The only one to understand
The fireplace, the mockingbird
Look out your window to another world
A home that’s richer than a thousand sands

They gave you a method but without the means
Coo you to sleep with a waiting hand
Secrets they whisper in dormitory halls
Drawing out your wisdom with a few coy calls

Woke in the morning to the devil’s eyes
You were dancing with a phantom on a different skyline
Wait till tomorrow hear it faintly ring
Dye it in a colour, what a pretty thing

You were raised in a pen but without the walls
Children echo what the teacher tells
You hold it in you but you want to yell
The only ones listening are afraid as well

The rains never come, though we thought they would
They're saying there’s a shortage across the dune
They’re sending folks over you can join them soon
I guess my work is over for a little while

Woke in the morning to the devil’s eyes
You were dancing with a phantom on a different skyline
Wait till tomorrow hear it faintly ring
Dye it in a colour, what a pretty thing
Dye it in a colour, what pretty thing

Fog of war
Friend of late
Make pen to paper
Hesitate

Loss in the family
Lonesome crew
Led by a son
On a lone canoe

You’re not here
Maybe you are
Look at your photo
Like a moth in a jar

Minstrel’s come
Let's have him dance
Reminds us of our days gone past

Hold yourself open
Like a door with two handles pulling

I came down from a holy mountain
Horn to blow, an empty fountain

Said yes I do, thank you much
Goodbye, enough’s enough

The dreams still come
Like a cat in the night
Pulling me back
Pulling me back

The work’s not done
It’ll never be done
You’ve had your fun
Had your fun

Hold yourself open
Like a table with two candles glowing
Like a bed with more flowers growing
Like a record that keeps on going

The dream’s come still
Like a cat in the night, cat in the night, cat in the night

Pulling me back, pulling me back, Pulling me back, pulling me back

And the work’s not done
It’ll never be done, had your fun, had your fun

You’re not here, you’re not here
You’re not here, you’re not here

Once I knew how to stumble
Once I knew how to crawl
Once I knew how to dry my own eyes
Once I knew how to fall

Once I knew, Once I knew

Once I was alone, sunken deep instead at home
With wrapped around my finger, all my memories like trinkets
And I’m screaming in a canyon a farewell to my companions
For a train I said I’d take another day

Once I was a mole in the ground
Then I lit a torch
Someday be a creaking rocking chair
Pressed cane seat adorned

Once I was, once I was

Once I was alone, sunken deep instead at home
With wrapped around my finger, all my memories like trinkets
And I’m screaming in a canyon a farewell to my companions
For a train I said I’d take another day

Once I knew, Once I knew

Once I was alone, sunken deep instead at home
With wrapped around my finger, all my memories like trinkets
And I’m screaming in a canyon a farewell to my companions
For a train I said I’d take another day

I came back without a way or cause
Found my connector, found my connector
The kids don’t seem that different anymore
But the night’s still young, the night’s still young

Every single place I’ve ever lived
Was I moving forward or just more bodies present?
Did I fall into my pillow a bit too easily this time?

I came back to circumvent my anxious mind
Found my bed felt strange
And that portrait that you painted hung above my bed
Was it foreign by its age or like a severed head?

Shadows bend around every corner
Think I know who’s coming, it’s a friend who meets me
At the baker’s in the east part of town
Maybe for a coffee, where the locals gossip

Before I wake I think of early in the autumn
We’d walk slowly, passing lightly
On the elves we thought were living in those hills

I came back to circumvent my anxious mind
Found my bed felt strange
And that portrait that you painted hung above my bed
Was it foreign by its age or like a severed head?

