1.The Destruction Of The Art Deco House
They're knocking down that Art Deco house
The clawfoot tub is cracked and crushed
The mattress springs and the telephone wires
Gnash now through the air like crocodiles
Everything is coming up in 2 x 4's
Concrete walls and concrete floors
High rise homes, high rising rent
The atmosphere is closing in
There's no stars up above when you tilt your head
Though the night is blank and black as pitch
It is not what it seems
What it seems
The polymaths around the town
Yield and shift their weight around
On a new boy, a young wunderkind
He'll give us hope and cure the blind
It's you they've chosen, my favorite son
To heal the sick and cure the blind
Your path is paved, you look terrified
You are not what you seem
Oh what you seem
Oh, what I see when I'm dreaming
Oh, what I see when I'm dreaming
Oh, am I dreaming
Oh, am I dreaming
You're just sinews and bones, smiley faces and frowns
There's a series of numbers that dictate your wiles
Green at the wick, you are still a child
And you stumble when you walk
The guileless cavalry in their brass-buttoned coats
Can't they see no men of pith
Are going to come to lift them from the fuselage
So let's skip town, you and I
Far from where the hemlock lies
Through the beryline hills, like ezekial's wheels
Cradling the clouds that hold our view
Let's pass the cities and their neon lights
Their copper-tops and steely spires
Let's trade them for the simple life
For they're not what they seem
What they seem
Oh, what I see when I'm dreaming
When I'm dreaming
Oh, what I see when I'm dreaming
Oh, am I dreaming
Oh, am I dreaming
Our days back east are done in numbers
Our days back east are done and over
Our days back east are done and numbered
I'll test the weights and weigh the odds
You'll want for nothing even when we've got nothing
Nothing, nothing at all
2.Dreaming Of The Plum Trees
Upstairs the neighbors are moving in
Hammering nails into their beds
You can hear them falling in love again
Three times this evening
While we were asleep in bed
Jealous of how they were so content
Jealous of the money they spent
Three times this evening
She was born in New Orleans
He made his money on Long Island
Out on Montauk
Sold used cars and paved parking lots
They bought a cigarette boat
And then they bought a truck
To pull the cigarette boat
From lot to lot, lot to lot
Oh, but I saw their girl Ruthie
She was running through the streets in her bare feet
Someone ought to be ashamed
Someone ought to
Someone ought to be ashamed
Their daughter stepped on glass again
Her foot bled red as dye
Through the floorboards
Through the floor, through the floor
Through the floorboards
You could hear her crying
You could hear his hand drop
They split the estate up
It was against the law
It was against the law
Oh, but I saw their girl Ruthie
She was running through the streets in her bare feet
Someone ought to be ashamed
Someone ought to
Someone ought to be ashamed
But we were dreaming of the plum trees
We were just dreaming of getting by
Getting by, getting by, getting by
We were dreaming of making ends meet
We were just dreaming of just getting by
Getting by, getting by, getting by
I fell in love again tonight
My heart bled red as dye through the floorboards
Through the floor, through the floor
Through the floorboards
While they tried to sleep in bed
Jealous of how they were so content
Jealous of the money they spent
Three times this evening
Three times this evening
Oh, and I saw their girl Ruthie
She was running through the streets in her bare feet
Someone ought to be ashamed
Someone ought to
Someone ought to be ashamed
But we were dreaming of the plum trees
We were just dreaming of getting by
Oh we were dreaming of making ends meet
Oh we were just dreaming of just getting by
Getting by, getting by, getting by
3.Calliope
Calliope
I can hear your voice
As clear as a bell
As a bell ringing through the night
Through the night
O Calliope
Your tablets of wax
And your golden crown
So wise, so wise
O Calliope
I need your impartial eye
To guide me
My love is gone to another
O Calliope
Your archaic smile
What lurks behind
And makes your lips look alive
Look alive
O Calliope
I fear I'm growing cold
As the marble stone
That you lie in
That you lie in
O Calliope
I need your impartial eye
To guide me when my love is gone
He is gone, gone for good
Tell him to return
Tell him to return
Tell him to return...
4.Hometown Hooray
Down by the old stone church
Where the joe-pye weed and the mallows grow
Those petals bigger then my fist
Watch them bob and bow when the wind does blow
There grows a cypress tree
And in its trunk I carved you name
And right beside it I carved mine
They'll give you the hometown hooray
When you come home, baby
Bronze your combat boots
And set your bones in clay
Write down every word you ever had to say
No one wants to believe you died in vain
The first spring that you were gone
The women who lived on the flat roof-tops
Had sherds sewn with quickly germinating seeds of greens
In all of their Sapphic celebrations
They held fires and dances, chanted your name
Tied yellow ribbons round the trunks of trees in town
They'll give you the hometown hooray
When you come home, baby
Bronze your combat boots
And set your bones in clay
Write down every word you ever had to say
With Homeric undertones and half the length
But the skies held a collusion of their own
And on the sunniest day there ever was
You died at the tusk of a bayonet
And Aphrodite found your body
Sprinkled nectar in your wounds
And you blood dripped red anemones
That shimmered just like precious stones
And they floated down the riverbank
To the tributary that now shares your name
And the rapids from then on ran red
They run red to this day
They'll give you the hometown hooray
When you come home, baby
Oh bronze your combat boots
And set your bones in clay
Write down every word you ever had to say
With Homeric undertones and half the length
We used to walk past the blue schoolhouse
We wore our love like it was a crown
And our skin was a map we knew by heart
We never once got lost
We never once got lost
No one wants to believe you died in vain
The Sapphic women who love you so
Still cry every spring when the fennel goes
And the wheat and the barley and the hardy rye
Wither and go to seed
I walk down to the old stone church
where the joe-pye weed and the mallows grow
Those petals droop now heavy with rain
watch them bob and bow when the wind does blow
There, my favorite cypress tree
As tall as the steeples I can see
They've tied a yellow-ribbon 'round its trunk
that covers your name where I carved it twice
I rip that ribbon off the tree
Burn it down by the river that now shares your name
Place the ash where the water ravenously licks the riverbank
We used to walk past the blue schoolhouse
We wore our love like it was a crown
And our skin was a map I knew by heart
We never once got lost
We never once got lost
No one wants to believe you died in vain
5.Lindberghs ＆ Metal Birds
Coming through the mitrailleuse
A Howitzer cannon and a Thompson gun
Oh you're a slovenly bunch
Lousy with sin
You're no better than those altruists
And the eagle scouts you belong
With the haemophiliacs
Out on the front line
Out on the front line...
