Something is breathing in the air
Something is moving, in the water
And the winds in you are blowing…
Bring back my boy!
I loved him.
I loved him.
Gentle flakes of snow
On the roads and the fences
My head is a flame–
my body is distant.
And I am fading out
I can tell it all the time
I’ll go down in a flame–
and wheel in the air like a swallow, diving.
Oh, you border guards–
So young and handsome in the light–
Will you let me go through, to the enemy lines,
one more time?
one more time?
Hold my arm, will you
Hold my arm harder
There are islands in the sun
There are diamonds in the water
Oh
In place of the sun
In place of the moon
A terrible light
Will flood every room,
and bathed in this light, we will swim again.
From the high desert's wall to the seas, red and black.
Turn your transmitters off–
We are not coming back.
And the pearls of our eyes are turning black.
And when it occured, oh, yes, sir, yes, sir,
And the walls came down, it was a fucking disaster.
The whole thing's changed in unthinkable ways,
And now you have come to inherit it.
But why did you come,
To corral everyone?
When you're just pushing the darkness around
I won't go traveling tonight;
I won't go back to the wolves, now.
There's something singing in the ice
In the deepest part of the world
and a film across my eyes,
as I'm watching all the waves turn white.
He took me out on the tide
To make pearls of my eyes
And uncover me, again, without asking–
Tore every stich, every line, every hook, every eye
Between him and the diamonds, diamonds
I would not give, but maybe tonight I will,
with you holding my arms and my stuttering heart.
as I'm bound and flayed alive
Oh don't go traveling tonight.
Hold that child in your arms!
There are no more canaries in the mine
And a cloud, black over the water.
And a voice, low in my ear,
Says the things that we did here will never die
The wind that lifts the leaves against the night,
the reeds that bow and bend beneath its weight,
this holy sap, its smoky light
they will not hide
The fish that swim inside the murky deep,
the island shores that loom above the sea,
the holy, holy melody
will bring them all to me
Oh, play again that melody,
hidden close to me
Seventy-four. Seventy-five. He's getting used to it now, how
each one falls away in that hoary light. and they are gone,
gone frome the age, gone from the guards and their hands.
It's no different today than in years gone by. And he won't
come out alive, with his hands so thin and white…
Gone. Gone from the page, and then he is gone from your
eyes, as that splintering wave takes so many lives. And now
your hands are gripping the edge of such a waste, where
every angel looks dead, every face a lie. And you won't
come out tonight, with your hands so thin and white, alive…
Seventy-four, seventy-five,
Daddy, come back to me now–
I would beat them away
I would lift you out
I would wash all the cinders from your eyes
And with silver and gold
I would adorn you
I'll let it all come out tonight, when they pull me out alive.
Alive
His little hook,
Your little eyelid.
The iris dilates while the heart implodes.
And when he comes, and he's raging,
his mouth still denies what his heart just knows.
But no, nobody could ever have known,
no light in the dark could have shown
how you would reply.
When the bombs finished falling,
And ashes were drifting along the roads,
Little child, how you lifted your eyes to the air,
And the ancient shapes of crows.
And nobody would ever have known
No hand and no eye would have shown,
how you would reply
Hey, little birdie, catching my eye,
Sing little sweet things into my mind,
And tug at my darker side.
Fly to the bed where we are confined,
Combing the cancers out of our lives,
And harness your song with mine.
And whose tongue gave you life, but mine?
If you could ring the sky like a bell,
Even such a sound would never suffice.
If you could bang the world like a drum, it would only show
It was hollow inside
And your love, it slips behind a little cloud, and your eyes are veiled–
Is there a medical term for a heart that's been removed?
If you could wring the hours and the days
of all their/your life, I think you would find
that the lovely faces crash like a wave
upon a shore so frozen and white
and as love, it slips behind that little cloud,
the snow is like a feathery down,
when your heart has been removed
And as love departs your life, like silvery birds that leave the coast,
your eyes are as wild and lifeless as the moon
These were the words of the wounded man.
He came to me, you should understand,
And he's coming to you, all the way
From the hardest place
Through the hardest days:
“Out on the roads of that winding plain
I took her in, took her all I had,
Understanding, everything.
but her coldest eye
should have changed my mind.”
So then he rose, and he rubbed his eyes.
Crawled through a hole in a lake of ice,
just to show you, all the way: though the queen has died,
she has multiplied
Hail, Mary, full of death,
Sing me your bitter song —
As dark as the day is long,
And as black as your eyes are wild,
While the hail from this blackened cloud
Is raking the firmament
And destroying our argument
About the temperature and the time,
Wild and unbroken
We lay, like a wounded lamb, facing a billygoat,
Bowed down in our heavy coats
Under the force and the threat of his eyes
And we march in our rows and rows
Under a burning hand
Past the scars of the wounded land,
Into a country of thorns and spines,
Wild, and unbroken
Oh God save the chamberlain,
And God save his appointed successor
but God saved his hardest face for you,and all your kind,
and that's what's troubling me
Hail, Mary, sick and proud, holding aloft the light
That would burn through a heaving night
And then leave us upon the rocks
And the child who is nearly born
Waits just to do you harm
Like the shock of a broken arm
Or a love that would burn you blind–
Wild, and unbroken
Oh daddy, I'm lost in your overcoat.
But I found my heart, I pulled it out by its root.
and I said it once
said it twice
“If I live, or I die, I am free again.” and I was free
I came to love the spaces inside of me,
The winds that blow, the leaves of the almond trees
That would grow by the road,
Brushed with light, and with snow,
And I will ride as far as it goes…
Oh joy of mine, swelling inside of me
I feel your eyes, your hands as they form in me
And I sing it once,
sing it twice,
while you live,
when you die,
you will be free again,
and you are free
All lyrics © 2006 Jonathan Meiburg