1. |
Keepsake
02:22
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When you looked at me
And you called my name,
Offered me a drink.
I’m in your brother’s house and he’s away.
I’m a bruise in here,
In your clean, white space.
You lock eyes with me,
Open a bottle. Ask if I would stay?
~~~
Here in your home.
~~~
I won’t sleep while the others are,
Sleep with another one,
Sleep with the covers blown easy.
~~~
Here in your home.
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2. |
Lighthousekeeping
04:49
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The silence turned your bed into
An altar
Of sacrifice.
The rain around the lighthouse made us
The only ones
Left alive.
The drought has broken golden rules
Of the sanctity
Of separate lives.
I wrote a letter by the way.
I wrote it over and again.
~~~
This town is full of bombardiers,
Of cavalry
And of hidden knives.
I never thought me good enough
To save the barges,
Make way for sailors home to wives.
I got your letter by the way.
It fucked me over.
I was a prisoner,
Almost bound to throw the key away.
So tell me again
That I’m good enough.
~~~
We’ll watch the weather change
And we will disappear that way.
We’ll watch the weather change.
And we will disappear that way.
We’ll watch the weather change.
And we will disappear.
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3. |
Mise En Scene
03:54
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That’s how it starts.
A need I had,
A language steeped in misery.
Oh, it gets cool
In the evenings
When the mystery is lost.
So here I sit
In your favourite chair
As the irises start withering.
Curled in my lap
The hound’s slow breath
Is like a surely ticking clock.
~~~
Sparrows line up
At the windowsill
Like a chorus-line before counting in
And I have not moved
And the dust still hangs
In the air like muslin, settling.
Oh but it’s cruel
And it’s cold and damp
As the ants and spiders cover me.
Barely a breath
In the room you left
As the echoes taper off.
~~~
I swore I saw you dancing
And I swore I saw you waving.
Now the tide is disappearing
But that was just a movie.
I swore I saw you dancing
And I swore I saw you waving.
But that was just a movie.
Now the tide…
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4. |
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I saw pictures of the Seventies.
I saw Lennon on a plane,
Revolution and the new machine;
I saw Richard Nixon wringing out his hands ‘cause nothings changed.
They’re still fucking in The Killing Fields.
There’s still napalm in the rain.
There’s a tax on almost everything.
Say again John Lennon; only Rock and Roll will die in vain.
~~~
I saw pictures of a wedding day,
Saw my mother in her dress.
I saw Grandpa’s beaming, hopeful face.
I don’t need a reason; love and love alone will pave the way.
She is dancing down the runway pleased.
She will marry him and fall.
With electricity and autumn ease;
There’s my Grandma poised to give away their daughter by the wall.
Skip to Grandpa on a blood machine.
They know Grandma on the ward.
I’ve got money. I’ve got everything
But my brain knows better, ‘All We Need Is Love’ won’t stop it all.
~~~
In here where money doesn’t help,
“My head is heavy. Can you hold it up?”
“Ten Thirty and the nurse would like to see you if you’re well enough?”
“Man, they want you to say some words.”
Now at the table there’s a space.
I’m not ready for a eulogy; I’m not ready for the next few days.
~~~
They’re still fucking in The Killing Fields
But The Ogre changed his name.
I saw Lennon promising me peace.
Even he knew better, Rock and Roll could barely stand the rain.
~~~
She leant in and kissed the harrow from his face.
Tell me Lennon did we make it out OK?
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5. |
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High strung,
Weak wrists,
A peroxide blonde with blood-red lips,
So cool; like a feather.
New work,
Sea breeze.
She is quieter now than she’s ever been,
Like new sheets of paper.
~~~
High tongue,
Sweet thing
Presses into me, and she tastes like gin
And a note unfamiliar.
She said
We’d win.
That her heart still lives at Little Collins St,
High above all the terror.
But the calendar has whittled away.
There are piles of dead leaves in the entrance way
There’s a key that doesn’t fit anyway.
~~~
Long gone
Twice removed
But it still feels like her job is to light the moon
Still stings like ever.
Cruel clock,
Mean ticks.
I’ve got piles of her paper that still bears
Her ink and sings her praises.
If you ever wander bye in the street
In the arms of other lovers who I couldn’t be,
If you ever turn a temperate thought to me…
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6. |
Aurora Australis
03:52
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Heidi is home,
Hiding’s its own reward.
I took a job
Writing the whole thing down.
There is a war
Tearing the western world asunder.
