“Bombs Are Whistling”

[Verse]
I face it with my flayed skull
And await the morning wind
It burns like salt
It's not your fault
That I have got no skin
Crying out into the dawn
Until my voice is gone
I call
"I love you through it all."

[Verse]
They said I couldn't hold you
When I tried to take your hand
Alarm bells rang
The nurse was saying things I can't understand
Too warm, too warm
I drew my arm away against the glass
"Is he okay?"
My flayed skull asked

[Chorus]
I prayed the fear would pass
They say you need me here
Oh, and I need that
But I need it
My eyes scan every place
And I stand guard all night
In vigil, in warning and in waste
Unheeded

[Post-Chorus]
Wild, too cold and blue
But look at those curls
How do you do?

[Verse]
Though I cannot imagine
Recall it or conceive
Long ago and far away
I know what I believe
I know, I know, I know
Becuse they tell me that it’s true
That the spell will break and wake me anew

[Verse]
So I sit and rock and rock through space
And kiss your face and sing
The smoke is thick
My skin is sick
The bombs are whistling
The death, the doom
The leaden, looming dread is always near
But I love you
And you are here

[Chorus]
I feared that it had won
I feared that you would never find me
My darling son
But you found me
And though it took awhile
Now I look and find your blinding starlight smile
Surrounds me

[Post-Chorus]
We bleed through
Clear and true
Here with you now

[Verse]
I wish that I could show you
What I know about this pain
I tell you now, I don’t know how
But I’ll be back again
For bowing in the scouring
Wind that lays low everything
"I love you,"
My flayed skull sings
 “Home Economics”

[Verse 1]
With our heads full of gray by the end of the day
Won't you pour me a Mapleine tonic
Lower the shades on the terms of the trade
And the gale of the barreling comet

[Chorus]
My mind is easy
My mind is easy
Me and my queasy stomach

Here come my fears

Assailing me merrily, caroling stereophonic
And it's breaking your heart to see
How far they've got to me
That's a cornerstone of ordinary home economics

[Verse 2]
We've got doctors and plumbers
And camps for the summer
To cancel, reschedule and promise
I answer the phone and make plans and postpone
And atone for all of my wrongness

[Chorus]
And my mind is easy
My mind is easy
Though bees beseige my bonnet

The worry and guilt at my heels

Carry me up the hill
'Til I keel at the summit

And this hunger and scarcity

It just doesn't seem fair to me
With the rest of them not invested in these home economics

[Verse 3]
But I would not be far from you
I wish not to part from you
And I love you, I want just to show it
It's worth any verse that I may never write
Though it hurts tonight to know it

[Chorus]
But my mind is easy
My mind is easy
You're everything that I wanted

You're laughing at things that you're saying

And your soft little weight in my lap like a rabbit

And I'd do anything for you

But just what do you think I do?
Cue the gramophone
Leave your momma in her home economics

[Verse 4]
If you reckon it's stifling, being a housewife
In the guise of your glowing electronics
You should know there's no version of ours that incurred
No life like we were promised

[Chorus]
But my mind is easy
My mind is easy
I'm only one in a long list

Who birth and who nurse

And who serve and return to the earth
With no purchase upon it

And I cannot tell you no lies, children

You cannot sell or buy
What cannot be owned - that's a property of home economics

And I can't pay my loans without trading in these home economics

 “Little Hand”

Take her down, Tom, the time has come

At last, I can hear her song
Water contracts, our hold holds fast
Like the last of the iron lungs

My child and me through the miles and leagues

Fall as hard and sessile as hail
Echoing laughter fore and aft
O’er the raft of the violet snail

Now doesn't that sight put the fear of God in you

Green light sweeps like a nightstick swinging
Sonar softly pinging-ing-ing-ing-ing-ing-ing-ing,
I am appeased by what I have seen

Now turn around, Ma, you already saw

What you may and can look no further
Haunting a post where the Holy Ghost poses
Down through the rayless water

Holding a child, oh, ain't it nice

Ain't it wild and sweet to the verge of anguish?
Ain't it absurd, I do not have words
It is not for a lack of language

Tethered to our floating post

We scout for your crown and its Paley graph
Your periscope a coronet
Towering-ing-ing-ing-ing-ing-ing-ing

Our God and King, thy Father watches the sheep

And I swear on my soul, if it is all folderol

Let us ring 'round the roses, honey
Garbling all our sounds of war
Into hey nonny, nonny, nonny

Last and the least, when the fire has ceased

In a failsafe, essential breakaway
Shot is released, we rise automatically
Folderol, not-to-die, to-die-today

Music sets us spinning and spinning

Inscribe the memory of a honey bee
With the silence of a ballerina

We took a little walk across the lawn

It was 2 o'clock, with my soft shoes on
I meet you at the dock, "Can I cross the calm?"
I called, "Can I tag along?"

