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1. |
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through the scaffold boards
upon the backs of my stacks
beating windows
under eaves and shaking trees
whipping bricks in fits
the wind blows
the rain is rising, morning braking
thoughts are aching
tired beyond belief
through the scaffold boards
the wind blows
work slows
and you can taste the grief
through the scaffold boards
the land sways,
demands rage,
your hands age
this rain eats weeks and days
the eye strays
we'll see what the sky says
the clouds are severed
glimpse of heaven
weather holds our wages in its teeth
through the scaffold boards
your hands age,
plans fade,
and you can taste the grief
could you make peace with time?
hours lost inside your mind
praying that you find
a love to heal the daily grind
through the scaffold boards
a branch grows;
the leaf shows
veins in gold and green-
these lightening lines
are water chained
within the brushstrokes of a tree.
the blades are howling,
sky is scowling,
bolsters singing,
sound with relief;
through the scaffold boards,
a branch grows;
the earth knows
that you can taste the grief
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2. |
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And were you moved
As i was moved?
Searching through old photos
Wondering where the time goes
Running low
On clues?
Hey, what are the chances?
Auburn runs in the branches;
Yeah, my window's touched with rime
You've asked "Will life desert me
Now I'm feeling more 40 than 30,
Is it 'falling-of-the-curtain' time?"
I think it would surprise you
Just how often you are on our mind
I think you'll find
You're doing fine
Time, time, time
Time, what will you say?
Could it be the same hour
That heals, that fails, that falls,
And dances with decay?
Yeah, I see no weakness
Between your charisma and your sweetness,
Your kind eyes, you're quick to smile,
In your life, in every chapter,
You include the world in your laughter,
You just have to, that's your style
I think it would surprise you
Just how often you are on our mind
I think you'll find
You're doing fine
I'll make my peace
With each minute's scars
Tracing the trees
And the stars,
And you are one of ours;
Daily bring your brightness, drop politeness,
Bring your sorrow-
When you feel low, I hope you know
There's love behind these bars
I think it would surprise you
Just how often you are on our mind
I think you'll find
You're doing fine
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3. |
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Within the winter library,
There's snow on my diary,
And a bookcase overturned;
The histories I've burned-
If I thought you could find me
I'd hide beneath the light
Of what I've lost and what I've learned.
Death runs in the weather-
There's sleet on the heather,
There's ice upon the brass.
Tonight I'll drop a glass;
I'll pray it falls together;
I'll pray the fallen centuries will pass
I forgot the words to Mass-
Did I see you cast a last glance
At the Cross?
God of Loss
I keep the pages open,
It's the story that's broken,
The decades choking
On butcher kings
Making graveyards sing
With the weight of the dead
And their tongue of lead
And all their hopes unspoken
I hear your name and again we
Go to war for a memory
And the memory slips away;
My mind begins to play
On all those kinds words you'd send me
And it's killing me
To see you today
Do you ever feel that way?
When the names you knew
Are buried under frost?
God of loss
Evening falls, but the bells don't ring.
Symbol is the marriage
Of every broken thing;
Is there no safety you can give me
When the Word is not with me
And all my thoughts begin to sting?
Outside, the wind is beating
And winter comes creeping
But the dark is never nearer;
The truth could not be clearer:
God is a mother weeping,
Weeping, God is a mother,
Can't you hear her?
I lost the world today.
Do I turn and pray to every coin I toss?
God of Loss
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4. |
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How crawls the tide under sleet?
Your craft is weary, torn are your sails;
Nine winters lay at my feet
Since first I took a life,
Raised the knife,
Watched his breath fail-
Ljot the Pale!
And you'll see, there's no disguising
The child of the grave,
His accents of Hel;
My blade ascends like Fenrir rising-
Falls with a roar,
The heat of a meteor,
Iron-grey scales,
Serpent is writhing-
Ljot the Pale!
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5. |
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"This city crawls at dawn" she said,
"And it breaks my mind,
When the stars are gone
And the roads just grind."
Night is burning, thick with threat-
She paints the air with a cigarette-
I turn my face, I beg and chide,
But she wants to ride
She drops the locks
And the gears shift;
We pass my door in fourth or fifth.
Her eyes are blank, the engine hums;
Every colour starts to run;
She dips the lights
And the shadows writhe
On this midnight drive
Her grip is tight, her breathing slow.
Faure rules the radio;
Her voice is soft, dull as lead,
Whispering to the road ahead:
"I am the Light, I am the Law";
Street-lamps howling past my door,
The moon is curling like a scythe
On this midnight drive
Miles are spinning off the clock,
Wind is screaming, windscreen rocks,
There is just one way to stop!
She's got a face like thunder
As her fingers wander
On this midnight drive
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6. |
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See me through your keyhole
Prowling round your gate;
Hear my claws on all your doors,
Waiting for my chains to break-
Slouching towards Bethlehem,
I am howling for a form
To be born
Screaming in the brush in the Schalken,
I filled the inkwells of de Sade,
I marked Macbeth and Malcolm,
Fed the pride of Kierkegaard,
Led them to the loneliness
At the centre of the storm
To be born
Oh rock me softly, pray you keep
Me locked within my stony sleep.
I am the fire beneath all skin,
Roaring for the taste of sin!
Do you feel the chill begin to bite?
You'll beg for my help yet;
There's no honour among parasites
But hell is fond of debt.
