His Old Branches (EP)

The Republic Of Wolves His Old Branches (EP) Lyrics
1.For His Old Branches

There is a wheel that spins to keep the river flowing
It runs a course between your eyelids and your aching jaw
There was a bird that took your voice and turned it backwards
He and the past were aiming arrows at your heaving chest

You took a train into the mouth of all you hated
Spent half an hour watching hope pass through a window
You've got that singing crown of thorns around your thick head
You and the kid that you once were are fighting over it

Then we ran down the river Van
To the mouth of old Fenrir
And he swallowed us up)
I collected rocks, filled up my pockets
and tried to swim across the stream.
I was told I'd be kept afloat
By the ghosts of the hills that I'd flattened to get here.
Trusted a fiend and lost my hand.
My blood flowed white and filled the canyon,
And I saw faces in the leaves
And they were preaching to me

There is a tree you cannot cut
He knows your name and all your fears
You dare not lay an axe to his old branches
They dug a coal mine by your house
His yelling kept you up all night
All of your friends got caught between his black teeth
We left our shoes under the ground
Tied yellow feathers to our arms
And learned the language of the aching mountain
But now went out west to try to build a better version of myself
My iron tools got swallowed up by spirits

I knew my head was inside out so I sold my soul to taste the
clouds
Ache from the trees started digging up the ground
There is a thought you cannot shake of her asleep under the lake
The ice is eating up the surface and you are the fish sleeping
peacefully


2.The Clouds

I have been waiting on a response for days
There has been a complication
It seems your heart needed a break
From pumping the blood through your veins
And keeping the oxygen ok
I still see your face
Any day when I see your eyes in a bottle that was way too tall
I finished it to just see if we could talk
Now I am speaking with your ghost again
It's Telling me that I don't understand
Can we be friends in another lifetime
And I might pretend
That we are right now
Jumping feelings from a dying dream

I drank the poison from a black moon sleep
Then I saw you
I felt your kiss in a dream I had
I felt your skin in a monument

Then I went home to live a brand new life without you
And buried your face
Beneath the giant shadows of the clouds
And they will stay there under ground
But no matter what I do
I never will stop talking to you

I never did get the last word in
You said I always did
I never did get the last word in
You said I always did
I never did get the last word in
You said I always did
I never did get the last word in
You said I always did
I never did get the last word in
You said I always did
I never did get the last word in
You said I always did
I never did get the last word in
You said I always did
I never did get the last word in
You said I always did


3.A Weather Vane

All that time that you kill
Pulling smoke to your lungs
In a parking lot covered in green glass and shimmering
The light on your face starts to darken then dissipate
The ghost was inside your mouth
Placing bets with your teeth
Forcing your voice out
Pushing your tongue up from underneath
And I passed the fields we were racing the sun

You slipped away past the fog and the fire
Like I saw the footsteps cut out of the ash
We traded names just to see if the colors would change
And they did

I got sick of the pull
You just sputtered and sang
You were nothing a curtain, the sawdust, a weather vane
And don't try to skip past the part where you realize

You slipped away past the fog and the fire
Like I saw the footsteps cut out of the ash
We traded names just to see if the colors would change
And they did

Well I lied my way out of this one
And you lied your way to a ditch
And I fought myself just to stay up
Out of your street-walking tongue-talking sleep
How it consumed you
And eventually me

(Unintelligible)


4.Through Windows

I am not the Devil under the water
Pulling you down by your own wooden nails
Splitting and shriveling seeping out of me
God I am afraid of the songs you have been singing me
God I cannot hear your voice quite so clearly
I am the walls down crumbling down

Me, I can't be saved
No, you're not afraid
This, the God you embrace
But I can't

I am just a sinner
Pulling my splinters out
Chipping away at the crackling flames
Well I felt my shoulders begin to get lighter
When I realized that it all would get harder
But I don't believe in the surface

You, can't see through the trees
No, you're not asleep
And I, am not the one you will leave
On your tree

I am the tired beggar dead on the side
I am the war
Marching me forward through windows
Making me something that I am not

Your brother got killed
You never grew out of the secrets you kept
To keep all others lies
Carried for miles inside of my mind
Now writing down all of my sins
Pulling all the strings they've attached to my face
Putting time bombs in houses and cursing at god
Filling up spaces with black and white fall
Someone will live life in the glass on the floor
Won't you think of that shaken once before
Floating down street chasing after my bones
Guess I grew older I never grew up


5.Done Haunting Houses

Death is the devil's work
Love is a cheap card trick
Truth is a poor man's dream
Thought is a quicksand maze

And all my years spent cursing up the stairs
Good morning god get up, forget those bad dreams
We been awake and waiting far too long
And thinking about death

Sleep is a sick sad joke
Good morning god get up, forget those bad dreams


6.Spill

She was in the backyard digging out a trench
Praying for her father's gun again
All the holy weight they laid across your back
A hundred years you waste just thanking them for that

And you can't blame anyone
For what you've done
And you can't blame anyone
For what you've done
Oh my god you can't
Blame
Anyone
Before your bridges are built, you'll burn them down

You rebuilt a new face
Empty by the wake
Painted it the one shade you could never fake
Love would kick your crutches out from underneath
I was still a sandstone cutting up your feet
God was in our back yard
Tearing down our fence
Calling out our father's name again
We fixed him to the floor
Covered up his ears
Spending out a lifetime shaking off our fears

And you can't blame anyone
For what you've done
And you can't blame anyone
For what you've done
Oh my god you can't
Blame
Anyone
Before your bridges are built, you'll burn them down

Oh, but I could be
Something else, entirely
And spill out of my burning hand
And underneath your door
And no, I do not see what you see in your old eyes
And I will be cutting up your fear for eternity

And you can't blame anyone
For what you've done
And you can't blame anyone
For what you've done
Oh my god you can't
Blame
Anyone
Before your bridges are built, you'll burn them down


7.Cardinals

Reach in for it
Your rusted iron covered claws
Pour out your breath into the furnace again
And I think I've found a better way to live
And I think I've found a better way to die

And I've been fitting myself into that small space
That you set out for
The screaming of the wind
Cause that is all I've ever been

Sorting through it
I never saw something so clear
As your hands bound up in prayer behind a closed door
But I thought I walked a better road alone
Till I found my feet set into stone
And that's when I turned back

You put me back in my place
So I won't be afraid
I won't be afraid

And I've been fitting myself into that small, small space
That you set out for
The screaming of the wind
Cause that is all I've ever been