1. |
Cacophony of Cats
02:09
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The moon hung helpless while the cacophony of cats pierced through the glass of the old lady’s oven rack. The rat she roasted once had boasted of besting the town’s felines in eleven different kinds of crimes; the old lady could only count to nine. // Inside her chequered oven mitt her hand omitted one digit the rat had gone and ate. No wonder, then, she skewered him with grimly gleeful grace. And served him to the cats upon her finest china plate.
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2. |
the Walnut Tree
03:13
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Just enough time to climb the walnut tree and hurtle one or three at Charlie on the ground. Charlie copped it sweet, and it really was a treat cause that bastard brat had hit me with a branch a few weeks back. // Every time I climbed the walnut tree, the high-flown birds watched me. And I am still amazed I held him in my gaze when the greens and greys and reds flew at my face // But Charlie was as Charlie does and no-one else would do because for all his faults that Charlie boy could whistle like an old steam-train. And add to that his punching arm and stir it up inside my brain and schemes were schemed and played out true on multiple occasions, too. // Every time I climbed the walnut tree, the high-flown birds watched me. And I was not afraid to hold him in my gaze when the greens and greys and reds flew at my face // And though the other kids in town would laugh and spit when I came round, their sons would one day hear the tales of me and Charlie through the mails. Cuz Chuck and me were off the rails.
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3. |
Agatha
02:12
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Where were you, my Agatha, the wind that blew took everything I knew and all that I had left was the sweet taste of your cool breath. It’s death to be this far from your kind heart and chiselled cheeks. These weeks alone I’ve grown accustomed to the sound of breaking glass. // But now you’re back it’s time, I guess, to split my lisp with jagged shards. Or just go jump a train, forget my name, and cheat at cards.
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4. |
Slunk Away
03:22
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Slunk away so silently the sentries didn’t notice me and laid in wait until the time I’d come back to the scene the crime. They didn’t have to wait an age, I’d contemplated every day the things I’d done in brutish style, the foolish ways I’d left my scent. Repentance wasn’t on my mind – the file the policemen had sent I’d seen. // My shadow slunk away and so did the rest of me, my shadow slunk away and so did she // Obscene it was, the thoughts they kept, the things they thought the story meant. If only one or three of them had been the places where I crept, the alleys in the blackened night, the soaring sparrows overhead. If only, well, then things would go a different way than how you know they will. // My shadow slunk away and so did the rest of me, my shadow slunk away and so did she // It isn’t quite a bitter pill. There’s hope still even after death. She told me so, (you know,) with her last breath. // // My shadow slunk away and so did the rest of me, my shadow slunk away and so did she.
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5. |
Berry Pins
02:53
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Grandma kept her berry-pins inside the bins of bread and cheese, and more than once I bit right down, and how my tongue would bleed. // She’d come at once, and patch me up, and put me down to bed, and sing me songs and tell me tales of Grampa’s wooden leg. // She’d kiss my hair and pat my cheek and watch me fall asleep, and every time I did I dreamt she’d come up from the deep.
Her face was made of tentacles, her limbs were scaly fins; I’d freeze until she’d eaten me, and kept me there within. // And when I’d wake to the daylight, my eyes just adjusting, I’d swear next time I found a pin, (I’d) give it to her to eat. // But Grandma was a wily one, and before I turned eight, she’d fell asleep somehow with her pillow pressed on her face. // And when they laid her in the ground, the sun upon my back, I felt a twinge inside my mouth and saw my tongue was black.
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6. |
In Our Eyes
02:25
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Come with me, we’ll walk among the trees and please ourselves with sultry talk of cheese and wine and slink behind the breeze. // The country where I come from breeds a million happy cows, the juice we squeeze between their knees keeps maidens plump and proud. // The skies at night are speckled white with long dead suns whose fire burns in our eyes, and when we die, their flame will burn still higher. // It’s soft and dry on the grasses nigh and the whiskey’s sweetly sour. And you’re a hundred ten times lovelier than this breathless, deathless hour.
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7. |
Eleven 'til Midnight
03:22
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It’s eleven ‘til midnight, Sylvia dear, and before we unwrap all the presents this year, there’s something important I need you to hear. I’m dying. I’m sorry. I need to be clear. For a couple of months I’ll be stuck in a rut. Radiation coursing throughout my blood. And there’s papers to sign, and my family’s nuts. They’ll be horrid to talk to. I’m sorry. That’s why. I never said anything, not until I knew for sure and now I do. I’m dying already to have to tell you. But Sylvia, darling, I want you know this. I’ve never lived more than when tasting your kiss. The scent of your kindness is soaked in my skin. In the war with the cancer, your memory ‘l win. And I’ll go to the grave knowing always that this was the year that he gave for my fateful promise. For you see, my dear Sylvia, five years ago, I was wretched and lonely with nowhere to go. And a friend of mine from the department of Luck, sent me down to the crossroads in my old pickup. And I spoke with a man, in a tempest of dust, and we signed there his papers with both of our blood. Only he didn’t bleed like a regular man. And he stood eight foot tall and was made out of sand. And the holes in his head where his eyes should have been burnt the deepest and darkest red I’ve ever seen. Forgive me, my Sylvie. For I couldn’t see. The heaven he promised would come and burn me. Our love is riven in mist. (For) I’m dead, now, Sylvia, and you never lived.
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8. |
Come Around
02:22
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Onward bound, there’s days to fill with sights we’ll never see unless. We jump that barge and take on charge our craven emptiness. // Come around and sound, the groundless call, we’re bound nowhere at all // Nothing completes a man inside, you’ll never make him whole: but filling him with fruitless dreams will slake his aching soul. // Come around and sound, the groundless call, we’re bound nowhere at all // The falling deep under the spell of lunacy and grift is everything that makes a life the kind of thing that’s lived. // So come and hold my shoulder and I’ll keep your back in sight, we’ll keep at bay the scurvy rats who’d stab us in the night. [LOW: (Yes) We’ll keep at bay the kinds of men that we are in the light. HIGH: Come around and sound, the groundless call, we’re bound nowhere at all.]
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9. |
Ghosts
02:33
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Holding this together takes some stellar gravity. And when it does it sucks us both into it, violently. The fiery explosions every time you hold me close are nothing but the cost of love between man and a ghost.
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10. |
Apple Schnapps
03:21
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Goodnight, you charming whippersnappers, this gingerbread and apple schnapps has helped fill up the hole inside. If why you came to visit me was just to keep me company, I thank thee, but I must admit I only pay in compliments. As much as I appreciate your kindliness and gentle grace, I have no love or gold to give, I’m cold and lonesome as the grave. So, plunder if you care or dare, but keep in mind you’ll find there ghosts who’ll reek of torment until you can host them in your own poor sorry selves. Or leave me be and bring that bottle over from the shelf.
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11. |
Dream On
02:29
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Dream on, little one, tomorrow we’ll be far away, and won’t need to speak about today. Put a thousand miles between us and our yesterdays and when the tyres turn we’ll burn our sorrows in the haze. And every time we see a sign that says a thousand miles ahead we’ll smile and we’ll drive along, that’s what my dear mother said. She didn’t know I couldn’t sleep with all we’d left behind, playing on the movie screen inside my restless mind. // Dream on, little one, she didn’t know, I couldn’t sleep. Dream on, little one, she couldn’t know, all that I’d seen. // And all the years we travelled on, I never said a word to no-one. Not her, or anyone. // Dream on, little one, she didn’t know, I couldn’t sleep. Dream on, little one, she couldn’t know, all that I’d seen. Drive on, down the street, I didn’t know, what we had done. Dream on, everyone, she didn’t know, not her or anyone.
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