Bluebells

You went to the bottom of the valley
To see all the flowers below
You saw all the indian paintbrush
And the bluebells all in a row
You watched as the sun grew colder
And the shadows, they fell to your knees
You went back to look for the river
But it was lost in the trees
And you said, "Which way would my darling go?
Which way spells out home?
Which way should I ignore,
Lost to forever roam?"
By this time you must have been certain
That it had all been a lie
Each sapling and each drop of syrup
Was straight from a demon's eye
Yet you chose to ignore it
Like a child who knows what he knows
And you thought, "Which one would my darling like
Which ones has she never seen
Which ones would remind her of nothing
But forgotten parts of her dreams?"

New Vanguard Blues

These new vanguard blues
What do they do
Besides remind me where I am
If this is a dead idiom
Then watch me tear at the graves
I'm resigned to you
You want to be chaste
Well I'll chase you as long as I can
But everything feels the same to me now,
And I am just not sure if I'm your man
Remind me that the world's not so small
That's the only way I'll forget you at all
Wake me up and we'll make love to our mistakes
Get real mad and don't return my calls
I swear I didn't do anything wrong
But if I did, would you fall in love?
These new vanguard blues
What do they do
Besides allow me what I've lost
It's time to smile gamely now
And sell it all at little to no cost

Cortelyou

The train runs through my back lot
Every hour on the hour
And quicker in the sun
I can see my room through its windows
In the round afternoon
When the heat has come
Someday I'll take it for the last time
Someday I'll move to the end of the line,
And there I'll stay
I know it's impossible
Til I make enough to go out on my own
But I dream of owning
A roof and a sky and a ladder and a lasso
Someday I'll dream it for the last
Someday I'll act on my shallow design
On Cortelyou

El Capitan

It must be such a shame
Trying to carve a name
Always prying, always tying your hand
And so I must declare
Calling it all in the air
Dreadful water, never falls out the same
On top of El Capitan my great grandfather stood
On top of his head
On top of a mountain he balanced himself upside down
He was greeting the dead
For the alive
I want to see the world
But time keeps galloping so sure
Andalusian, Abyssinian free
Maybe I'll just decide
All I want is a ride
Past the orange groves, and the streets I've never seen
On top of my roof one warm night I pretend to divine
Your name with mine
Everything feels impossibly, eerily real
So out of time
My words, they're alive

Lying In The Dark

You didn't wait too long, did you?
I guess we're just pretenders,
I guess you're not as tender as you felt
You didn't waste no time, did you?
How could I be so bitter? 
I tried to quit right from the very start
How could I drag my feet so far
Why didn't I just tell you
You're pretty but I never felt a thing
Cos that would be a lie
Just like the things you said each night
You can only lie when lying in the dark
And every night I'd pray
For something interesting to say
But you never even caused a single spark
I learned my lesson, dear, you can be sure
I won't be wasting time that isn't mine
I've tried my share of poison, some was dark, some clear
But yours was the first that had a line
I don't regret a single thing, you can be sure
Every time you smiled was a lesson that I learned

The Hudson Line

Maybe we were meant to meet, at least for a short time
Then absence, and then absentee, a lingering design
Maybe you'll forget me and then lie down in the sand
And they'll come bounding back again, to try and win your hand
Maybe they are the ones for you;
All I know, all I know, all I know
Is that I have tried so hard to be true
Whenever I saw you
Sometimes I feel like I've known you once before
A victim of a cool draft that echoes on the floor
But then I realize the answer's on the tracks
Galloping along the Hudson Line and on our backs
How I wonder where you've been
All I know, all I know, all I know
Is that all greatness is borne out of sin
But somehow I saw you

Holy Blonde

Holy blonde serene
In my mirror, in my dream
All those rows of teeth
Oh so white and so tempting
Some say some are built
For the quickest kill,
For the quickest kill
Maybe I am a husk
Every song is gone forever
The ivory in each tusk
Is drawn and squared and severed
Bed red sky divine
How could I find
One of your finest here?
Why am I so warm
Could it be the wine
Could it be your air
Maybe I am a foil
Cheap January laughing
The essence of each oil
Are these bones or ice that's cracking

Do You Remember The Morning

Do you
Do you re
Do you remember the morning
Do you remember the evening when we stopped speaking?
It felt like it was pouring, but I wasn't thinking
I went down in the ground, the avenues shrieking
The absence of sound replaced by the angels of desire
Do you
Do you know
Do you know what I did
Do you know what I've done since we last saw you
I've found a job, I've worked to the bone
I've carved out a knot in a tree close to home
I'm kissing lost decades goodbye before they start
I've sharpened each useless disguise into an art
In two, in two
Our last
Our last night
Our last night together
Our last night together, it never ended
I never said the things I expected
I went down in the ground moving beneath us
Machines ever bound to protect and deceive us
I'm Anthony Hopkins and you're Emma Thompson
I'm Arthur Russell and you're Tom Lee
I want you, I want you, I want you, I want you

The Woods

It was May, but so cold that we didn't know what on earth to do
But we bundled up anyway and made our way out into the night
One of them said I know a place where there's dancing down by the East River
So we walked there as fast as we could, through the wind and the moonlight
Now I'm not much of a dancer these days, I realize
So I didn't feel right in my own skin
So I left my friends out on the dancefloor and walked back into the backyard
Then I walked back inside to the bar and I bought a whiskey and soda
Then I saw you, then I saw you
I asked if I could buy you a drink and you said, "You don't have to." 
But I did anyway after we made our way round the crowd in the corner
You told me you were from Rhode Island, but you were born in Paris
I asked you if you wanted to dance, and you said yes
They played songs that we hadn't heard since we were in high school
They knew all our buttons, they knew all our secret compartments
I might have made you spin one or two times too many
But we danced close and you smiled and I said, "It's getting late, it's getting late"
It's 3 am, it's 3 am

The War Is Over

When the next big war is over, and the profiteers have won
I can't wait to meet your husband, I can't wait to meet your son
I will take you all out for dinner and tell all about my leg
About each nerve and each muscle
Over baked ham and deviled eggs
I will try to listen closely to the stories that you tell
Of houses filled with ashes and overflowing wells
But I won't pay attention to anything but your eyes
For though the hazel's faded
I knew I'd get a rise
And when the night is over, I'll tilt my head far back
At the stars and at the ceiling
At the gin and at the tracks
Your family wades into darkness
I wave goodbye from the train
And I know you're sitting next to me
Even though you're back there in the rain
When the next big war is over, and the profiteers have won
I can't wait to meet your husband, I can't wait to meet your son