Hide in your skull
Where I will keep you and I will keep you warm.
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7. |
Stoic
03:47
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Lately I’ve been feeling,
Adrift upon the sea,
Like I am not the captain
And time does not belong to me.
I’m stoic as a scarecrow
Unbothered by the breeze.
This is someone else’s suffering and now
My branches would return to trees.
Furrow in the brow and charming,
Sternly cast a long lined shadow.
Window is a mirror and the past is a reflection.
All good children go to heaven
Past the garden, past temptation,
Past the proletariat and past the waves of the shame.
I can wait for you only so long now.
Put on your dancing shoes
And spin.
~~~
Artful is as artful does,
These parties always end up early.
Won’t these Yankee animals stop pawing at your skirts?
And if you
Work your knuckles stiff and bruise your muscles at an easel.
You’ll be working then you’re leaving something
Long after you’re dead.
~~~
I can wait for you only so long now.
Put on your dancing shoes
And spin.
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8. |
The Bells
05:02
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One day there’ll be a note that I can’t sing for you.
One day there’ll be a bed where you won’t lay.
One day there’ll be a letter I can’t send and you won't
Read it anyway.
One day you will be ashes on a mantelpiece.
One day they’ll put my body in the ground.
They say there is a river we all cross, the other side
I bet is where we drown. And you said…
“Me, Oh My.
We’re all dying.”
~~~
One day there was a pigeon near my work.
A crow had picked the eyeballs from its face
And from its silver chin its calendar went leaking.
Propped up on a gutter in the rain.
Now I’ve got people trying to shoot my name
Saying that my sex is something wrong
And I am stunned to silence by the contradiction.
I’m nothing less than overcome. And you said…
“Me, Oh My.
We’re all dying.”
~~~
Now the winter
Is a menace
And the father is a mess
And the pigeon
Was a mercy kill
Once the mother moved her nest
To a safe place;
To higher ground.
I’m reminded of my mother crying
"Light it up! I wanna hear the bells!!"
“Me, Oh My.
We’re all dying.”
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9. |
Dear Sun
06:24
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Dear Sun,
The halcyon days are done.
Now I’m the one that’s setting, you can all go on forgetting
This one.
How I am done deceiving
All the people that believed they’d need me.
I have never wished for more love.
As I write this I realise I’m dying,
My baby’s crying. My throat feels dry.
Now if I wrote this right you shouldn’t read another line
‘Cause Sunny I was never meant for this.
Sunny I was never meant to die.
At night I’m with everyone
Now I am the settling sun.
Maybe in another world
We’d be less like a fever dream, drunk.
Tell my darling we never worked and
Give my love to The Accident.
Give them all of my love.
Tell my son
That I am long gone.
~~~
At night I’m with everyone
And now I’m the settling son.
At night I’m with everyone
And now I miss everyone
And I am the settling sun.
Give my love to everyone.
Now I have been overcome.
I dreamt of a heavenly swan.
At night I’m with everyone
And now I miss everyone
And I am the settling sun.
Give my love to everyone.
Now I have been overcome.
I dreamt of a heavenly swan.
At night I miss everyone. (At night I miss everyone.)
At night I miss everyone. (At night I miss everyone.)
At night I miss everyone. (At night I miss everyone.)
At night I miss everyone. (At night I miss everyone.)
I dreamt of a heavenly
Swan.
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10. |
Good People
04:31
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You are all good people; you’re all really good people
And the good ones always get what they deserve.
You are just like clockwork; you’re all regular as clockwork
And in turn you are the winding of the world.
You are babies dying; you’re all beautiful and dying
Begging somebody to save you from yourselves.
But it’s just as tragic as mortality and taxes.
It’s an absolute and self-defining hell.
I just want to be a good woman.
To be everything you want but couldn’t ask.
And I hoped you’d be good at being a man.
Let that lump rise in your throat.
There are diamonds in your contrite hands.
~~~
Hey, I read your story. It’s a devastating story,
Every letter’s as important as the last.
It was on good paper and your handwriting’s amazing
It was just so hard for me to understand
Why all those good people; all those really good people,
So well written that they jumped right off the page,
Had to end up dying; end up beautiful and dying?
I’m just glad it’s works of fiction. Fuck, I hope so anyway!
…And I want to be a good woman.
To be everything you want but couldn’t ask.
And I hoped you’d be good at being a man.
Let that lump rise in your throat.
There are diamonds in your contrite hands.
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