mixtape i - in a deep river

immerse my underlying message
one for all of her and one for him
open up let's play our part in this
terms are yours to use them as you wish
don't you love it when the rain
falls down upon your face
like sleeping on a train
when there's nothing else at stake
i'm leaving when a song, burns, tears my soul apart
but I'll never leave you stranded
with your broken down heart

-

i think that you're the older brother
that i never had
i wish i could reach out and touch you
don't worry, i'm not sad
i know you're just where you want to be
and everyone's a hundred grand
save some space for me
and say hello to your dad

-

but somebody told me
that your mother was born
oh, a wandering woman with a spirit
so sworn of the riverside
and it never surprised me
but it meant that my love was immobilized
well, it meant that my love was immobilized
cause when it comes, it comes when it does.
but you came in the middle
and you fell in my hands
oh a, wonderful woman and an average man.
See that makes me the lucky man
i won't be deserving, but i won't be denied
see, i fell in this position, i'll still teach my kids pride
because failure's a part of it all
and if failure don't hurt
then failure don't work no more

-

sorrow found me when i was young
sorrow waited, sorrow won
sorrow that put me on the pills
it's in my honey it's in my milk
don't leave my half-burned heart alone
on the water
cover me in rag-and-bone sympathy
'cause i don't wanna get over you
i don't wanna get over you

-

cheer up my brother
it's going to be alright
i know your hearts are heavy as mountains
but were going to go back home one day
wore my dress up to my knees
there's ghosts of babies in the streams

-

i was speaking soft
see the pain in your eyes
i've been feeling for you, my love
and our bodies are tired
our shadows will dance
i've been aching for you, my love
and my love is wasted
sorry for this i never meant to be
hurting ourselves
and i'm complicated
you won't get me out of trouble
understanding myself
my head is a jungle

-

you're the color
you're the movement and the spin
(never)
could it stay with me the whole day long
fail with consequence
lose with eloquence
and smile
i'm not in this movie
i'm not in this song
never leave me paralyzed, love
leave me hypnotized, love

-

i'd like to know completely
what others so discreetly
talk about when they leave me
not that I notice when they're gone
it's eerie and so scary
i don't know who to marry
your sister came to bait me
but i love it when you blink your eyes
oh i
i want to know my body
i want this out not in me
i want to know no secrets yet
i'll leave
oh i'll leave care
it's saved me once too often

-

i killed a love that i could see through
out of my head and i went too far
i never said that i could save you
from the dark
i've been trying to maintain
but it's always in vain
and i'm already gone
don't wanna cry for the dead things
don't wanna open up the wounds that never heal
i found a space between
for all those memories
out in the black
where they keep me company

-

surely don't stay long, i'm missing you now
it's like i told you I'm over you somehow
before i close the door, i need to hear you say goodbye
baby won't you change your mind?
i guess that hasn't changed someone
maybe nobody else could understand
but just before i see that you leave
i want you to hold
all the things that you said
baby, i wish i was dead

-

i could see myself living in the ocean
with nothing new to say
i've got a grievance with devotion
no matter where i sleep
i could see myself happy in my old age
with no one around to save
and no one above my grave
every day i spin the globe and think of life somewhere else
this is a necessary evil that i found in myself
i could see myself cursing at the ocean
with nothing new to say

-

when the iron is cold and the binding holds fast onto you
when i listen for the footsteps
that nearly knock me down in the room
the tower is gone, you say
but how well can you really see?
oh you'll find it by and by
in a heartbeat you'll be free
and you will
run run run run run run run run run
keep running back to me
oh the both of our heads
you've been searching to find a way through
but there's nothing that i want
more than a reason to be following you
when you bring up the matches
just remember that i own them all too
if a lie won't go too deep
in a heartbeat you'll be free
and you will
run run run run run run run run run
keep running back to me

-

slept on the beach in barcelona
all by myself
they stole my stuff they took my camera
i had no pictures to tell
i didn't care because i was flying
like a bird in outer space
i was young and dumb and stronger
you could tell if you touched my face
yes, i could name a few times and i
i would call them good times, but the
sad thing about good times i that you
only know them when they
wash away

-

i woke this morning deep in the earth
laying bare with the granite and the moths
up i clambered and i was met by the sun
it was then i saw you there, down on the street
you've come such a long way
with no one to comfort you
or to tell you you're needed
you and i come from the same place
but if i were to come for you
what's there left to believe in?

tracks

1. underlying message - busby marou
2. older brother - pepper rabbit
3. big man - boy & bear
4. (instrumental) hug the piano - emma pollock
5. sorrow - the national
6. mountains - sparklehorse
7. jungle - emma louise
8. consequence - the notwist
9. distortions - clinic
10. out in the black - imaad wasif
11. halah - mazzy star
12. cassandra - paper rival
13. run - basia bulat
14. barcelona - tinpan orange
15. calliope! - the veils

price

t-boned in blood & guts

on a tuesday afternoon

the five car pile-up of

an unsuspecting song.

background music turned

rogue wave, swept

everything into my head &

out of my eyes & i

sit here reeling, while

the tide retreats 

in a whitewash over

my face, or fortitude.

until tasks before & after

feel grain-of-sand significant.

i’m bone bleached & stuck

with seafoam, salt;

hung between eternity:

mirrors of sea reflecting sky,

reflecting sea, reflecting

sky & all my

rough edges bashed

smooth in sound

or waves or both.

monday, monday

mundane.
a breadth of hours
wider than
the indigo well
of your thoughts
is deep.

you come to
four o’ clock
after throwing out
line after line;
buckets pull up
nothing close
to enough
to sate

a day’s heart-
hunger. silly you,
fishing just
water to fill

that internal
gnaw for only
plain roots after
everyone’s temporary
tendrils tie you
down, constrict &
eat all your
sunlight,

green lust in
their leaves only
spreads further up
& further out.

you: full sick
of shallow sums
& only want some
challenge:

wading through
thick mud, thigh-
deep problems &
bootpulls of just
the most real,
necessary
work.

A Ritual to Read to Each Other by William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail, 
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, 
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep,
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear; the darkness around us is deep.

In this language, no industrial revolution;

no pasteurized milk; no oxygen, no telephone;

only sheep, fish, horses, water falling.

The middle class can hardly speak it.

In this language, no flush toilet; you stumble

through dark and rain with a handful of rags.

The door groans; the old smell comes

up from under the earth to meet you.

But this language believes in ghosts;

chairs rock by themselves under the lamp; horses

neigh inside an empty gully, nothing

at the bottom but moonlight and black rocks.

The woman with marble hands whispers

this language to you in your sleep; faces

come to the window and sing rhymes; old ladies

wind long hair, hum, tat, fold jam inside pancakes.

In this language, you can’t chit-chat

holding a highball in your hand, can’t

even be polite. Once the sentence starts its course,

all your grief and failure come clear at last.

Old inflections move from case to case,

gender to gender, softening consonants, darkening

vowels, till they sound like the sea moving

icebergs back and forth in its mouth.”

— 

The Icelandic Language by Bill Holm