Hear you bawl a little sad song, it's a sad song

Keep singing it honey, it ain't long
Sing and I'll keep you safe and warm until the dawn
DSRV-2 Avalon

Wherever you are, wherever you've gone

Leaning your cheek into the apple yellow dawn, Highway 1
We've been itching to meet you
Recommission and reach you
If you listen I'll teach you a sad song

Sing your machinery to sleep and shut the door

Even Janthina once was as you are
Sworn anathema to the guns, and the megatons, and all
Only Janthina can defeat the men o' war

If you could only hear my joy, just to know her

Tie her little shoe, take her little hand
Say hello to her, hello
And there really ain't a lot I can show her

Up on the deck are we safe from harm?

Are we ready to surface?
In every respect, sound the alarm

It goes so fast, it will feel slow

We will arrive before you know
We are free to go if we don't get stuck
We'll be there by morning with a little luck
Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na (x4)

Lay her down, Tom, we are overrun

But there is time for another story
Smoke at the door is siphonophore
Coiling blue as a morning glory

It is the hour, see the little hand

See the lambs we have kept and guarded
Tower of steel cartwheel in the sand
With the force of the waters parted

It is the hour, we are far from home

We, the lambs who will not be slaughtered
I am not afraid, I am not alone
I'm not alone, I have brought my daughter
I'm not alone
 “Marie At The Mill”

I see you coming down in your cherry wool coat

Bare to the throat like Marie at the Mill
Where might you go from your lowly amour
Where they hoard you like gold in a hill

Sink from my side to the cold river-bed

Marie, you go ahead, I will follow in time
The work keeps me here with a few pioneers
Magnetizing a permanent line

Save for the coat, there was nothing to bring

It was found you could sing, you were sent to the bay
At seminary you passed and were buried
I rose there the very next day

For if you were born at the wrong time, my dear

Just keep trying and trying and trying again
As for the end, it is not what you fear
You’re just slipping a glove from your hand

Like this
Down, down, down, down your wrists
Down, down, the list of lives
Husbands and wives
Dozens of times around again and then

I will be born of the girls, heartbroke, alone and to rot

And coat me the heir of labour and myth
I crossed the Atlantic from Boston to Nantes
On the hand of my dear Mr. Smith

Then came his talk of perdition and sin

Like a cold winter wind come to blow me away
I was impatient and I sought education
On stage on the Champs-Élysées

I left on my own with the clothes on my back

And my old name intact, and my own bills to pay
I left him in debt with his feathered [?]
"Alouette, je te plumerai"

I had the honor to sing Mendelssohn

On the Ternary lawn, for the brave and the few
But it was my joy to be called to Bayreuth
For who toiled as a slave comes anew

A prince, a gentler worthiness

And [?] one, who ruled a king
May wander in rags, for things done
And undone and done and undone and done

I wed Mr. Russak, a fan

And producer of amateur music all lambent in pearls
Held court in Newport, amused myself before
I threw off the veil of the world

And when in time he sank under the sea

What he deeded to me was enough to begin
As secretary and past emissary
I rose through the ranks from within

My carnelian snuff bottle carved as a peach

And a small sterling wagon, well, that was part of a set
Confined to the waters of Eliot Beach
Left behind with your Pall Mall gazette

It was not luck put me there by his side

When the old Colonel died, and the adepts appeared
And oh, what they shared, well, you had to be there
But I’ll tell you if you wanna hear

Henry, your work here is done

Annie will carry it on
Marie, write it all down
Til’ the keynote is found
You run it up and down and round and round and round

So I did as I could
All the gaps of the [?] for good and only good
Through some lands that I've long forgot
I won to write clean and only transcribe the thoughts of

The boy from the beach, with his pervious soul

"Go a little, teach, I got you, do it as you’re told”
And even so, there is danger here in the sun
Honey, tell me what has Sirius done?

