1.Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car
Love was a promise made of smoke
In a frozen copse of trees
A bone cold and older than our bodies
Slowly floating in the sea
Every morning there were planes
The shiny blades of pagan angels in our father's skies
Every evening I would watch her hold the pillow
Tight against her hollows, her unholy child
I was still a beggar shaking out my stolen coat
Among the angry cemetery leaves
When they caught the king beneath the borrowed car
Righteous, drunk, and fumbling for the royal keys
Love was a father's flag and sung like a shank
In a cake on our leather boots
A beautiful feather floating down
To where the birds had shit on empty chapel pews
Every morning we found one more machine
To mock our ever waning patience at the well
Every evening she'd descend the mountain stealing socks
And singing something good where all the horses fell
Like a snake within the wilted garden wall
I'd hint to her every possibility
While with his gun the pagan angel rose to say
'My love is one made to break every bended knee'
2.White Tooth Man
Said the plain clothes cop to the beauty queen
I've seen nothing but a spoke in a wheel
So she gave up her crown to a kid with a crutch
And they both felt cheated after closing the deal
And the white tooth man, I ran with him
Got all cut up from pissing out in the weeds
And a fight upstate with a broken blade
And a wife whose finger never wanted a ring
Said the plain clothes cop to the Indian chief
I've made nothing but an honest mistake
The postman cried while reading the mail
And we all got trampled in the Christmas parade
And the white tooth man who sold me a gun
A map of Canaan and a government bond
Said, I love this town, but it ain't the same
The ski mask ripped as he was putting it on
Said the plain clothes cop to the holy ghost
I've heard nothing if it wasn't the wind
And we all got sick on a strip club meal
While the statehouse was frying all the witches again
So the white tooth man with his kids in the car
And a wad of money that was already spent
Said, I love my dog but she just ran away
She'll keep running like the world never ends
3.Lovesong Of The Buzzard
In the failing light of the afternoon
Lucy in the shade of the dogwood blooms
Yesterday the solace of a poison fish
Tomorrow I'll be kissing on her blood red lips
No one is the savior they would like to be
The lovesong of the buzzard in the dogwood tree
With a train of horses laughing through the traffic line
And the cradle's unimaginative sense of time
Springtime and the promise of an open fist
A tattoo of a flower on a broken wrist
Lucy tells me jokingly to wipe her brow
With a pocket map to heaven and the sun goes down
4.Carousel
Almost home
And I miss the bottom stair
You were braiding your grey hair
And it's grown so long
Since I've been gone
Now the perfect girls,
By the pool, they would protest
With crosses 'round their necks,
But our sons were overseas,
And we all know about the hive and the honey bees.
Almost home
With an olive branch and a dove
You were beating on a persian rug
With your Bible and your wedding band
Both hidden on the TV stand.
And the cruel wind blew
Every city father fell
Off the county carousel
While the dogs were eating snow
All our sons had sunk in a trunk
Of no one's clothes
Almost home,
We got lost on our new street,
While your grieving girls all died in their sleep,
So the dogs all went unfed,
A great dream of bones all piled on a bed
And the cops couldn't care,
When that crackhead built a boat
And said, 'please, before I go
May your only honor bought
Be the kinship of the kids in the riot squad.
