Story Behind the Song
the first take was lost.
this is #2.
Lyrics
Grace
Am I all right?
I seemed upset or something.
The fish died.
The plants dried, now they’re fine.
She asks if I’m all right.
I don’t know what I am.
All right might be one of them.
The pressure on me to change,
to become
something else, something new,
someone I’m not yet become;
and what I really want is another day here,
another joint, another reprieve,
another unemployed day;
not really any of those things,
only lack of something better,
some idea to answer these fears.
No fear of dying or fear of living,
but only inaction, the lack of something,
a worse feeling, perhaps,
for if I feared, maybe I’d do—•195
but I’m not really afraid
of any of those eventualities
currently drawing
lots for my soul.
I say, have at it, you distant ghosts and present hosts!
Who cares a jot for your miserable ways?
This complaining guards the door of my hole,
barring sunlight from fools and greater days.
Was there ever greater fool than I?
Do I know his name?
Yes, but it’s buried under the lock of that same door,
the shutters drawn over the distant gases
I know will enter first when I open up.
And I’ll come back here to escape them,
again, and they’ll find their way in
when I again reach out,
and we’ll be dancing into eternity,
but a dance to the death
rather than the twirling
joy you think dancing is.
Something in my own mind
speaks me these voices—
thinking and speaking
and not stopping.
It’s talking in languages
driven from the mountains,
voiceless howlings,
crawling bodies
of insects
and those soap bubbles refusing to wash off,
coat me with a white film
and every day come again,
the same necessities calling,
calling like a voice on no phone line calls me,•196
the words coming into no email worries me,
all the guards there not doing their job
or doing too good a job—
thinking maybe another beer,
maybe another cigarette,
maybe another hit,
maybe another something
on some lonely highway
to stop the agony;
maybe something worth living for
in these tiny seconds that sneak in
amongst the whole lots of hours
grinding through the bones
of traitors to the soul,
doing everything you told them not to do
and obeying some other voice;
trained to scream abuse at the social heart,
untrained and rowdy at all those lonely times,
seeking gainless employment
at cards, or women,
or drink, or drugs,
or the other million sins
levied by the self
against the self,
always contingent and not standing for something
remote and clean,
not believing in cleanliness at all,
not knowing the name to call
the One who brings the truth,
only Hey, You!
Give me the ether and a phial
and be gone
back into the void;
I’ll soon join You.
Ah, there I am, home•197
in a sorrowful land,
where the dew never dries and
sun bleeds cold on a bible of
faults and laws held only in
contempt by the holy,
a contrary caution
round the sacred perambulation
masses staring
and grieving for me,
just for me;
and the masses evaporate
in a distant glance
away from the pair of eyes
burning and unbearable,
trusting and beautiful.
Help with the fright I feel,
at another ramble somewhere
just the same as here
yet again;
and who shall carry my remains
to the distant fields?
Here I am,
what’s left of me,
whittled away by these 19 adventures
in 19 lands,
19 views of heaven
in 19 pairs of hands.
Terrible power in an innocent heart,
in the knowledge we’ve shared
and the promises made
I’m bound to keep,
though I transpose evil intent on my sacred prayers,
sharing with god the distance too,
the love forgotten conveniently•198
and remembered inconveniently
and back again to the 20th room
in the 20 motel and that’s all they all are,
a procession of grey-eyed beauties
with closed eyes blinking
tears down frail cheeks
and running—
running down a mountain,
faster than I can,
feet overlapping my head.
The path of error leads sickness to truth,
surfeit and then some,
and proving the theory,
any one will do—
Still, there’s today,
what’s left of it,
and the death of another week,
another small regret let loose in the world.
Accumulating drag
as I become heavier than time,
and left behind,
no one to bless me when I sneeze
and so my soul departs...
Madness inset like ivory on a fragile mind—
take my life, give me a year or two more,
and all blessings upon you evil legions
rampaging at twilight
when salvation is barely abed
and not yet protected in the nest.
And the graying eyes to cry after,
the many more honored be,
such as can be said for the worldly,
they know what they want and went to market.•199
I don’t know if it’s about moving;
it’s about what’s for sale.
There’s a buyer for every soul.
So I balance here, between heaven
and hell, wondering
whose bid I’ll accept.
I don’t like the face of money
and god is too good for me;
satan disgusts, love is a sorrowful girl, long gone
(i love you, but this is not my calling,
not the one thing for which i live,
although i love and promise to love you,
live with you, support you,
be your mate and more,
soulmate even,
just that my life is for a purpose other than that,
already too late for that)
Creating samples of existence
living in a nonland noplace,
dreaming inside a world with everything in it,
but different;
trading away reality for its likeness;
giving up money and happiness,
per se, for all in all—
a cosmos developed
energetically in images
left to live along obscure trails;
a name scrawled on the dark side
of a scrub oak up a mountain,
but left there just the same.
What is it? Why is it or isn’t?
feeling lonely for fried chicken
feeling lonely for biscuits and corn on the cob•200
and those lovely roadside stands,
and lonely for hunger
and lonely for all those lost days.
Leaving, again, is so much to take;
this is a sad, sad goodbye.
Strange, that a place should hold such feeling—
if I could stay here,
and just stay here;
but I’m weary of moving,
and I’m weary of other things.
Ω
|
lo fi play
hi fi play
download
email track to a friend
add to My.MP3