1. |
List
04:11
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goodbye, arizona - there ain't a blue sky here left to hold you.
the water here comes easily to hand,
kills all the things that lay their misdirected roots beneath the sand.
and goodbye to your son - i have cried his name to everyone.
for all his braids, and hands, and creosote skin,
the god pretention was an ugly one.
well there're grapes out on the vine now, klaus.
the time will come someday when i've forgot.
for now, the days come in impenetrable knots.
what was this expectation of return? what code was i expected to discern?
the language you speak is foreign and absurd.
mine's no easier to understand, i'm sure.
but you, i thought a linguist; i thought i'd figured out the whole thing.
so i went out in the yard and i set fire to your face,
soaked that golden throat in butane.
well there's rain up in the mountains, klaus.
go and list me all the wrongs i've done.
you will never hear this song.
but this is not a eulogy,
nor the writing of a history.
you astonish in your clarity.
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2. |
On Urras
03:37
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blink and sneeze and stare right into the sun
anarres picked me up
shook like a dusty rug
and set down by the scruff
eyes wet, nose wet, direct line to the gods
it ain't always pretty
that platonic soup
whence newton yanked the calculus
so it's one-two-three, six minutes' certainty
near-spiralling infamy
maybe i'll know when i see
the dilettante, the prophetess, unfamiliar scent of war
her smile is like an answer
or just an open door
now i'm cut off, like a cancer
i came to behind bars, forgot everything i'd known
they might've thought to change me
they couldn't chain old odo
i'm nothing but their worker bee
so it's one-two-three, nine minutes' certainty
reduced to babbling infancy
maybe i'll know when i see
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3. |
Whomsoever Should Come
03:43
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whomsoever should come, they should rip you apart
with an unrestrained bloodlust too kind for your deeds.
she's the servant of all of your want and your need.
all the faces you've known, they're now grey with defeat:
you see them in sleep.
but if i could, i would tell that girl that even saints have regrets,
and if anyone says that they never have, i'd say they're full of shit.
whomsoever should come writes in hand slanted right,
never desperate, nor wanting, nor untoward in form.
inescapably false, all her old sawhorses worn.
all your loyalty once to her cold bosom sworn,
but that oath's been forgone, and long forgotten.
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4. |
Yahya's Song
03:51
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who found you, who placed you, who pulled, and wailed, and needed you?
and who will be, and why did she, and who'll be there at your funeral, gazing to the cold ground?
to keep from harm the little invalids we both shell.
to sit up in the eyrie, keep you from that neverending atrophy.
and who is he, and what does he, and what right has he to be here?
and who's coming, and when coming, and why do i persist in my waiting 'round to find you?
quiet's dogged the heels of my whole life, so brief.
well i'm on my own, nobody waits there: the great comedy is that this was ever my belief.
well why should i, and why should we, and who made it up in the first place?
and if i did, would you still; would you follow me, and do you also have days where you can't breathe?
are there days where you see everything?
and you stumble through these, you're like a raw nerve, you're flayed open to the muscle and the bone beneath.
and whose arms did, and whose legs did, and whose backs held you up in the meantime?
what sorrow, how joyless: his signals were sucked up by the darkness, the absolute zero.
i know in my core, there's no-one listening for me.
still, i've carved your name into this hillside, so rest in peace, yahya, perhaps not wanting to survive.
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5. |
Black Is the Color
04:02
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6. |
House of 10,000 Names
03:07
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a few short lines, and the luck of the draw
we cling to him still, but it's time to ride on
he was already lost, somewhere back in the fall
but this is not news, it is what we all know
haven't you heard? those were the last days of the house of 10000 terms
those, her sweet parting words: take no prisoners!!!
i'll admit, timing was never my strength
we go back and forth, and she curses and spits
oh, that ill-tempered girl, bet she curses the day
she's saved it for me, a debt yet left unpaid
haven't you heard? they're leaving this morning, the rest of them leave on the third
the insurmountable debt i've incurred, to be left unreturned
hot halcyon days with his scent in the air
you're bound still to distinguish, you judge without care
and i'm sorry, i'm sorry, for what have i done?
made solid the end we knew was there all along
heavens proclaim! those were the last of the house of 10,000 names
and me at the end of my chain, well, i walked away
but it's over, my love, it's over, and you can go home
cast off the dross that comes shrieking and shaking her chains
does she whisper my name?
does she say i'm to blame?
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7. |
Seagulls
03:07
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why should i explain myself to you?
you're just a cup of seawater, only the balance rings true.
i'm sick to death of all the words you want from me;
only fools put faith in words, they live in blessed lunacy.
none of their laws or conversations hold your ungulate grace.
this length of rope, this dimpled hyperbole, might never come back home.
it was that time of morning when the frost still stuck to the windows,
and every sound carried for miles
in the wide open mouth of the day;
but in the meantime, i've got a foot or both on the ground.
and i can never, ever hear myself think here,
so when you come out to see me, the noise will fill an ocean.
when you cross my mind, i might as well be walking on marbles:
small and cold, live in a state of cheap sedation.
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