5.House By The Sea
There is a house by the sea
Two jealous sisters, they're waiting for me
And one is laid on the floor
And one is changing the locks on the doors
And I've been buying the time on my knees
And I've been selling their blankets to bleed(on)
Around the house by the sea
The scent of roses and raspberry leaves
And there is smoke in my clothes
Too much time with just smoke in my nose
And I've been making the meaning they lack
And I've been burning that book they come back too
There is a house by the sea
And an ocean between it and me
And like the shape of a wave
The jealous sisters will sing on my grave
And I've been living to run where they led
And I've been dying to rise from their bed
And I've been sparing my neck from their chain
And they've been changing the sound of my name
And I've been swimming to them in my sleep
And I've been dreaming our love and our freedom
6.Innocent Bones
Cain got a milk-eyed mule from the auction
Abel got a telephone
And even the last of the blue-eyed babies know
That the burning man is the color of the end of day
And how every tongue that gets bit always has another word to
say
Cain bought a blade from some witch at the window
Abel bought a bag of weed
And even the last of the brown-eyed babies see
That the cartoon king has a tattoo of a bleeding heart
There ain't a penthouse Christian wants the pain of
the scab, but they all want the scar
How every mouth sings of what it's without so we all sing of
love
And how it ain't one dog who's good at fucking and
denying who he's thinking of
Cain heard a cat tumble limp off the rooftop
Abel heard his papa pray
And even the last of the black-eyed babies say
That every saint has a chair you can borrow and a church to sell
That the wind blows cold across the back of the master
and the kitchen help
There's a big pile of innocent bones still holding up the garden
wall
And it was always the broken hand we learned to lean on after
all
How God knows if Christ came back he would find us in a poker
game
After finding out the drugs were all free but they
won't let you out the door again
7.Wolves(Song Of The Shepherd's Dog)
Wolves by the road
And a bike wheel spinning on a pawn shop wall
She leaned on her coloured hair
Like a butterfly wing in a summer rainfall
And the roll on the kitchen floor
Some f---er with a pocketful of foreign change
Song of the shepherd's dog
A pitch in the dark in the ear of the lamb who was going to try
to run away
Whoever got that brave？
Wolves in the middle of town
And the chapel bell ringing through the wind-blown trees
To wave to the butcher's boy with the parking lot music
everybody believes
And then out like a dying bird in the ？？ in the corner of the
penny arcade
Song of the shepherd's dog
Waiting around the jack call of the rooster
On the rooftop waiting for day
And ain't nobody's gonna say
Wolves at the end of the bed
And a postcard hidden in her winter clothes
She beat in the back of a truck
To the trailers when we trying to find the bullet hole
And then run down the canopy rows
Some mother and a baby with a cross to nail
Song of the shepherd's dog
Little brown flea in the bottle of oil for your woolly wild hair
You'll never get him out of there
8.Resurrection Fern
In our days we will live
Like our ghosts will live
Pitching glass at the cornfield crows
And folding clothes
Like stubborn boys across the room
We'll keep everything
Grandpa's gun, the black bear claw
They took her doll
When sister Laurie says 'Amen'
We won't hear anything
The ten-car train will take that word
A fledgling bird
And the falling house across the way
It'll keep everything
The baby's breath, our bravery wasted
And our shame
And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies bound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its Resurrection Fern
In our day we will say
What our ghosts will say
We gave the world what it saw fit
But what'd we get？
Like stubborn boys with big green eyes
We'll see everything
The tender shade, the autumn leaves
The buzzard's wing
We'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and his Resurrection Fern
9.Boy With A Coin
A boy with a coin, he found in the weeds
With bullets and pages of trade magazines
Close to a car that flipped on the turn
When God left the ground to circle the world
A girl with a bird, she found in the snow
Then flew up her gown and that's how she knows
If God made her eyes for crying at birth
Then left the ground to circle the Earth
A boy with a coin, he crammed in his jeans
Then making a wish, he tossed in the sea
Walked to a town that all of us burn
When God left the ground to circle the world
10.The Devil Never Sleeps
Dreamin' again of a train track ending at the edge of the sea
Big black cloud was low and rolling our way
Dog at the barbed wire barkin' at my buzz-cut friends
Friend with a switch blade shinin' in the summer rain
No one on the corner had a quarter for the telephone
Everybody bitchin' there's nothing on the radio
Dreamin' again of a city full of fathers and their white clothes
Chatterin' boys and a chicken at the choppin' block
All of us lost at the crosswalk waitin' for the other to go
Didn't find the field but boy you're really waterlogged
Someone bet a dollar that their daddy wasn't comin' home
Everybody bitchin' there's nothing on the radio
Dreamin' again that it's freezin' and my mother's in a flower
bed
Long dead rows of daffodils and marigolds
Changin' her face like a shadow on the ground
11.Peace Beneath The City
Here's a prayer for the body buried by the interstate
Murder of a soldier, a tree in a forest up in flames
Black valley, peace beneath the city
Where the women hear the washboard rhythm in their bosom when
they say,
'Give me good legs and a Japanese car and show me a road
Sing a song for the bodies buried by the riverbank
A well-dressed boy and a pig with a bullet in the brain
Black valley, peace beneath the city
Where the white girls wander the strip mall, singing all day,
Give me a juggernaut heart and a Japanese car and someone to
free'
Sing a song for the body buried like a keepsake
Mother of million mouths with the very same name
Black valley, peace beneath the city
Where the women tell the weather but never ever tell you what
they pray
They pray, 'Give me a yellow brick road and a Japanese car and
benevolent
change'
12.Flightless Bird, American Mouth
I was a quick wet boy
Diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes
Wide on my plastic toys
And when the cops closed the fair
I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map
And called for you everywhere
Have I found you？
Flightless bird
Jealous, weeping
Or lost you？
American mouth
Big pill looming
Now I'm a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats
Curl through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures
Thrown in the cold and clean
Blood of Christ mountain stream
Have I found you？
Flightless bird
Grounded, bleeding
Or lost you？
American mouth
Big pill, stuck going down
13.Arms Of A Thief
Mr.Henry and the muscle man
Gave her shoes on a night there was no room to stand
And like a letter in a stolen purse
She was bored of her weight, she was bored of her words
The daughter of a soldier told the fallen priest
'It's a cold, cold place in the arm's of a thief.'
