1. |
All You Find
02:58
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That’s us in the snapshot
at the bargaining table
Hoping to stop the war
already in progress
Will an armistice arrive
before our arms get tired
Of setting fire to
firmaments of gods and goddesses
If war is all you know
All you remember and
relive in your mind
Then it can’t be a surprise
to look around and
see war is all you find
Some of us thought
the order of the world was fixed
Others said order was
more of the same old tricks
While the rest were distracted
by the back and forth
East and west got sick
of stress and south went north
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2. |
Be Closer
03:08
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I know the way I see the world
You know the way I see it
When I tell you what I think
It’s so hard for you to believe it
It’s like we live on distant planets only
passing each other in orbit occasionally
I want to be free and for you to see
we need to be closer we could be closer
not separated by opinion divided by the grimace
on your face when I try to enter your space
All I have is the world I’m on
The world I see far away from me
when it doesn’t have to be
We could be closer in our thoughts
You know we ought to
We don’t have to agree on much of anything
Just one thing
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3. |
Century End
02:59
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I taught my best friend at the time
how to ride my bike in a parking lot
where a faceless high rise now climbs
hiding murals painted but not forgot
I rode a train from a suburban office park
where a bunch of us worked till after dark
You’d take a taxi seven blocks to my place
A few times on my bike I’d even win the race
Sappy to feel anything was better then
but that was a mistaken memory of a century end
Happy in jobs humble but grotesque
I kept a kingdom of keys at an SRO desk
Ignoring as best I could a masked lordly villain
When he died they put his name on a building
It comes back in these strange loops
the ex-dancer in the nutcracker troupe
I gratefully declined his handsy pass
When he died I fondly raised a glass
It comes back in these strange loops
when my breathing steadies and my head droops
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4. |
Coming Home
03:01
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I’m watching the sunshine
As it slides up the wall in my room
My sheets are clean and I’ve
brightened my scene with mop and broom
The only thing that feels better
Than coming home to you
Is you coming home to me
It means everything
I’m warming the oven
Listening to something so smooth and so tight
You ain’t gotta stay for this loving
But leaving will mean you won’t get it tonight
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5. |
Destination
02:50
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Landed at the bottom of the steps
I cut my eyes to the right and left
Ain’t a way to get to my destination
Without a pinch of prestidigitation
The effort isn’t the payoff
The journey ain’t the reward
This life’ll end in a layoff
but at least you won’t be bored
Glitter and confetti collide and crash
oh wait my mistake it’s only trash
Sunset’s gonna look like an epic bruise
I heard Felix say “I got nothing, Deleuze”
I hear the whistle before I see the train
Ain’t gotta miss you in order to feel this pain
Ain’t a way to get to my destination
Without a pinch of transfiguration
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6. |
Eyes Forward
02:55
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I’m driving down the road
It’s clear and sunny but
the wind in my face is cold
I am trying to keep my lane
I’ve got one hand on the wheel
and the other on my …
Ask I can do is keep going
move forward, serve the moment
Keep my appointments
made and unmade
I’m not really living if I’m afraid
Let the car do the work,
keep the hands on the wheel
keep my eyes forward
on the traffic in front of me
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7. |
Ghostwritten
03:27
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There’s what you condense
from the nuance of vapor
There’s everything else that
never gets written down on paper
like the look in my eyes
when I hang around you
and you’re so surprised
it’s like nobody ever found you
just the words you say
the smile on your face
the way you occupy your time
the way I wish you occupied mine
I’m just a person in a body
admiring a person who is somebody to me
even if they don’t know they could be
I could tell you how I’m smitten
but it might as well be ghostwritten
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8. |
Petrichor
02:55
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It’s the memory of rain
that worries you the most
Not the wetness in the air
so much as its murdered ghost
Eaves can softly fill with dust
Leaves can fall like flakes of rust
Beliefs for burning you can trust
There’s no hope in a clear coast
It’s the memory of rain
that taunts your rapid eye
looking everywhere around
except up there in the sky
Coded rhythms gone as warned
Roads darkened and unadorned
No perfume rarer than petrichor
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9. |
Riding Shotgun
02:53
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Fresh coat of paint on the town sign late last night
It’s Tiffany blue but there ain’t no jewelry in sight
Name’s unreplaced but they left up signs for Scouts
Rotary, Elk and church daycare, the little sprouts
You ought to be riding shotgun
You got good aim even when unloaded
Your poor impulse control richly voiced and dulcet
still offered up even when you’re outvoted
Tank half full but I thought I’d top off for safety’s sake
She was adjusting her shirt just as I walked in to pay
Bosom like a thousand drowning sailors’ harbor dreams
Hips like torpedoed ships aflame in vengeful angry seas
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10. |
Shepherd
02:56
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I’m learning the lay of the landscape
Getting the hang of the gallows
in order to ease my escape
In case I’m ever executed for some crime
I’ll ask the condemned:
hey friend, is it your first time?