Open up the forest and let me bathe within
I didn’t have the guts to tell you how I want to live
And maybe come spring time we can figure out
How to fill out all the spaces we forgot to talk about

Oh longing, like a rounder I roamed from place to place
Oh forgive, but like a tyrant I knew your name

Even when I think of how it’s supposed to end
Did again I lose a love or did I gain a friend?
And often when I choose to rearrange my thoughts
Doesn’t help to recognize the elegance I sought

Oh longing, like a rounder I roamed from place to place
Oh forgive, but like a tyrant I knew your name

Oh longing, like a rounder I roamed from place to place
Oh forgive, but like a tyrant I knew your name

Fifteen miles,
Along the tracks I tread
Through the dead of winter
To the side of my mother
Through the dead of winter
To the side of Ethel Jane

Oldest am I
Have a pact to help those ones who raised me
While their strength is failing
Help the ones who raised me
While their strength is failing

I see a hand outstretched, a mouth open
Oh this forgotten land of setting suns
The dust it blows, a bitter wind it howls
Somehow I’m not read for this weight placed on me
Someone make me ready

Study I
Feel a presence all by the coal oil candle light
While the others are sleeping
By the coal oil lamp light
While the others are sleeping

Tired eyes
Just a short rest and I’ll be back to writing
No use in fighting
Fell asleep to gentle flames
Woke up to hellfire

I see a hand outstretched, a mouth open
Oh this forgotten land of setting suns
The dust it blows, a bitter wind it howls
Somehow I’m not read for this weight placed on me
Someone make me ready

I see a hand outstretched, a mouth open
Oh this forgotten land of setting suns
The dust it blows, a bitter wind it howls
Somehow I’m not read for this weight placed on me
Somehow I’ll be ready

Oh, we have been stationed here
A hollow gutted, a souvenir
This town they say has seen the likes
The feud of feuds, the strike of strikes

I’ve come to work upon a stage
But fame and stories, backwaters gave
Most closed of systems antiquate
Though flashes capture, cross-pollinate

Skirmish stumbles through the night
Miles and miles away
They say the boys have the likes
Of an engine held at bay

If we’re the ones to hold the fort down
Relay this thought him
When he is off enchanting her
Know that she’ll never come back again

Wanderers you know not of
How incensed they left behind
All the dusty towns
Didn’t produce a dime

Silhouettes they faded to
Who had chose to go alone
But in times of trouble
At least we had a home

Silhouettes they faded to
Who had chose to go alone
But in times of trouble
At least we had a home

Moreover, her place in the cosmic order
Does keep her from to all that she could deliver
Middlemen, they pocket half that’s given
And hide behind a weapon, dark city riven

Mortar, stones, and lanterns at the break of dawn
The puddles that I sought reflection
My simple needs are weighted on, against the lives of some
And the rising sun

Years went by, grey hairs turned from auburn
A tower stood, brick by brick she laid them
A single crack, she watched as a fissure grew
To bring tumbling down, that spire, broken sinew

Mortar, stones, and lanterns at the break of dawn
The puddles that I sought reflection
My simple needs are weighted on, against the lives of some
And the rising sun

Those towers that I foresaw
You couldn’t reach, you couldn’t break my fall
A well to drain, the water gone
Men counted sums more than a lifetime would see
The mason, you know that she was told
To do the work, to do the work of old
Without the time and material
She did decide to cut a coronary seal
She did decide cut a coronary seal

If you would’ve looked you wouldn’t have recognized me
Front porch to High St., wild and free
I was the feather and you were the cap
I always wandered wherever you’re at

Dancing to that harvest moon
Laying in the back yard ‘neath that wooden cocoon
Swatting away mosquitoes that'd come too soon

Breadless, thinking we could last the day
Didn't last till lunchtime then we wasted away
Stomachs younger than minds, ideas older than age
Who's the first of us to break away

Our home slopes down into the netherworld
Mucky and muddy along the banks of the creek
Open we slept for an eternity
After dark who knows what’s down there,

Tendrils tickle our feet
Coyotes beckons we roam
Tiny explosions scared us home

Breadless, thinking we could last the day
Didn't last till lunchtime then we wasted away
Stomachs younger than minds, ideas older than age
Who's the first of us to break away

Breadless, thinking we could last the day
Didn't last till lunchtime then we wasted away
Stomachs younger than minds, ideas older than age
Who's the first of us to break away