There is no brutal fiction here. As we climb along the pier, past every waking light. The dogs are sleeping tight and taut, and oh so sleepy. All the morning bells have died. You raise your arms, and bless the sky. Some damaged pardon for years gone by.
Laurel Leaf, when you leave, please let me down gently. I will tremble for a century. Laurel Leaf, when you leave, don't speak of us often. Some lives are best forgotten.
You gave a single moment's glance to wave along the shyness that is floating by. Myself, I lie awake and dream of autumn. Come on, baby boy. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Laurel Leaf, when you leave, please let me down gently. I will tremble for a century, and then fade into obscurity, trading shame for quiet dignity.
It's just some damaged pardon that broken voices sing. Across the nesting valley, where the molten starlet swings. With her crass call for excellence, and her graceful call for spring. Well she knows there is no one, there is nothing she can bring.
And out in the cold light you wait and you wonder. Home is just a place you may return to and plunder. There lie the satisfied sinners and their brothers. There lie the lovers who have left you for another.
And so she left without her children, with her feathers white as snow. She was headed for the mountains she'd been aching for to go. And if there's one steady spark in this flickering dark, well I know... she will follow it home.
If only I could be so fancy free as when you're singing that sweet melody into my ears, so calm, so clear, so proud. But now I wander down these city streets, find a place to rest my feet, and it feels just like I never heard that sound. Any sweet belief can rise, then fall back down.
Was it a sodium glow? No, I already know. It was rows of white candles laid out in the snow.
You may rise and call as what you call is fading, as the blade betrays the sculptor to the stone. All these sallow boys can leave with what they're taking. With the shorelines and the shadows they have known.
This time, roll against my sheltered skin. In my wasting grace I'll let you in. Don't mind me now. Don't mind me now. I am so tired. I am so tired.
When I shape and hold your gallant flesh, your aches and cold dry country breath, oh Sarah, won't you take my hand just for a while? Oh Sarah, won't you take my hand just for a while?
As the half-light decays, sing a song of the way that the night cuts the day like piano wire. Please address it to me from the border of sleep, where you taste like salt water and candle fire.
Let's take the day off babe, and go to the carnival. When this dirty young century has passed and is through. What I knew once as sweetness seems sick and mechanical. Now there's a hole in your chest that the light can shine through.
But I'll say it again: rise against your empty call! This God-forsaken holiday song. There are better lions waiting for your smile. But Sarah, won't you take my hand just for a while?
SAGGING MONKEY FLESH
Well, if time's no matter, love these shaking arms for just one second. Turn that TV on, come on. You've given your confessions. You say it's easy to fuck up when you can't tolerate derision. Man, it's easy to fuck up a life you never once envisioned.
I have seen your sagging monkey flesh go sighing into song, and you can paint your voice across my chest, rhapsodical and strong. Patterns weave across my mind, like strands of blue black cotton. And it's hard to tell what I've never known from what I've just forgotten.
Shake those bones, shake that body, shake those eyes for me. Shake those bones, shake that body, quiver and be free.
FAKER'S SONG
This is one faker's final chance to get back what you're wanting. We can go out riding past the city lights. They are calling you.
Sunday morning's gonna bring it down. I'm gonna get me what I needed. Take the little girl by the arm and say you should not feel defeated. No, you should not feel defeated.
And in the place of shaking off, I wanna feel it overhead, and cast aside what I recall was done or what was said. Oh, but I must take this road instead.
You're gonna ride, ride, ride with me tonight. We're gonna take it slow, but we'll get there. You're gonna hold, hold on to this shaking light. You're gonna hold, hold, hold on for tomorrow.
There is a place that I venture in my fantasies, where I can let these visions hide. It was not you who meant so much to me, but the light behind your eyes.