I mark my place in sound

here is where i am

raspily breathing through my new smoked lungs

slowly clanging bell of

tony & sons knife sharpening truck

stops to hone a cleaver

some lawnmower blades

ssshk ssshhhhk

someone, a womans voice

wracked

screaming “freeeed! Freeeeeed!”

somewhere on the train tracks.

Last night you were crying on the porch

“this city is colder”

“noone meets my eyes anymore, things have changed”

i hugged your shaking shoulders, my old friend

cried with you, like i always do

things always change here.

That's the nature

the shrugging shoulder of the mountain

gives us air

and luft

softly blows out old plans and

smooths our foreheads

I'm thinking now of old sounds.

frying of breaded meat at the family castle on Rachel.

The whine of baby-killers clearing snow from the sidewalk

voices forming strategy on our centre-sud porch

idealism breaking in the sun like crystalline dreams

after quebec

after the cellos and low voices on answering machines

and the wind blows through

blowing with it our intentions to quit smoking

to get away now and then

to find better work

i've been low to the ground, my old friend

our laughter together is all i've eaten for days

but i've learned to live on that

and sucking on the splinters of those dreams

this is my city after all

that at least

never changes.

verse= Bm/G
bridge= E/G/Bm

I can't see you
i'm turning up the spotlight
i can't be there
i'm lost in my own head tonight
welcome back to
all the friends you left behind
i can't seem to
lose the ones i tried to find
feel i'm sinking
noone here to pull me up
sun comes through here
spills the water from my cup
there's no mention
the future is a falling tree
best intentions
are gonna pave the road for me..

the trains crash like giants bowling and the strange black moving thing scoops along in the distance, bewildering. is it a crane? i'm stiff and want to be back up north with my toes in tea colored water. i like these days to spend the day not talking. i'd like to not talk to you sometime.

someday the grey will take over and i wont be looking out this window, hearing what i hear seeing what i see. the cottonwood waves. the sea promises. the roads lead away and break underfoot.
listening to trains listen to them listen to themlistentothemlisten.

two years in the teamsters
and i never got my steel toes
metal fingers and splint of shin
were all i got for my dues

riding the side of the backhoe
with the dynamite crew
it was all i could do
to stay awake
long enough
for you

going home dirt encrusted
and the union rep never trusted
you laughed at me for getting busted
when i was seventeen

export a's under my hard hat
leaned my shoulder on shovel
mowing grass at the town hall

and then you'd come and see me
and we'd go fuck in the forest
out the backyard
with the animals around

at six oclock i'm hungover
standing knee deep in the spreader
calcium burns in my membranes
and it's time
to pay my dues
again

i walk like a man but smoke like a woman
there's no telling of stories that hold
a man down to the signs that he's painted

i painted every fire hydrant in town once
it's my best work
gleaming silver, bright crimson red
in the summer sun

there are more words than these
there is pain
the abject mulchy smell of a bloody
world of low words
and the ice breaks on the river
every spring
you can hear bells in the town

here where there are stars
i remember walking to your house
your mother was upstairs
sick
liver sick from too many quarts of blue
and your dad had no teeth
and was a writer

and your slanted house up the road near the cemetary
had ghosts of it's own

i knew you and your calm face
big brown eyes that held
and your brother with a hand pressed
to his schizo head
blood on his leather jacket

we were called out to fight
that's the way it goes up here
i'm miles and years away
and i still want to go out
and fight for you

Bm the whole way

come on mountain come on snow
how it falls and falls and falls
within these walls she said she's fragile
she's frail in solitude
and with these boots i scraped her door
until she let me in

and she's always alone
and never wanted anything
and she's always alone
even when she's with me

come on snow and bury us so we can't leave

i left you in the darkness
your face lit by a screen
you said i had grown colder
well i'm colder than i seem

and you have no mythology
that compares, my love, to this
as unlikely as the gods
that care what we have done

so put your arms around me
like a circle round the sun
I want you to love me mama
like my easy rider done

and i'm longing for your body
baby please come home
i'm the one who loves you
do you love
the darkness more

sleet patting on the taxi window
AM crackle of soukous on radio
the sex-salted lips
mile end and big beers spilled in snow
when leaves fell on our faces
pointe pizza home to
trains and slides and black coated monkey children
and a dark spindle over the parking lot
bright lights on twin church spire
and i'm dry and weak and drunk
and the year is over
and i'm going down slow