And reaching out to touch the steering wheel she said
'Leave me alone but just don't leave me here, alright？
alright？
Mr.Henry and another guy
Gave her gold on a night that it fell from the sky
And like her body when the buzzard came
She was bored of her luck, she was bored of her name
The daughter of a lawyer told the fallen priest
'It's a cold, cold place in the arm's of a thief'
And dabbing at the arrow in her heel she said
'Leave me alone but just don't leave me here alright？'
Mr.Henry was a dying man
With advice in a tongue that she didn't understand.
And like the water when the sea got rough,
She was bored of the breeze, she was bored of her love.
The winner and the loser told the fallen priest,
'It's a cold,cold world in the arm's of a thief'
And holding everything he made her steal she said
'Leave me alone but just don't leave me here, alright？'
14.Kingdom Of The Animals
Jenny was gone
And the moon blooms
All shining
As we dragged our panic
Up and down the riverbed
Sweating wild and weird
In our Sunday clothes
Jenny was gone
Though I thought that I knew her
And the rain came howling
Out of Virginia
Blue tick blowing the water
Out her nose
Jenny and me in the front row
And singing about how heaven calls
The kingdom of the animals all
And all revealed to us one day
Jenny and me on the hilltop
And peeking at all their upturned bottles
Jumping like leopards
Jaw hearp teasing the brushfire in its rage
Jenny came back
And the wet road still shining in our eyes
An angel clear and coronal
Clothed in all that's prodigal and strange
Jenny came back
And I thought that I heard her
Murmur something about
No men in Virginia
Spat on the ground
Like a letter tossed away
Jenny and me in my dead truck
And turning over
Just where heaven calls
The kingdom of the animals
Scratching our heads
Where the wolf would go to lay
Jenny and me as the moon blooms
Were closing and both her wide-eyed brothers
Running like shepherds
Dreaming the heat of the fields
All in flames
1.Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car(Album)
Love was a promise made of smoke
In a frozen copse of trees
A bone cold and older than our bodies
Slowly floating in the sea
Every morning there were planes
The shiny blades of pagan angels in our father's skies
Every evening I would watch her hold the pillow
Tight against her hollows, her unholy child
I was still a beggar shaking out my stolen coat
Among the angry cemetery leaves
When they caught the king beneath the borrowed car
Righteous, drunk, and fumbling for the royal keys
Love was a father's flag and sung like a shank
In a cake on our leather boots
A beautiful feather floating down
To where the birds had shit on empty chapel pews
Every morning we found one more machine
To mock our ever waning patience at the well
Every evening she'd descend the mountain stealing socks
And singing something good where all the horses fell
Like a snake within the wilted garden wall
I'd hint to her every possibility
While with his gun the pagan angel rose to say
'My love is one made to break every bended knee'
2.White Tooth Man(Album)
Said the plain clothes cop to the beauty queen
I've seen nothing but a spoke in a wheel
So she gave up her crown to a kid with a crutch
And they both felt cheated after closing the deal
And the white tooth man, I ran with him
Got all cut up from pissing out in the weeds
And a fight upstate with a broken blade
And a wife whose finger never wanted a ring
Said the plain clothes cop to the Indian chief
I've made nothing but an honest mistake
The postman cried while reading the mail
And we all got trampled in the Christmas parade
And the white tooth man who sold me a gun
A map of Canaan and a government bond
Said, I love this town, but it ain't the same
The ski mask ripped as he was putting it on
Said the plain clothes cop to the holy ghost
I've heard nothing if it wasn't the wind
And we all got sick on a strip club meal
While the statehouse was frying all the witches again
So the white tooth man with his kids in the car
And a wad of money that was already spent
Said, I love my dog but she just ran away
She'll keep running like the world never ends
3.Lovesong Of The Buzzard(Album)
In the failing light of the afternoon
Lucy in the shade of the dogwood blooms