I hear it all, though I cannot assume

Long may you follow to the octagon room
And the boy from the beach, look at him go
[?]

I see the clock on the wall, I hear the knock on the door, but that is all

And when my work here is through

Henry, will you find me anew
Little stranger, my old friend
Woo me and win me again, and again, and again

All over again

All over again
All over again

There’s a lodger in me
Larger than me
Saw the cross in the garden where your process came to be and cut you free
Though your father tried to reunite with you, and yet he was allowed to die, despite
the lies we are grist in the mill

On the list I’m Helios still, Sun-Wielder

Brunhilde
Spun in shields
Running round, and round, and round
And round, and round, and round, and round
 “No Wonder”

Take it with me, love

To a place it can be, love
Little bird, little stone shine
Little light of the undying

Dig with your hands, dear

Gather our friends, dear
I'll cover it in dust, dear
Silence and trust, dear

Stay through the winter

Wait for the splinter
And the green in the springtime
Queen-and-her-king-time

And the sweet fruit all summer

Falls, hits like a drummer
And splits in the autumn
Pit with no bottom

And after the fall

Out in the country
In the long drought with you, honey
And a whole daughter and son
Ours to adore, whatever may come
After our chores end, and our money
And our scores are settled and done
Darling I will stay till the last
Plates are all filled, trays are all passed
Ain’t it a thrill, ain’t it a gas
Footin' the bill, we feast and we fast
At the foot of the hill we empty our glasses

And I'll follow you over

Will you follow me under?
Crawl through the shadows
Call out the wonder
Oh, how I love you!
Time will tell
I’ll never tire of you
I’m just tired of myself, dear

And as our days waft in

The ream all patters away
Soft as a dream, we laugh and we race
Off and on, we
Capture a stray pod on the breeze
Hammer a stake, mark in our seed
Manage to rake, water, and weed
Hundred-to-one; our garden will grow
But wonder or none, I wanna be known
Wanna be stunned, wanna be shown
Want for no one but you and your
Warm opening arms, watching the rolling
Storm clouds-

Sail by our window

And darken the valley
Pale, pocked, and dimpled
Crocodile bellies

We wait all night and count

The thunder
There is no lightning
It is no wonder

But just before dawn

Water comes streaming
Into the dark, every bead
Burns like a star, blink and you’ll sleep
Burns like a spark burrowing deep
Under the lawn, quiet and green
Rain has begun, honey come see
Under the sun rising like steam
Wonder or none I wanna be seen
Wanna eventually, eventually

Grow through the winter

And summer
Surely and slowly
Little stone shine of wonder
At home with you, only
 “Rovenshere”

Soft cheek upon the sill

Soft light of morning
Will greet your arrival
See to your survival
See it spread below you there
The settlement of Rovenshere
Wild strawberries grow
Among the herds of buffalo
Enough to go around and round
Our love is in the very ground
And suspended in the air
Of the land of Rovenshere

There is something I want to show you

There is something bothering me
Will you walk me home, honey?
There is something I want you to see
Some other gravid pelagical magic pulls
At the gulls flashing
Rose on their wings and wheeled away
The flock leaves steady nests
Exodus to the east
And vees off - set, making glyphs
Snaking like the hissing edge of the wave

There's an ocean over there, honey

I believe they're going to that sea
Smell it in the air, honey
Do you want to find it with me?

Depot agent, switchman, trackman, dispatcher, bridge tender, flagman, hostler,

grader, platelayer

Lately I've been listening

Tell you this, I know where they're going
Rolling in the distance
I hear the pistons and whistle a-blowing
Overhead the smudge heavily rises
Scuds, spreads and disguises with grease and coal
The flock leaves steady nests
Like tossed confetti drifts
Across the continents
Evidence of the geese and the gulls

I need to be of service to you

Chaperone a lonesome frontier
How do you do?
I'll welcome you to the border, my dear

Porter, point man, boiler man, gandy dancer, flag man, brake man, yard master,
steward, signal man

I plan to be there at the station

Once you're safely boarded, my dear
It's a separate conversation
You go on and I will stay here

