Soar - lyrics

Watched a film
with cowboys and guns
when battles were won
in whiskey soaked dreams.
She’s shot down
in the orange of a sun,
died so young.
The pain’s his defeat.

Heard a song
about things in the wind
when happiness ends,
the bitter drenched flow.
Rock and roll
ain’t no answer at all,
just a rise to a fall
in cynical rhyme.

I will soar when I know what love is for.
I will soar when I know what love is for.
I will soar when I know what love is for.
I will soar when I know what love is for.

I will soar when I know what love is for.
I will soar when I know what love is for.
I will soar when I know what love is for.
I will soar when I know what love is for.

We touched hands
over milkshakes at night,
pursuing our light,
and presents from fate.
We never saw,
in our infinite spaces,
how an inch from our faces
our birthday cakes shine.

Christo - lyrics

Block the sunlight. I don’t want to see.
Today’s too much. I don’t know what to be.
I see curtains hanging in the park,
orange and flowing, pushing back the dark.
I write sculptures. I build music.
I write sculptures. I build music.

Some call me a genius. I sing beyond the sea.
Others laugh hate higher up than me.
But they don’t know all the things I do.
They walk blindly. They don’t have a clue.
I write sculptures. I build music.
I write sculptures. I build music.

Leonard Cohen. Maybe he was right.
We are ugly, but the music makes us light.
We see essence. We see what’s really there,
We write our rhythms in the heaving speech of air.
We write sculptures. We build music.
We write sculptures. We build music.

Beget the beauty. That’s the little game.
I hear voices from a picture frame.
Plato’s calling. I can hear his lines.
I climb his ladder to stop the rub of time.
I write sculptures. I build music.
I write sculptures. I build music.

Wrap it up, now. I can see what’s real
spiral sweetly like a lemon peel,
but it’s never ever changed a thing.
Lonely painters still sit alone to sing.
They write sculptures. They build music.
They write sculptures. They build music.

So take the sunlight. All I want is sleep.
These mental hiccups are neither in nor deep.
I’ll just dream now, of a different day
where I give my vision to hear some woman say –
“Write me sculptures. Build me music.”
“Write me sculptures. Build me music.”

Cancers That I've Had - lyrics

When he was just a baby, his mother sang him so,
“Don’t go to County Fallon to fight the English snow.
Your father was a martyr, for some greater good.
Don’t roll the dice or fight the gods of wood.”

Stories steeped in rusted time
are the bells about to chime.
People come and people pass
to better worlds of greener grass.

I’ve read your poems. They make me cry,
all the miseries and why.
Sadder still is what they save,
clever words tied to the grave.

His mother was a-sleeping when he grabbed his coat and gun,
and wrote for her a note to say the reasons why he’d gone.
The English killed his people. They raped and maimed his land.
For that they’d taste the musket in his hand.

All I ever do is sigh,
like a man about to die,
and drag these blues words to tone,
oh these soundtracks of alone.

All the songs I know are sad.
They are cancers that I’ve had.
Wrecks of trains and death abound
are inspiration for the sound.

It’s one shot for his father. And two shots for his Rose.
And three shots for the bullet that flies behind his nose.
And four shots for the blood, my friends.
And five shots for the cave his mother goes for flowers for his grave.

A Small Request - lyrics

Ladies, I don’t mean to amuse you
with my song.
Fact is I will abuse you
before long.
And I’ll probably confuse you
and beat the gong
of driving you away.

Eyes, mine, abstract footsteps
in my inner space
beat the subtract regrets
of your grace.
ill attract my language begets,
but just in case
please remember this.

Don’t fall in love with a poet
because it’s over before you know it.
The lines may sound like solid strips of gold,
but the scars, they get so old.

She says: “Your words are so beautiful
to me.
And, your thoughts on art are beautiful
to me.
But, the concepts have no meaning
to me.
So I...I will twirl away.”

And she says: “I’ve never been a muse
until tonight,
and the prospect is too much
for my light.
You may think you know my world,
but you’re not right.
So I...I will disappear.” Should’ve told them

Don’t fall in love with a poet
because it’s over before you know it.
The metaphors and broken bits of string,
oh these...these become the dream.

So ladies I stand before you
with these thoughts.
This message I implore you
like things I’ve fought.
This, my fiction, may restore you.
You might be bought,
or you...you might be sold.

So to translate,
to bring things around,
do not concentrate too much
on my sound.
I only serve to illustrate
this taste of ground.
Move along. There’s nothing more to see. And just remember...

Don’t fall in love with a poet
because it’s over before you know it.
You may think we have the gift of sight,
but soon enough you become the fight.

Nowhere Bound - lyrics

Waiting for the train, snow is falling fast.
All the people shivering, somehow always last.
They feel the platform fade with the freezing ground.
Soon enough they’ll be there too on a line that’s nowhere bound.

In the gentle glide, the cars rock side to side.
All their eyes are somewhere else, lost within the ride.
They huddle in their coats to read the daily papered news.
Soon enough they’ll hum a song then they’ll stamp it with their shoes.

Gathered for the game, late night cold outside.
All the patrons pack their mugs to toast the city’s pride.
They see the pass go up, as the running ends.
Soon enough they’ll feel the speed of these tracks that curve and bend.

