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red steppes Oakland, California
red steppes is a project by Californian songwriter and visual artist Nika Aila States.
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