1. |
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I saw you with a boy/I saw the crowded real estate beneath his denim
And I was in the right/so I wrote it in a bill and paid all the right people to plant a seed
I’ve got the coordinates/that’s all they need
While you were holding hands/the backroom wizards loaded more than six into my chamber
As you looked me in the lens, you said, “Do what you have to do and do it quickly.”
I thought you clever to quote our Lord, but there is no Peter in the garden with a sword
Now I know what you are, (droning on, droning on)
Love travels far but modern bullets travel farther
Well Marty had it wrong/I’m safe behind these walls of burnished pedigree
I’ll never hang tonight/already paid the flight with the tax dollars in my pocket
Honey, there is nothing you can do to stop it
Now I know what you are, (droning on, droning on)
Love travels far but modern bullets travel farther
Modern bullets travel faster
Modern bullets travel far
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2. |
Petrichor
05:04
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All/grand mal epileptic sex
Auras in your orangeade
Secondhand weathervane
Pedestrian magic
Lore/petrichor
Catch the devil (catch the devil)
Do, in silver dew
Twist the twigs into a trap/step back
Lay her body down/into the sugarcane
The foxes run, the day is done
The day is done
The flowers speak/winter wheat antique
Superimposing oceans
The day is done
Still/roadkill, signposts
Southern in your sigh
Low, I get alone
And suddenly all my thoughts seem worth speaking
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3. |
Cave of Clouds
03:43
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This far north, the air is not without a set of teeth for cutting through your clothes
The spirits of the lusher trees are steadily canvassing the cliffs
They’re at the cabin door
It’s not all bad to be alone
It’s not all bad to be alone
From the lip of the cave of clouds, casting mountains in the sea to watch the ripple moon
We disregard the sinking sounds anymore, pretty little creatures that we are
It’s not all bad to be alone
It’s not all bad to be alone
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4. |
The Farmer and the Viper
04:04
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Kentucky snow/and my bones are fairly shaken
in the winter and its waking on the land I’m cultivating
and I watch a detonation of crows
Out of the dogwood/where the leaves all quit attempting
and the witchhazel is empty just like everything is dead
exempting me, out in the cold
And there he lay/like the devil was a cropper
on my family’s farming proper, tiny bones and head of copper in the loam
shivering to death
He wasn’t moving, and I knew the antidote
pity rose up in my throat, and so I put him in my coat to get him warm
and carry him back home
Well why should I oversimplify? It’s good to be alive
So logically, all living things are good if not misunderstood
and I will not play God, arbitrating, arrogantly designating who should live
Well then it happened—I bet you already guessed
when I called the cursed blessed he sank his fangs into my chest and through my shirt
and put his venom in the veins
As I was dying, I thought it rather fitting
that my heart produced the pity and that’s the spot the snake bit me
and I know nature doesn’t want changed
Well I should have compromised—I didn’t realize the demon at my doorstep
But with one slash of Sheol’s knife, he cut down the tree of life
And stacked the wood for kindling and the laughter that I’m sure will follow after this life
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5. |
Indiana
07:17
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From the salvage yard, there are two black dogs who run
through the post-harvest fields of winter wheat as stalks
running on last legs
From the GM plant and the empty storefronts’ lull
all the finches, quick, are undressed inside their song
of a sad place to love
Well the houses are matchsticks after everyone left
but the soil is good and we’re not dead yet
Open up the motorbike/burning down the turnpike
Perfect lines, effortless
Keep me in your hidden thoughts/where every road that ever crossed
had council held with the snow/resting easy—this is home
This is home
With the husk of Delco heavy in the loom
will there always be as many empty rooms
or eyes?
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6. |
Birth Control
05:00
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I, insistent, follow blindly
on the buckle of the Bible belt
with a two-bit axe in my pack, and my baby boy on my back
as I track you on the mountain
It’s not the first time we met
“Light a fire,” he said,
“Send your boy out to destroy the saplings, gathering sticks.
”
Well I spit and I cuss
because I have issues with trust
“But I might as well avoid the hellfire I can control,” I told myself.
So I raised a cairn in honor
and I scanned the sky for Gabriel
and I made your sign with oil on his head
and wept
You snatched the knife from my fist
and checked me off of your list
“It was a test, you’re highly blessed and I am proud that you passed,”
Well you judge the dead and the quick
but that was awful and sick
to flicker like a candle, I am not a man that gambles
What if no ram came?
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7. |
Decalogue
03:28
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Emma, I wish you weren’t married
Emma, I’m sorry that I brought it up
and put you in an uncomfortable situation
now the boy you love will almost certainly not be my friend
Emma, I wish you weren’t married
It’s a dilemma existing only in my psychic glade
the record is an example of your contentment
and I’ve got nothing on your husband ‘cause he’s also in a rock band
I’m sure you’re happy, and you don’t think of me
and that’s right
But I never had lucid dreams before I met you
and I still don’t, technically,
but on a parallel continuum, I’m sure I met you years ago
because I can imagine with such clarity you letting me hold your hand
Well I’m sure you’re pissed—
you didn’t ask for this and I’m sorry, Emma
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8. |
Telekinesis
03:49
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Witches never look like witches do in your mind’s eye
and when blackbirds peck out your green eyes, I won’t be able to act surprised
Well I wish I knew a way out, but the woods are closing in on you
and your coven is all around, and I’m stuck holding the matchbook now
Your veil is frost-soaked and shining
as it skirts your low neckline
Put it off, my offbeat acolyte—
when you die, do it beside me
The left wing has been clipped like a shrub and the right wing is on designer drugs
But don’t mind me—I’m just a man who began to suspect he was made out of glass
Your veil is frost-soaked and shining
as it skirts your low neckline
Put it off, my offbeat acolyte—
when you die, do it beside me
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9. |
Ernest Hemingway
04:50
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Strung along, careless fires
and the vertebrate of fences
Loft of a ruined choir
and the counterpoint of vague assemblies
In a copse of birch trees
I dream of Iceland
and drink the snowmelt
Avalanches, slick as sharks
in the fossil record
In Colorado
bliss of Christmas lights and air travel
In a copse of birch trees
I dream of Iceland
and drink the snowmelt
So, brother, pour me a drink
and watch for eyes beyond the fire ring
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10. |
Left the Academy
02:59
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Back in high school, my dad took me out
in the pine scrub with a rifle
and I bagged one with a bruised shoulder
and I couldn’t eat
and in my mind I’m still covered in deer blood
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Joshua Powell Indianapolis, Indiana
Joshua Powell is the exhausted wizard at the helm of IN's most haunted rock band. From his hardcore roots in the Floridian swamps and beyond the fever dream of his folk era, his literary lyrics dig for enlightenment in a surrealist muck. “Four LP's and over 900 shows later, the midwestern road dog's ever- evolving, transcendent style embraces hallucinatory metal and grimy psychedelia.” -Audiotree ... more
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