But gaining new fluency
in all these glittering novelties,
the duality and dichotomy
winds up taking a lot out of me
Ever since I left the city for the town
I talk less walk faster keep my head down
I don’t keep secrets so much as I simply forget
But I’m still not as old as I am hoping to get
One day I’ll fit in
with a little bit of luck
and a lot of effort
I won’t be the sheep
but maybe someone will
mistake me for a shepherd
I won’t be a sheep
maybe someday I’ll be
mistaken for a shepherd
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11. |
Skeletons
02:46
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Sunflower seeds in foreign soldiers’ pockets
Pictures of loved ones in wallets and lockets
Uniforms move forward under flying rockets
But only come back, come back as skeletons
Dreams of the way it was a day before evaporate
Tears of regret fall salty, wet faces at a faster rate
The opposite of love is indifference we learn too late
It can only come back, come back as skeletons
Flesh is all too fallible and far too prone to fear
Blood is spiked with passion and spilled even easier
Wars will take them both to rot in majesty austere
Nothing to come back, come back but skeletons
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12. |
Slow Then Fast
02:52
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Past a certain point
the dance performs itself
the body in motion
disappears before your eyes
You stare at the air as
it falls like cut silken sheets
You start as your heart
moves in time to new beats
You’ll see the dancer slow then fast
Enjoy it since neither of you will last
its beauty ain’t its heavenly brevity
But in you reliving it as memory
But you ogling it must’nt
get ahead of yourself
Perception serves a purpose
it’s not the only prize
You breathe in excitement
balance it against ennui
Imagine the exquisiteness
you could explicitly free
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13. |
Vibe Check
02:58
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I’ll be the first to say it
Uncomfortable truth
The feeling is off it’s all intangible loss
Soul sucking vacuum in a soundproof booth
I’ll be the first to say it
Paint it across my chest
Speak up in case we figure out something better
Or let a demolition crew undo this unholy mess
I check the vibes
It’s a vibe check I say
the vibes are off
Somebody check mine
Just let me turn my head
to the left and cough
Now here’s where you admit you knew
Better call a chaplain
The sum of quivers and
spine shaking shivers is real
Better way to say it is
Good things keep unhappening
Don’t be the last to delay
None of us needs the stress
Speak up in case we figure out something better
Or let a demolition crew undo this unholy mess
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14. |
Weekling
02:58
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The creek is running slow and clear
and you say you are tired of my hands
Six days ago I covered you like clouds
Raining my favor upon your thirsty lands
So now you turn your face
towards another sun
Only a week to make me
a weekling, nothing to be done
I was told that you blew hot and cold
but never of cruelties of these scales
Would I’d been warned you’d be so bold
strand my vessel far from wind for my sails
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Saint and Kings San Pablo, California
I’m a singer-songwriter using guitars and keyboards to craft distinctive dispatches from intimate interiors, vast exteriors and all points in between. Drawing on years of pop, soul, indie, folk and dance-music fandom, I try to turn observations and narratives into succinct sonic snapshots. ... more
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