Announcements

Maybe the basement’s made of rubbish.
Maybe the pipes declared an armistice.
I don’t here them clickity-clank in the evening hours.
Maybe we find a way to keep what is ours.
Maybe the bank turns it into a condo.
Maybe the crack in the pane caused the drip in your nose.
I don’t see it running after a few repairs.
Maybe we find a way to stay in the bed that we made for years.

Maybe the coal won’t heat the stove.
Maybe we’ll have to sleep in our clothes.
But I’ve got moments here, waiting for the mail truck to appear.
Opening the letter when the bank wants to foreclose

So what if our home is built on a fault line?
So what if the ceiling drips and the drain pipes
Twist in knots we can’t unblock on our own?
So what? It’s the only house we’ve ever known.

Maybe the coal won’t heat the stove.
Maybe we’ll have to sleep in our clothes.
But I’ve got moments here, sealing the cracks in a vanity mirror.
If humanity is anything it won’t let me out of my home.

Maybe the snow lays off of the porch.
Maybe the walls will need to lean on a crutch.
Maybe the floor moves when we walk.
Maybe the outlet’s wired up wrong.
But I’ve got moments here, waiting for the new day’s sun to appear.

I blow the horn to wake up the village in the night.
I see your face when I'm staring at the anthracite.
Don't you notice the break of day?
Crop dust in my eyes must be keeping me awake.
If my baby comes looking I have nothing to say.

Purple glides its way into the sunrise rarely.
Don't the soot on the stove get cold when she marries me?
Don't we love what the night provides:
A chance to gather our thoughts without turning to our eyes?
Wide open, the fires smolders but the smoke still stings.

The paper letter that I wrote says you better hit the road.
You said you’ll change but I know you won’t.
And when I asked you to say please you said
That’s what my mouth open means, so feed me ‘til I’m full.

Man, the lack of sleep makes us all a bit thinner.
Can't wait to hibernate in the wintertime.
The coffee's bitter as early March.
Thinking things have thawed but it's only a lark
That got lost wandering south last November.

The paper letter that I read says you found another bed.
You bet I was hurt by what you said.
You pulled the rug out under me. I got nothing but train tracks
Rolling under my feet and around the bend.

It's a crime to wind up calling your name.
Shaking out the smokestacks, tending the train.
Thinking 'bout your curves again.
I'd rather jump the tracks then go around that bend.
Fill my cup. We're heading on 'til morning.

The paper letter that I burned, I still remember every word.
Sometimes the truth is a blinded bird.

When you awake I will make sure your fate has been chosen.
Your legs have been shaved and the name on your driver's license is changed.
We'll arrange a cute face and the curve of a shiny new waist.
It's only your head that we haven't yet seemed to replace.
Don't be scared like a tired bird flying through rain.
Today, you're ready for the dig.

You dig like a natural. Man, you’re an animal faced with starvation.
The doctors are ready. We’ll miss you but won't make mistakes.
You're dug-out now. Cowards could kiss you for flying the flagship.
Don't ask us how but we clipped off the end of your wingtips.
Don't be scared like a tired bird flying through sand.
Oh man, you're ready for the dig.

When you awake I will make sure your fate has been fastened
To a placated casket of fingers and flesh and eye sockets.
Digging through scoops of your memory’s fluid we found that
The body you had wanted nothing to do with your mind man.
Don't be scared like a tired bird flying through glue.
Now you are ready for the dig.

Extra, extra tight this slip knot won’t come off.
I feel it in my fingers. I swallowed the key. Should I cough it up?
Not an act to learn to disappear.
Not an act. Crack in the glass, a hammer comes down.
Water’s pouring out over me. I’m set free

Next to Mister H. Houdini I fake the show.
Toss me in the tank and let me fend with the sharks below.
Take me back to my homeland, to my home.
Take me back to the cold driven snow where we fashioned
a fence to fend our faces from the freeze. I’m set free

Stuffed in a box. If you can’t get out there’s something wrong.
Hear me great Houdini. How do you escape when you’re not so strong?
Not an act. It’s a change of phase.
Take me back from ice to water to haze pouring back into the sea.
I’m set free

Well, I guess I made my mind up ‘fore my feet ever hit the road
That it ain’t the line you’re walkin’ but the way you turn the gravel
And so I ground it down so fine that the road became a stream .

Well I ‘spose I tipped my hand before I’d played a single card.
But I find its best to bare your breast and get down off your guard.
When I get down the straits
I’m flushed out of the ripple and into the rush

Easy off the rocking chair
Living out in the backyard never got me anywhere
I won’t get older. I’ll burn white-blue and gold, a beacon of light.

Man, I wouldn’t call this a raft.
It’s so beat-up, patched. I’m banking on chance.
Lightning was river was stream was gravel was
Sheets-of-rock was wind was lightning again.
Down along the cove tonight gondola riders are turning to light.

Each of us is young, then gone.
Remember out in the backyard barefoot children on the lawn?
I’m not getting older. I’m tuned into the moment, the real light.

Easy off the rocking chair
Living out in the backyard never got me anywhere
I won’t get older. I’ll burn white-blue and gold, a beacon of light

I watch the weatherman line up like an army.
It's so red that it's black on the radar screen.
I Only know what my eyes are telling me.
I don’t hear what the birds say.
I just see them flying away
With my pride, out the window
From a sick black cloud coming on like a train.

It’s cutting loose on the trees and on the phone poles.
No more juice from the circuit to the socket hole.
Hunkered down in the crawl space hoping that
What happened to the coast
Won’t repeat itself here.
The fear is like a window
That’s been locked but it got knocked out just the same.

Stare down the eye of the storm blowing inside
The heart pumps a cyclone up through the blood.
I won’t let go of you

I’m stuck like clock a like without power
Going hungry, the milk has turned sour
Cuz’ the fridge lacks the will to continue.
I imagined it would last.
You can’t copy write the past
Without turning it to ash.
Stacks of snapshots faded and cracked in the flood.

Stare down the eye of the storm blowing inside
The heart pumps a cyclone up through the blood.
I won’t let go of you