Idol
Holy mother, blood of the spring,
thicket of the earthlings.
Holy mother,dirt of the path,
lullaby of birth and wrath.
Oh mother, they want to burn us, again.
They soothed us with lies to hate our own skin,
so I became my sister’s kindling.
Bring me back now to the body of my birth,
before my form became my worth.
Oh mother, I’ve been sick in the chest.
The engine screams under the breast
‘till the anger leaves me voiceless.
So sisters, where do we go now?
Between the combat boot,
and the pluck of the eyebrow.
So brothers, can we end the blood affair?
Shape them swords into plow shares.
Hold my body, a close and foreign thing,
when the beckoning comes with the reckoning.
Holy brothers, we need you by our sides.
None will rise, ‘till all will rise.
Holy daughter, never relent.
What is willful, won’t be bent.
So sisters, where do we go now?
(Oh Mother, Idol of the heart,
we’ve got the anger, give us the art)
So sisters, where do we go now?
The Wind At Her Back
Mama, I’m gonna go now.
Throw your prayers away.
Just throw a party when I’m back someday.
I’m gonna do the thing I’ll say that I did
back when I was just a lovesick, kid.
I was raised different than this, I know,
but mama, now you gotta let me go.
Forgive his family, he forgives me mine,
and all the blood of history eventually combines.
Watching the old folks dance around the table,
watching the old ways washed on a new shore.
I’ve never been in love so completely,
so quickly before.
So understand me. Or don’t understand.
Call me prodigal, or difficult, or out-of-hand.
I have a love, and it’s all that I have,
fools in love don’t hear the reprimand.
Watching the old folks dance around the table,
watching the old ways washed on a new shore.
I’ve never been in love so completely,
so quickly before.
Mama’s baby, frightened at the border crossing.
Punished, plainly, for knocking at the door.
But every boy you see, is another mother’s son,
and I refuse to see a war where there isn’t one.
So I promise you, in the way the young can promise,
with nothing but a song, and my open hands.
Love is all that matters, generations down the line,
as birth, as blood, as holy wine.
Watching the old folks dance around the table,
watching the old ways washed on a new shore.
I’ve never been in love so completely,
so quickly before.
You’re gonna tell me America’s been broken,
well, I see the glass, more lovely for the cracks.
I’ve never been alive so completely,
the wind at my back.
Stay With Me
It’s a bad road, in a crowded pick-up
into the shadow of America.
There are bones between the roots of the Agave.
There are old wars in the dust.
There’s an old pain in my shoulder,
from the night I ran us out of town.
There are bones which have moved within me.
There are prayers across my back.
I may lose you if I go
but I will lose you if I stay,
I may lose you if I go
but I will lose you if I stay.
May the bones and shadows
guide us on our way.
May the bones and shadows
guide us on our way.
I didn’t come for your Jesus,
or your Lexus, or your blue jeans.
I came to you in exodus
from a murder scene.
You think you know the huddled masses.
Think we’ve come to live for free.
I came for nothing
but the miles in between.
I may lose you if I go
but I will lose you if I stay,
I may lose you if I go
but I will lose you if I stay.
We knelt down at the soldier’s warning,
in the crosshairs of America.
There were floodlights,
at the barbed wire entrance.
There were children in the dust.
Between the coughing and the silhouettes,
the stillness stood in uniform.
A row of restless babies,
a row of Mother Marys.
Someone tell me, how have we got to here?
Sitting with our fidget spinners,
while the devil shifts the gears.
Go ahead now, keep hiding behind your cross.
Praise your platinum kingdom,
through the cries of unforgivable loss.
I can’t lose you
Stay with me!
I can’t lose you
Stay with me!
It’s a bad road, in a crowded pick-up
a silent road that day.
They gave me a phone number
and sent me away.
I will stay alive, my darling
I will pray you do the same
‘till the bones and shadows
guide you home one day.
It’s a bad road, my baby
in the shadow of America.
Bionic Angel
This creature of heaven and wire,
I am on your shoulder.
Do not confuse the white-feathered shadows
with me.
I know the song of the tree,
and of the fragment.
I am the artifacts of ascension,
combined.
I anoint you in splinters, I anoint you in gold.
Wing span of copper, slivers of soul,
my eye’s on the blades in the clockwork of sparrows.
I’m the bionic angel.
From the resin of rapture,
I bless you.
On the hollow bones of flight machinery,
and palms.
I know the heart of the forest,
and the soul of the piston.
I am the mechanism of meditation
in the metal of my spine.
I anoint you in splinters, I anoint you in gold.
Wing span of copper, slivers of soul.
My eye’s on the blades in the clockwork of sparrows.
I’m the bionic angel.
This creature of heaven and wire,
I am on your shoulder.
I know the song of the tree,
and of the fragment.
I am the artifacts of ascension,
combined.
I anoint you in splinters,
I anoint you in gold.
Wing span of copper,
of slivers of soul.
My eye’s on the blades
in the clockwork of sparrows.
I’m the bionic angel.
My eye’s on the blades
in the clockwork of sparrows.
My eye’s on the blades
in the clockwork of sparrows.
My eye’s on the blades
in the clockwork of sparrows.
Big hug
I want to tell you that I’m keeping pace.
I want to say it like I see the ending of the race.
I want to tell you that I’m never scared, never sore,
never banged my head against the door,
chasing after grace.
Forgive me, kindly, I woke up this way.
In the tears and ash of the American shadow play.
All fences white, all Buicks blue,
all propaganda on the news,
to pit the brown eyes against the baby blues.
I want to tell you that I see it,
I want to say I found the cure,
but nothing seems to matter, baby.
I can’t do this anymore.
And so we kill ourselves to stay alive.
We break and we burn out beneath
the unbreakable 9 to 5.
And through the screens, psychotic blue,
those one-percenters on the news
preach to the penniless, on how to pay their dues.
I am so tired of fighting.
When do we get to stand down?
When can I disappear back to the arms of the holder,
beholden, and sound.
I want to write a better story,
I want to save myself.
I have a bad time believing,
trusting anybody else.
I want to tell you that we will survive.
That there is peace within,
even when the war is televised.
And from the deep, essential you,
between the trash and what is true,
there is the filament, the spark to see us through.
I am so tired of fighting.
When do we get to stand down?
When can I disappear back to the arms of the holder,
beholden, and sound.