We've got the straw in the wind
To fill your belly with buckshot
It's a minor detail
That we furbished with white-out
You want something concrete
But your city is sinking,
It was built on sand
You should have planned ahead
Oh leave it up to the Lindberghs and the Metal Birds
Leave it up to the Lindberghs and the Metal Birds
Leave it up to the Lindberghs and the Metal Birds
Keep your head out of the clouds
Coming down, your victory towers
The sepals to the citadel have been hulled with flames
Oh you've been unveiled
The manifest is writ with dread
And you're no better than those altruists
And eagle scouts you belong
With the convalescents who couldn't make it on the front line
Out on the front line
Out on the front line...
We've got the straw in the wind
To fill your belly with buckshot
It's a minor detail
That we furbished with white-out
And you want something concrete
But your city is sinking,
It was built on sand
You should have planned ahead
Oh leave it up to the Lindberghs and the Metal Birds
Leave it up to the Lindberghs and the Metal Birds
Leave it up to the Lindberghs and the Metal Birds
And keep, keep, keep, keep your head out of the clouds
6.A Beast Washed Ashore
'Neath the leaden lid
I saw your face
Ashen and pale as you walked away
And I stayed behind
Oh Where'd you go
Dearest friend of mine
Can you recall the lurid scene of savagery
The sea beast belly-up and beached
Twice as long as a seven mast ship
They took him apart with pliers and a crane
Oh they took him apart, though it took several days
And they took him apart and the townspeople came
And chit-chattered away
The sky that night seemed lacerated
Each cloud a con- contusion
Some wade in the water to wash his bones off
I wade in the water and I watch 'em
Then they stack him up on a pushcart
Haul him off to the maritime museum
The horizon boasts a widowed light
That punches pinholes 'tween the sycamores and pines
And through the sodden bogs I make my way back home
The biddies of the town can chew this tale down
And gnaw it into skeletal scraps 'til fiction is fact
See the truckling trees, bare in the air
But for struggling kites
Oh! His bones are bleached, laid out on the truck
His teeth are brushed and his mouth is shut
His bones are tied with twine and screws
Put on poles, hoisted up in a room
I recall looking once 'neath your lids
To a universe full of starts
And the days drag on awfully long
When you're not one who can carry on
Chit-chattering away
Chit-chattering away...
7.Napoleon At Waterloo
He holds us all in his hands
He is the one who's in command
He leads us down to the knoll
The skies begin to fill with smoke
But do not falter, nor stand afraid
He is the one who holds us all
No, do not falter nor stand afraid
He is the one who holds us all
As one by one we fall
There goes now another man down
There goes now another man down
There goes now another man down...
They put their trust in his hands
And a medal on his chest
And the ladies who swoon say
That's the place where his purple heart is
Where his purple heart is
Where his purple heart is
Where his purple heart is
Where his purple heart is
There goes now another man down
There goes now another man down
There goes now another man down...
The lights light up the backsides
Of all the soldiers on their guard who are waiting
And the captain of the battalion shouts
Fire...
There goes now another man down...
8.Hung On A Thin Thread
Come along in my mackinaw
I'll point you where you need to go
Though our path may bend and yaw
You won't get lost
With my pointed prow and square stern
We'll use our arms for oars
To spoor little schools of fish
Make festoon-shaped grooves in the fickle waves
'Til the howling wind ushers us to leave
Out at sea for days
I sleep most afternoons away
And you anxiously compass us
'Til we see land
But the land we knew
Was now a new landscape
And the howling wind ushered us to leave
But you wanted a closer look
Then gripped to the rail, how our cheeks turned pale
To see the flying machines near clip the houses
And throw kisses to the sandbar
Little tendrils of smoke trailing out of the exhaust
In parabolic wakes, swooping low like gulls
Causing the town to tremor and to shake
It was clear that city was nothing
But an aluminium piece of junk
Oh, and the howling wind ushered us to leave
But we couldn't move we stood forever changed
When something ends, something has to begin
When the filaments of fiber
From their flares caught afire
Your hair looked like spark on a wire
I would have paid my last dollar
To see you lambent like that
Lit by the light of ten thousand shackled suns
Being hung on a thin thread
Sift amongst the debris for half-hearted dreams
Remnants of pocket change
Pretty, frilly, thrown-away things
Gauze and dust and shards of glass
Bricks and bended straws and greyhounds' teeth
And the howling wind ushered us to leave
9.Vessels
Those wending ships
That sailed in May
Vessels that carried me
From one place to the next
Were fated just for me
Oh they were fated just for me
In my time I've made mistakes
That made all of the difference
Each bough and plank
Each mast and sail
No matter how old
Or how decrepit
In my time I've made mistakes
That made all of the difference
Those vessels that brought me here
Have made all of the difference
Yes all of the difference
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