Lyrics by Matt Russell


CLIMBING

Afternoons we climbed

the oak out back.

Its old, outstretched arms

set a course of climbing

unsuited to my size.

I’d have preferred

to pass time below.

I’d risk difference to forgo

feeling risk.

I’d have preferred,

but still I stayed on

sure they’d never know.

I’d bend down the branches and make the leaves fall

no faster than leaves fall;

over-grasp as I couldn’t

help but glance down;

and I’d climb…

back to top

PASSERBY

I won’t feel sad

I won’t feel sad when I’m god

I won’t be bad

I won’t be bad when I’m god

You’ll feel safe as sidewalks

You’ll feel safe as double yellow lines

Long last I’ll come

Safer than you’ll ever be

Passerby

I’ve been dust on concrete

I’ve been dust on concrete floors

I’ve been chip on china

I’ve been hidden turned back to the wall

You’ll feel safer safer

I’ve been hidden turned back to the wall

I’ve been chip on china

Hidden from your point of view

Passerby

I’m the crouched down donkey

I bear you back here when you die

I’m the crouched down donkey

I bear you back here when you die

Flexible as fingernails

Dull as fingers pressed into your side

I bear you back here

Duller cause I carry you

Passerby

I won’t feel sad

I won’t feel sad when I’m god

DAYBREAK

The things I love I know

I love too much

Can’t keep themselves together.

The things I love I know

I love too much

Can’t stand to stand together.

And when you talk…you talk.

And when you act like a child…infanticide

When I’m alone, straightjacket moans, unsound tone poems of angel choirs, these new desires are funeral pyres

…but oh! fire’s flame…I’d like to claim it’s only when I’m free.

When I’m alone, though not alone, when I’ve come back home and I’m home unknown,

heaven’s breath brushes over my flesh with tiny deaths, a thousand deaths, which I desire, which I desire.

Still I am

As you see

My stars rise

…And my plans

Are my plans

And your sacrifices.

Time may tell me then my needs need not have cost this loss.

I now know now I’d give it all so small, but proud you allowed my fantasy.

Time may tell me then my needs need not have cost this loss.

I owe you all…at least, so much more than mere distress…and babe your blessed sunflower smile that flashes forth,

that glitter glows shows when love’s revealed but then love’s concealed…

So tell me tender when you leave these years won’t last they’ll crumble fast,

brave broken facts as ruins recast conceal their past, pronounce their lacks, I’ll make them mine,

praise precious signs of what has died, remade, refined, I’ll find, I’ll find,

if strong I’ll find my own designs, my own desires.

Still I am

As you see

My stars rise

…And my plans

Are my plans

And your sacrifices.

GROUNDED

The captain comes on the microphone,

“It might take a little while before we get airborne.

It seems that bad weather’s moving north from Arkansas.

We’ll have to wait to hear how long from ground control.”

Should I take out my new headphones?

I just burnt the last one from Sebadoh

The girl next door, reading Bridget Jones,

Makes me feel like I’m all alone.

The captain’s heard why we’re still sitting

I don’t believe he believes such things

I don’t believe in the rain that appears

Won’t let it wash away the grounds beneath my fear.

Why don’t you answer your cell phone?

Don’t you want to know that I’m not coming home?

I don’t know what we’re being grounded for

I’ve taken off in rain on other flights before

AWAKE

Damp along the shoreline

where waves bound

time crowns

all sight unseen.

Wrapped in a shawl of twilight,

primitive and refined,

gorgeous gold and brown

burn the shoulders of the sea.

…And you

with wonder when the world awakes.

As waves

bound to waves,

crumbling fast,

coming to shore,

so this recedes.

And as silence

before sleep

reveals a clock

or a heartbeat

that won’t fade,

so we remain.

INSIDE/OUTSIDE

On trains to Sarasota,

constrained to fantasy,

though we act as we ought to,

your delicate knees

cause me such shame.

The rules of the game

brew sweet delinquency.

Though little babe you seem to me

as in dreams I used to be,

though little angel about your face

wholly image I can trace,

what’s inside need confide divinity.

Alcibiades,

lay me down.

Pull me close, sweet thing.

Open your gown.

Seize the strength

of lofty lies

as ghosts

materialize

…yes, seize the strength

of lofty lies.

Let glory play

outside outside.

BEFORE THE BUS RIDE

I left the town broken.

Wind swept

and darkened down,

the evening sky

was gauze bruised brown

and shadow blue,

bled through

with falling night.

[If I blame you, I feel fine]

Suddenly the bus peered wide-eyed,

approaching unwanted

like the starry-skyed

boredom of time stretched out before me.

If I blame you, I feel fine

NEW BUFFALO

Sue left me cold,

Left me feeling bold and

Too sure love could never

Hold us together

She set out from Downer’s Grove

Down Michigan below

To New Buffalo her new home

And collage her craft consoles her

As things are never whole

But always becoming other

Now she makes her moves with maps

As topographs rise flat

She can’t be sure just where she’s at

And you won’t find her that way

…But catch her where she hides

When her voice slides soft through pride,

Where she won’t cast her eyes

Or when it appears she most nearly

Acts without desire

Perhaps Sue’s leaving was foretold

By signs too manifold to ignore

Perhaps we were too sure

Love could never hold us together

And if we now play it safe

With our talk displaced

From free to familiar

I prefer it free

With logic left unseen

When disjointed feelings flow

And I’m with her I know

Let New Buffalo be her home

And collage her craft console her

As things are never whole

But always becoming other

Still, I’ll love her

As she becomes another

I’ll love her

Always becoming other

I will love her.