By my side the love of mine stands

Golden spike in his hands
Hammering time into place
I see your faces against the glass
Angels and acrobats advancing at the gates

All aboard, all aboard the train

All aboard, all aboard the train
All aboard, all aboard the train
All aboard the train

Lay the beds and lower the blinds

Bear my heart into the night
Ain't it heavy, ain't it light?
What we carry, for our time
Is yours and mine
And we are gone in the blink of an eye
The shore, it shines at the end of the line

All aboard, all aboard the train

All aboard, all aboard the train
All aboard, all aboard the train
All aboard the train

I believe you'll be alright

At the depot we hold tight
Where you scale the mountainside
And prevail, we abide

And we will wait, we will write!

But who will raise the hue and cry?
For what was taken in the night
Aching bones and failing sight
Went sailing by in the blink of an eye
The rails, the ties, and the vacant sky
Arise and awaken
Cries the brakeman

Soft cheek upon the sill

Brakes squeak high and shrill
Wake you up in wonderment
See the change you underwent
Disembark and listen well
To the boardwalk and the carousel
And the cool green avenues
Where they're playing horseshoes
Hear the uncountable
Crowd of gulls surmount the shore
Landing with a caterwaul
At the end of all their tour
It is theirs and yours, my dear
Farewell to the engineer
Wish I could see you there
In the land of Rovenshere

[Spoken]
Well I hope you're listening very carefully children because there's not a star in the
sky you can follow to get there
There's no means of navigation
You have to convene at the station and get a ticket, be patient
Seems strange but it's not so different that you can't find your way there, or
breathe the air
Or that you don't want to stay there
And though it may, by mistake, be waylaid
Just find a seat on the great machine
Full steam, 42-tonnes and Lord!
Hear her run through the buffalo grass
Huffing like lungs along the tracks
That shine in the sun
Like a line of honey, slowly poured
Shining like a silken cord, winding through the hills that border Rovenshere, at last
Where the waves crash on the shore
And bask in the light of the Lord
Way down in the wide gorge
Where the tide rolls
And the white gulls arive, soar, and dive
Score the sky like lowering knives
Performing the rites of Rovenshere, at last

In the past I was there

It was allowed of me
And so that you might know just a little bit about me
I will tell you I have seen the white clouds fleeing their own shadows
To the sea, scattering beams
I've gathered sweet apples cast from the trees
And the cherries, plums, and tangerines
Heard the trunks creak in the breeze
Heard them drunk bees knocking petals from the lemon trees
And the meadow-peas and the nettle and anemones
And all lock arms, laugh and spill pell-mell down the hill
To—well, you know where
But I took the stairs!
And in the village square we hear the ringing of a dinner bell
And all will know that all is well
Announcing with a gallant sound
All are accounted for and found
For you see, no calamity befalls your friends or family here
At all in Rovenshere!
Well that's the hope, that's the prayer
It's not utopia, it's not heaven
Though it may as well be
For it’s a time and a place that I'll never see
But don't you worry about me
With my feet up on my rock candy chimney
And my gingerbread pied-a-terre
Up there on the coastline
In a home of my own Ma and Pa’s design

Do you see?
I do for you what they did for me
And you can do for yours in due course
And if it's just a story that don't make it any less true
Oh well if it's a song does that make it any less true?
Well I suggest you tell that to the company and crew of the Rovenshere express!
And then go collect your personal effects
Head on back west
Or you could stay... and I hope you do
And that's how you get there, anyway

Choo-choo!
 “The Air Again”

June of ‘78
Who are you, so arrayed
On the banks of the Lake Adair?
Pale lacuna agape—
But like the moon in the lake
You are not there
My poor canary

At uncertain behest
Maggie’d blown to the west
In a shimmering dust of gold
With her pale yellow hair
They would call her ‘Canary’
And I loved my Maggie so
And that is all you need to know

But women here ain’t ever glad,—

Not even Emma Nevada
Coming back to share her wedding cake!—
Women here ain’t ever free
(and Emma never left!); no she'd never leave;
We never last, we never ask, we never stake
A claim, or complain, or take

Not till I made a play

For a parcel that lay
On the Amador county line
Had a notion that I’d
Find employ by-and-by
At the Lonesome Willow Mine
But they don't enlist my kind

In the meantime—
Set to prospecting where I was able
And laying my Maggie a table
And when it was warm, we would pan;
When it stormed, play Vingt-et-Un
And when it was cold, they’d come sniffing, with gold in their hands!
On and on and again
On and on and again
You do what you can

Take a eighth of an ounce in allowance for a dance, only a dance

If you're alone and abandoned and cast aside, you know the pastor tried in vain to
ask her hand;
Even he!— well, everybody did

And I had a plan

But they had to sign away my mine
And the deed left us free to scrape and bleed and go to seed and never marry
Not canary, canary, canary, canary, canary, canary, canary, canary, canary, canary...