Yesterday the solace of a poison fish
Tomorrow I'll be kissing on her blood red lips
No one is the savior they would like to be
The lovesong of the buzzard in the dogwood tree
With a train of horses laughing through the traffic line
And the cradle's unimaginative sense of time
Springtime and the promise of an open fist
A tattoo of a flower on a broken wrist
Lucy tells me jokingly to wipe her brow
With a pocket map to heaven and the sun goes down
4.Carousel(Album)
Almost home
And I miss the bottom stair
You were braiding your grey hair
And it's grown so long
Since I've been gone
Now the perfect girls,
By the pool, they would protest
With crosses 'round their necks,
But our sons were overseas,
And we all know about the hive and the honey bees.
Almost home
With an olive branch and a dove
You were beating on a persian rug
With your Bible and your wedding band
Both hidden on the TV stand.
And the cruel wind blew
Every city father fell
Off the county carousel
While the dogs were eating snow
All our sons had sunk in a trunk
Of no one's clothes
Almost home,
We got lost on our new street,
While your grieving girls all died in their sleep,
So the dogs all went unfed,
A great dream of bones all piled on a bed
And the cops couldn't care,
When that crackhead built a boat
And said, 'please, before I go
May your only honor bought
Be the kinship of the kids in the riot squad.'
5.House By The Sea(Album)
There is a house by the sea
Two jealous sisters, they're waiting for me
And one is laid on the floor
And one is changing the locks on the doors
And I've been buying the time on my knees
And I've been selling their blankets to bleed(on)
Around the house by the sea
The scent of roses and raspberry leaves
And there is smoke in my clothes
Too much time with just smoke in my nose
And I've been making the meaning they lack
And I've been burning that book they come back too
There is a house by the sea
And an ocean between it and me
And like the shape of a wave
The jealous sisters will sing on my grave
And I've been living to run where they led
And I've been dying to rise from their bed
And I've been sparing my neck from their chain
And they've been changing the sound of my name
And I've been swimming to them in my sleep
And I've been dreaming our love and our freedom
6.Innocent Bones(Album)
Cain got a milk-eyed mule from the auction
Abel got a telephone
And even the last of the blue-eyed babies know
That the burning man is the color of the end of day
And how every tongue that gets bit always has another word to
say
Cain bought a blade from some witch at the window
Abel bought a bag of weed
And even the last of the brown-eyed babies see
That the cartoon king has a tattoo of a bleeding heart
There ain't a penthouse Christian wants the pain of
the scab, but they all want the scar
How every mouth sings of what it's without so we all sing of
love
And how it ain't one dog who's good at fucking and
denying who he's thinking of
Cain heard a cat tumble limp off the rooftop
Abel heard his papa pray
And even the last of the black-eyed babies say
That every saint has a chair you can borrow and a church to sell
That the wind blows cold across the back of the master
and the kitchen help
There's a big pile of innocent bones still holding up the garden
wall
And it was always the broken hand we learned to lean on after
all
How God knows if Christ came back he would find us in a poker
game
After finding out the drugs were all free but they
won't let you out the door again
7.Wolves(Song Of The Shepherd's Dog)(Album)
Wolves by the road
And a bike wheel spinning on a pawn shop wall
She leaned on her coloured hair
Like a butterfly wing in a summer rainfall
And the roll on the kitchen floor
Some f---er with a pocketful of foreign change
Song of the shepherd's dog
A pitch in the dark in the ear of the lamb who was going to try
to run away
Whoever got that brave？
Wolves in the middle of town
And the chapel bell ringing through the wind-blown trees
To wave to the butcher's boy with the parking lot music
everybody believes
And then out like a dying bird in the ？？ in the corner of the
penny arcade
Song of the shepherd's dog
Waiting around the jack call of the rooster
On the rooftop waiting for day