I draw your accounts in red-
The colour of the dawn-
To be born
Oh rock my softly, swiftly spread
The rings of salt around your bed;
The candle fails, you twist and check
For midnight breath upon your neck!
My sword sleeps in the hands of fools,
The world waits to be drowned,
The sky is burning like a jewel,
Your house is tumbling down-
Rest your ears against the wall
And hear the locusts swarm
To be born!
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7. |
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Heavy weather warning-
Crystals are forming.
Snow-blind,
There's no time:
Lines are down,
And I'm out of my mind
Waiting for a sign
Heavy weather warning-
Winds are performing.
Mercury
Has fallen, we
Do not stand a chance
If we cannot see!
The tension's killing me
My thoughts stray
Watching storms play,
And we are shadows
In the mouth
Of the day
Heavy weather warning-
Heaven is yawning.
There's no prize
For self-sacrifice;
Caribou collapsing
Through the ice
Like scattered dice
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8. |
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The death of a sitcom
Is not too far
From the collapse of a star.
The arms of information
Run one way;
The story dies, and is told;
Story points, but cannot hold,
The story smiles and waits but cannot stay
When I was thirteen,
I never guessed I'd be
Quite so intimate with mediocrity.
"Let the more loving one be me."
The morning light is soft and spare,
The moon looks frail, the trees are bare,
Your old house is up for sale
And no one lives there
Time, time, time,
Place your hands in mine
For all the stories that we've lost,
Stories we could find;
Sigh, sigh, sigh,
Spit your anger at the sky
Lay it there and anywhere
Information goes to die
I'd rest in a sitcom
For sleep there is none,
I rise with the sun
To concrete blockwork,
Double-skins,
Frozen knuckles,
Bleeding shins
The week lies heavy on my limbs,
My mind is light
But gravity might win
The fate of canned laughter
Was brutal but deft:
No laughter was left.
I'll face the blame,
I knew the dangers,
Dived into the prime addiction:
Is it stories that sustain us
Or is loss
The pulse of fiction?
Time, time, time,
Place your hands in mine
For all the stories that we've lost,
Stories we could find;
Cry, cry, cry,
Write your tears upon the sky
Lay them there and anywhere
Information goes to die
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9. |
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Morning, darling.
Cry out your song;
We don't speak
When talk is cheap,
And you don't steal from sleep
For long
Your mother was an ocean to you
You'd swim for miles by night,
She shared her love
And danced upon a flood
To breathe you into life
Let the light about you play
What will you do with your day, darling?
What will you do with your day?
Forgive those who stray,
But you must find a way
To love the day
Open your eyes
Your head, your heart, you must
See that we are
A dance between stars,
Gardens out of dust
May you grow in love;
May you build the will to say
What will you do with your day, darling?
What will you do with your day?
Forgive those who stray,
But you must find a way
To love the day
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10. |
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Balleena!
Caught in holy fire;
Evening light turns the wires
Of that old
Telegraph pole
Slowly to gold;
Roll on, never tire,
You soar skyward,
Sea-bound,
Your rain meets the ground
Balleena!
By the evening blue,
Parent, child, swimming through,
And I bowed
To those two clouds,
Murmured aloud
"Roll on, ever true,
You soar skyward,
Sea-bound,
Your rain meets the ground"
Roll on thunder, driving rain!
Turn in wonder to the sky again;
Cloud and stirling share their news
With the man in the wind
And the flame of your blue fuse
Balleena!
Oceans in the stars.
Whales unwind under Mars,
And that sight
In the pale night:
Orcas in flight-
Sing on, silver bars
You soar skyward,
Sea-bound,
Your rain meets the ground.
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11. |
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in cold circles, with a burning hand guiding
ignorant and endless comes the dawn
your mind is a river, mine a swarm
the crows here abandon an oak like black fire rising
how swift the echo becomes the cave;
a column of cloud marches above
driving the light from the lost and the saved-
hold me in your love
colder than the grave- but the light here is stable
this nursery among stars
and the meteor's speed leaving scars
of dust and ice within the stellar cradle
birds assault the sky, and the sky is singing
songs that remind me of you
I'll find you in the blue
of the new day, in the soft hail stinging
how swift the echo becomes the cave;
a column of cloud marches above
driving the light from the lost and the saved-
hold me in your love
speech of space: no clearer than the tongues of Babel
beneath the Plough, beyond the Belt
along the light the North Star dealt
I can only guess what you felt beneath the stellar cradle
sunlight reel, enfolds the earth
through a column of hail pale as a dove
and we move in the hope of birth
hold me in your love
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12. |
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through the scaffold boards
upon the backs of my stacks
beating windows
under eaves and shaking trees
whipping bricks in fits
the wind blows
the rain is rising, morning braking
thoughts are aching
tired beyond belief
through the scaffold boards
the wind blows
work slows
and you can taste the grief
through the scaffold boards
the land sways,
demands rage,
your hands age
this rain eats weeks and days
the eye strays
we'll see what the sky says
the clouds are severed
glimpse of heaven
weather holds our wages in its teeth
through the scaffold boards
your hands age,
plans fade,
and you can taste the grief
could you make peace with time?
hours lost inside your mind
praying that you find
a love to heal the daily grind
through the scaffold boards
a branch grows;
the leaf shows
veins in gold and green-
these lightening lines
are water chained
within the brushstrokes of a tree.
the blades are howling,
sky is scowling,
bolsters singing,
sound with relief;
through the scaffold boards,
a branch grows;
the earth knows
that you can taste the grief
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13. |
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released August 10, 2023