In the spring of that year

When the tinker was here
Gals would hire him to mend their tin
I heard ‘em swarm from afar
Like a storm in a jar
Like a choir of cherubim
Singing hymn, hymn, hymns—

—whispering, Maggie had gone

Must have skipped with someone!
Sounded wrong, though it did seem fair
April turned into May
And I looked every day for you, Maggie
Till I heard they found the whore with the golden hair
On the shores of the Lake Adair

On the sluice she was spread

Loose, and languid, and dead
From the kindness that she had shown
Still she told me her tale
Lifting veil after veil
To expose a grin upon
My yellow rose[?] in the low wind blown

And though I longed to believe

As I muddied my sleeve
And I studied the weakened hem
And I longed to revive
She was never alive, but by the grace, and the whim, and the will, and the yen
And the wickedness of men!

But what to do then?

I hauled myself up from the shore, and
I called at the door of the foreman
I told him and he laughed!
So, alas, there was savagery then!
Left a hole in his heart you could roll
A cabbage in! (A cabbage?!) (Oh no, no! Just a little one, Maggie! Just a little one!)

On and on and again

’til they saw what I am
And I am never done. I am never done

Went inside for the light

Got a paper and a pen
Where to begin?

Do you sue for the rights, route for the strike

Through the alluvium to where it heeds
For putting to the end of the lure of the deed
The noose on a live oak tree bent over the saloon tent and meant for
Me and Maggie!

And though it wasn’t him,—

It could’ve been him—
Or anyone who had done
What I know so many men intended when they came or went; They came and went
So arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant,
arrogant, arrogant...

Held a cloth to my hands

Taking stock of my plans
Well, there was something I had to make right
I took his old buggy whip
And I lowered a skip
In the glow of the sodium lights
With a load of dynamite

Maggie said, “I am here.”

And with a touch of [?]
After thirty years down in the mines
"Help me lead out the mules
Help me free the poor fools
Let them see for the very first time
They were blind, blind, blind”

Then we rode for the rift

And we bent genuflect
And she opened her neck like a scrim
I saw the Father appear;
Heard her sob in my ear
Like a mob of cherubim
Howling, “Him! Him!
It was him!”
It was him

So I threw a charge down the shaft

In a cart with the pastor who spat and evangelized
He was the last and the worst
Canary always goes first
To sing where the waters rise
Hear her sing. (Go on now, Maggie!)—

”On and on, on and on, on and on and again

And on and on
On and on and again!
On and on and again!”

Then a knock on the wall

And a knock and they all fall in
And down and in
And down and in

And they pass away

But they pass it on like a baton
Down in the mine
And so they return

Pull the pumps, fill the sumps [?????] something they will never learn
They will never learn
And even if the churn drill, and the stamp mill, and the Pelton wheel
And the smoking furnace, all a’burning, overturning, learn 'em
She will never breathe
The air again, air again, air again, air again, air again, air again, air again, air
again, air again, air again, air again, air again...

Like the screech of a flare

Or like they’re reaching for air
Beneath the smothering eiderdown
Veins of gold still outstretch
In a silent arrest
For miles and miles around
And if I’m underground

Then let me join in that line

And let me toil in that mine
Let me find what is hiding there
Let me dig where I durst
Let me drink when I thirst
And let me breathe the pallid air[?]
And breathe for my canary
And breathe;

Let me breathe
Let me breathe for my canary
Breathe for my canary, canary, canary
Breathe for my—
(canary always calls first!)
Breathe for my canary, canary, canary, canary
Breathe for my—
(canary always calls first!)
Breathe for my canary, canary, canary, canary
Breathe for my—
(canary always calls first!)
Breathe for my canary, canary, canary, canary...