And ain't nobody's gonna say
Wolves at the end of the bed
And a postcard hidden in her winter clothes
She beat in the back of a truck
To the trailers when we trying to find the bullet hole
And then run down the canopy rows
Some mother and a baby with a cross to nail
Song of the shepherd's dog
Little brown flea in the bottle of oil for your woolly wild hair
You'll never get him out of there
8.Resurrection Fern(Album)
In our days we will live
Like our ghosts will live
Pitching glass at the cornfield crows
And folding clothes
Like stubborn boys across the room
We'll keep everything
Grandpa's gun, the black bear claw
They took her doll
When sister Laurie says 'Amen'
We won't hear anything
The ten-car train will take that word
A fledgling bird
And the falling house across the way
It'll keep everything
The baby's breath, our bravery wasted
And our shame
And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies bound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its Resurrection Fern
In our day we will say
What our ghosts will say
We gave the world what it saw fit
But what'd we get？
Like stubborn boys with big green eyes
We'll see everything
The tender shade, the autumn leaves
The buzzard's wing
We'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and his Resurrection Fern
9.Boy With A Coin(Album)
A boy with a coin, he found in the weeds
With bullets and pages of trade magazines
Close to a car that flipped on the turn
When God left the ground to circle the world
A girl with a bird, she found in the snow
Then flew up her gown and that's how she knows
If God made her eyes for crying at birth
Then left the ground to circle the Earth
A boy with a coin, he crammed in his jeans
Then making a wish, he tossed in the sea
Walked to a town that all of us burn
When God left the ground to circle the world
10.The Devil Never Sleeps(Album)
Dreamin' again of a train track ending at the edge of the sea
Big black cloud was low and rolling our way
Dog at the barbed wire barkin' at my buzz-cut friends
Friend with a switch blade shinin' in the summer rain
No one on the corner had a quarter for the telephone
Everybody bitchin' there's nothing on the radio
Dreamin' again of a city full of fathers and their white clothes
Chatterin' boys and a chicken at the choppin' block
All of us lost at the crosswalk waitin' for the other to go
Didn't find the field but boy you're really waterlogged
Someone bet a dollar that their daddy wasn't comin' home
Everybody bitchin' there's nothing on the radio
Dreamin' again that it's freezin' and my mother's in a flower
bed
Long dead rows of daffodils and marigolds
Changin' her face like a shadow on the ground
11.Peace Beneath The City(Album)
Here's a prayer for the body buried by the interstate
Murder of a soldier, a tree in a forest up in flames
Black valley, peace beneath the city
Where the women hear the washboard rhythm in their bosom when
they say,
'Give me good legs and a Japanese car and show me a road
Sing a song for the bodies buried by the riverbank
A well-dressed boy and a pig with a bullet in the brain
Black valley, peace beneath the city
Where the white girls wander the strip mall, singing all day,
Give me a juggernaut heart and a Japanese car and someone to
free'
Sing a song for the body buried like a keepsake
Mother of million mouths with the very same name
Black valley, peace beneath the city
Where the women tell the weather but never ever tell you what
they pray
They pray, 'Give me a yellow brick road and a Japanese car and
benevolent
change'
12.Flightless Bird, American Mouth(Album)
I was a quick wet boy
Diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes
Wide on my plastic toys
And when the cops closed the fair
I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map
And called for you everywhere
Have I found you？
Flightless bird
Jealous, weeping
Or lost you？
American mouth
Big pill looming
Now I'm a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats
Curl through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures
Thrown in the cold and clean
Blood of Christ mountain stream
Have I found you？
Flightless bird
Grounded, bleeding
Or lost you？
American mouth
Big pill, stuck going down
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