1. |
New Old Ladder
03:15
|
|||
Gonna have to get me a new old ladder
The one we’ve had I’m leaving you
The old new one we found wrapped up downstairs
And used to paint the ceiling trim
We used to paint the town the color
Of the barn hulking there, empty bird-spattered
The shattered stalls for the animal teams
The dreams of clover and chicken scratch
Did we really rescue that clichéd neighbor’s kitten?
Then sitting up there in the dark pine limbs
You glimpsed a nest we both thought long abandoned
Then standing, stretching spied a clutch of three blue eggs
I’m walking outside ’neath your chill window pane
The rain sheets off the second-story eaves
My right sleeve’s wet though I’ve twisted back my shoulder
It’s colder than it would be if it were snowing
|
||||
2. |
Travelin' Man
03:58
|
|||
Whatever came of that traveling man?
Got a few keepsakes, fewer plans
Goes to the garden when his money is green
Has a few odd children he’s never seen
Man traveling
Floats his own canoe you know he fires his own train
Flies in the gutter, sometimes runs down the drain
He dreams in gesture, he rises in blood
He falls uneasy, he rides in love
Man traveling
Man traveling
He dreams cinnamon, he dreams sage
Acts out his birth sometimes, never his age
He’s got a memory for tight spots and trends
And a few rough gems he calls his friends
Man traveling
Man traveling
Man traveling
What’s left in the breadbox gets wrapped on the bone
He’s got a rough lover he calls home
He lives in her purse and those of two friends
He dreams everything he never spends
Man traveling
Man traveling
Man traveling
Traveling
He goes overland, he goes underground
Goes air and water stowaway – ’less ’n’ he’s found
He looks under rocks when the looking is good
When the looking is bad he looks misunderstood
Man traveling
Man traveling
Man traveling
Traveling
Traveling traveling man
|
||||
3. |
Ginny Mean
03:44
|
|||
Ginny Mean, what did I do to you?
Ginny Mean, what do I know?
Ginny Mean, mean what you say to me
Ginny mean baby, don’t let go—
Ginny Minx, you pull it out of me
Like a splinter greased in fat
Ginny Minx, running the farm for me
Running my trapline with the eye of a cat
I want your blind babies
I want your frying pan
I want to be your ball of fire
O Ginny, I want to be your burning man
Ginny Maiden, form up your squares for me
Build me a platform, make me a brand
Ginny Maiden, made in Japan for me
Shrunk in plastic, stuffed with spam
Ginny Mild, soap up your hands for me
Soap your swellings, soap mine too
Ginny Mild, fall in the can for me
Like I fall, baby, hard for you
You say woundsalt is a remedy
To quench the thirst within
You say thrown stones form a symphony
Like the rain on this tattered skin of tin
Ginny Martyr, bearing your cross for me
Bare it all, baby, all through the dark
Ginny Martyr, roll in the grass with me
I want to blast that egg right out of the park
Ginny Moist, let’s make some cake tonight
I’ll work the sponge, honey, you wield the toys
Ginny Moist, box up your tears for me
Box my ears, baby, but don’t box this voice
Don’t care about your surname
Don’t care about your hound
Go tell all your long goodbyes
Long as you, Ginny, don’t make a sound
Ginny Mourningdove, polish my head for me
Buff it blooming brill as nacre and oil
Drain and fill it with my daily quart of medicine
And I’ll bow deep, milady, from you to the soil
Ginny Mark, mark how you sniff at me
You spray, baby, like a Gatling gun
Ginny Mark, you marked the man in me
Your turning from the man makes me a setting sun
|
||||
4. |
My Archipelago
04:05
|
|||
My archipelago
My archipelago
The night is cold
The water, blacker yet
Night is cold
The water, blacker yet
The flight is swift
The fall, faster yet
The flight is swift
The fall, faster yet
Water laps
Laps after storm
The water laps
Laps after storm
Death is long
Song, stronger yet
Death is long
Song, stronger yet
My archipelago
My archipelago
My archipelago
My archipelago
|
||||
5. |
You Hold the Scissors
03:23
|
|||
Paper doll, you hold the scissors
Candy stripes up to your knee
Toadstool dress, and blood-red lipstick
You’re going to cut yourself free
Close your eyes and all you see are ink-
Mare spatters and drips
Other eyes and other tongues and teeth
And pale joyless lips
No walls are real
And yet they surround us
Flat as they feel
Their surface astounds us
White tomorrow, blank on both sides
But she turns the other way
Snowfield cut from postcard pipedream
From hothouse bird and bloom bouquet
No walls are real
And yet they surround us
Flat as we feel
All surface astounds us
Paper doll you’re your own plaything
Fold the tabs, hold out your hand
Paper doll leave off that nightdress
The white dress waits for your crayon
No walls are real
And yet they surround us
Flat as we feel
All surface astounds us
No walls are real
And yet they surround us
Flat as we feel
All surface astounds us
|
||||
6. |
Handsome Damaged
10:01
|
|||
And that’s the hardest part
The hole burned in your heart
Its tissue in the trash
The cardiac ash
Your heart’s remains will not be seen
Just felt as lead inside your dreams
An anchorchain round your throat
An unanswered ransom note
She was a smoothskin crocodile
Trying to walk on hindfeet
She slapped her tail and toothed her smile
And eyed you like bushmeat
And that’s the way it’s ended
That’s the way it’s gone – it goes
Your heart is running down the highway
Running with no clothes
And all of her changes
And all of her twists
She liked to keep you guessing
But you never guessed this
All the restless mornings
All the restless nights
Wondering when – without warning –
She would take flight
And that’s the way it started
That’s the way it went down (down, down)
Restless ain’t worth a quarter
And you know, that’s scarcely a crown
Restless as a trailer
Restless as a pig
Restless as a sailor
After three days in the brig
Restless as the monkey
Hiding in her briefs
Restless as a pilot flame
In a kitchen of grief
That restless muscle is still atwitch
However deep you dig
However high you pile it on
There’s throbbing in its forked twig
They say scar tissue’s
Stronger than the rest of your skin
But it aches – and besides, that’s not the organ
Your scars are situate in
Your restless heart does not want to heal
And it will not relent
Your restless heart won’t relinquish the wheel
Refuses to pay rent
Now you can call it telltale
Or faithful as a dog
But its strings, they must be snipped
To release you from this fog
And all of her changes
And all of her twists
She liked to keep you guessing
But you never guessed this
For that’s the hardest part
The hole burned in your heart
The tissue in the trash
The cardiac ash
|
Streaming and Download help