Home just through the door, to rooms so dark and still.
They throw their keys on table tops to make sure it’s still real.
Then they take the plunge in barely folded sheets.
Soon enough they’ll be there too on a journey that repeats.

The Resistance

We’re on the run. This isn’t fun.
We’re six years out the door.
We’re so alone
on midnight streets, and fractured beats,
slaying villain fiends
with stones.

They took our lives, our homes, our wives.
They tore our futures down.
Oh they burned!
But we strike back with clang and clack.
Those bastards will taste our wrath.
It’s their turn!

The fires glow. The wind, it blows.
We’ll greet their noise and drums
before they’re drawn.
We don’t fear death, the loss of breath,
and so we carry on
into the dawn.

I See You Like Bagels - lyrics

Hello or goodbye, whichever you choose.
I see you each morning, an hour to lose.
Eyes on your bagel, back to the sun,
the setting repeats itself, but it’s never overdone.

It’s today tonight. It’s something alright.
But the lights in the throng have got to be wrong.
The day sings a sadness like angry blood cells.
It’s some kind...it’s some kind...it’s some kind...it’s some kind.
It’s some kind of hell.

Just give me a signal. I’ll walk your way.
Maybe I’ll smile, or just pass away.
I need the Tabasco. It’s by your right hand.
I love these excuses for taking a stand.

Right now it’s ended. It’s all been pretended.
But the windows and floors are begging for more.
Everyone’s grounded with hungers to quell.
It’s some kind...it’s some kind...it’s some kind...it’s some kind.
It’s some kind of hell.

How ‘bout this weather? I think it might rain.
Can’t stand the small talk. Drives me insane.
I see you like bagels. Hey, so do I.
Could you say “I love you” for giving this try?

Frantic, ragged, it’s icicle jagged.
But the beat of the song has got to go on.
I feel like some fate wished to the well.
It’s some kind...it’s some kind...it’s some kind...it’s some kind.
It’s some kind of hell.

Guess I’ll be going. There’s no more to say.
I’m sorry I ever looked over this way.
My omelet and bacon are some kind of joke.
I feel like the bubbles that swim in my Coke.

Goodbye, good luck. It’s hey what the fuck.
But the time and the sound are about to come round.
We’re swinging our sadness like Byzantine bells.
It’s some kind...it’s some kind...it’s some kind...it’s some kind.
It’s some kind of hell.

Unheroic - lyrics

So songs of love never were my style.
Sang them once, but they taste like bile.
So why am I singing one
to you?
Romantic kings always sang to stars
in whisper tones, on hushed guitars,
but all I know is how to sing
the blues.

Not Don Quixote. Not Hanuman.
Can’t quell these fires that burn your lawn,
just use them to cook
your birds.
Don’t have a sword. Don’t own a cape.
My superpower’s my fast escape,
these pencil lines, this pagan faith,
these words.

She laughed at things I thought I knew,
philosophy I thought was true,
axioms that taught me how
to feel.
“Baby what if God’s not home?
Does it mean that we’re alone?
Or does it mean that you and I
are real?”

Dilettantes - lyrics

All alone,
but he sets the table anyway.
By the phone,
he tries to think of better words to say.
Lets it go,
like fading, fleeting hours of the night.
It’s as though
the avenues that lead to him aren’t right.

This is the blanket covering his feet,
the insecurity that feels complete,
The crumpled style never fit to stay,
this is the part that he was meant to play.

In a bar,
he holds a humble whiskey like a rose.
At the floor,
he washes all the wisdom to his toes.
He reflects
on tests and scans and inner bleeding stings.
Through the night,
he’ll drink to watch these baseball players swing.

This is the scene so quivering to tell,
the bitter taste of mediocre hell.
The vaunted veil that’s hampering his sight,
this is the poem that he was meant to write.

In a field,
no one’s there to hear him hit the ground.
At the sky,
he casts his eyes but all he knows is sound.
In a church,
a minister pays tribute to a life,
to a man
who leaves behind a family and a wife.

This is the final painting that we sell,
a congregation caught beneath a bell.
A passing throng of deacons soft as wings,
this is the song that we were meant to sing.

Arms Length - lyrics

"His glass moves.
He doesn't hear your words, but he sees you."
I narrate these scenes I seem to spin through.
I drink again to drive away these blues,
to dream about a beach
where I keep you at arms length.

She's gone.
She leaves with the reasons why I'm wrong,
the grocery list that's greater getting long,
the booze that smokes and circles around the song
she always loved to teach.
I'll keep her at arms length.

They're here.
They tell me that the want to make it so clear,
regale me with the greatest of their fears.
I love them more than the total of my tears,
but I'm out of reach.
I'll keep them at arms length.

I can't stand
this life I've carried through the gritty sand,
the piss, the shit, these squandered rubber bands,
the expectations coursing through my hands,
bruises through the breach.
I'll keep them at arms length.

"He thinks
about the ice cubes floating in his drink,
the blood he just coughed up in the sink,
the day he won't know how to blink,
sheets that smell like bleach.
He keeps it at arms length."