Raise Those Roof Beams

We get paid on Friday;
By Tuesday we're all broke
So, we bring out the bottles
And pretty soon they're broke, too.

More than where we live,
This house is where we feel alive.
We're all alone together.
We will raise those roof beams high.

Russ climbed out the window
To get a better look at the stars.
He jumped off the roof of the garage
And went out to hit the bars.

Jeanie, she took pictures
Of just her body and the moon.
Came back inside; put her clothes on;
Hung her pictures in her room

Paul is inking up his walls
Waiting for the sun to rise
Cause the words he writes are mirrors
Bringing light to his tired eyes.

The Hub City

The Hub City huddles beneath the cold and the bills,
But in a radio tower run by the hour
A needle melts wax as it spins for a girl
With a spark in her heart and her hands.
The words that she sings spread out in a ring; their message is clear and it's warm.

When the Hub City sleeps it will dream.
When the Hub City wakes it will rise up.
When the Hub City sleeps we will dream it back again.
When the Hub City shouts you will hear it
When the Hub City shouts you will hear it through the years

The yards are filled with weeds,
But the basements all bleed
With the true notes of true friends,
Their hearts are beating down the streets;
Passing through bedrooms where paintings are displayed,
The faces of the friends you made dance all through the night.
And let that circle turn till what's smoldering burns
if that's what it takes to cast some new light.

Come July

We took a good long look at all we own
And wonder why we bought it
'Cause it's hard to say how much we paid
When we try to add up all the days
We turned our backs on what could have been
And let the city bus take us in.
But we feel and fear the coming day
When the seasons'll turn their faces away
Tell me there's more; we'll leave tonight
We'll grab the country's spine death-tight

Out under the sky, come July, will be you and I
Under the blankets in the morning and the cold
Amid the blossoms of the spring, I see you and me
Under the leaves in the fall, together we'll sleep

Forgive us if you can, dear friends
We tried, we did the best we can
We'll miss you out there on the road
We'll take your memories when we go
But, when what's sown by day blooms in the dark
Your dreams all scream, "You've got to walk
From the paths you've known. It's time to drive
Until all you see is starry sky."
So, grab that map and pick a name;
Windows down and hearts aflame.

Broken Bells

I hope I die before my dreams do; I want them with me through the night.
The dark is cold; the windows old; I want all the warmth I can hold.
Swimming, summer, somewhere outside we weren't supposed to
We got caught; she told the cops that she was sixteen.

I think of how my friends and I have tried the hours, days, and weeks, there's a ringing in my ears.
I hear broken bells ringing out they say liberty, but not the kind on TV.

Sunk into a bathtub, drinking gin on a Tuesday.
Scene reports and interviews, Mykle Board and George Tabb, too.
And Laura broke her leg jumping from a train in New Orleans.
And Johnny prayed for days and days before coming up with his own answer.

The Delaware rising as we jumped from the train bridge.
We surfaced on the other side and swam to Pennsylvania.
Swimming in that river till it finally takes you to the big sea.
Broken bell, to the day she fell, she sang of all the days could be.

The Tired Doctor

My doctor drank herself to death and she never did say why
She listened to her own heart and thought she heard it say goodbye.

Burn and Burn Bright

I've seen the sun coming up in lots of places,
And I've seen some ugly bottles emptied into pretty faces
Until the liquor pushed their words aside, the best still left unsaid;
When those faces all find bodies to take them off to bed.

I've seen the sun going down in good friends' faces
And I've ran with them like hell and still fallen from the race.
Broken strides and bloodshot eyes we'd be lost in the half-light
If the fires of all our failures didn't burn so bright.

We'll Need Our Blood

She smokes into the wind like a flame-wreathed willow tree.
She says, "All the things I've done so far have disappointed me."

Road around this town, it's not a circle; it's a spindle
And at the center there's no center, just a tired ringing church bell.

But if we are free,
Then we should act it.
And if we are fast
We should not be held fast.

Tattoo wings onto my ankles and help me pack the car;
Drive the road past work till I don't know it no more.
And brother, oh my brother, be my true family
We'll need our blood; We'll bleed; we'll bleed; we'll fail till we succeed.

Nothing if We're Not Moving

We'll need a whole new dictionary
To speak of what we have begun.
Wipe the dust from what we thought our lives could be.
Build a bigger bed to hold all our dreams.

Bike home through the streets of the city she'd make shout.
Saw the tattoo on her back: a flag, red and black, held by a free woman.

You'd never use it in anger,
But you still want to know how to shoot it.
You'd never leave me behind,
But we're nothing if we're not moving.

Filling photocopied pages in the morning;
Draining bottles in the afternoon.
Playing records of those workers songs,
She sings along.

Speeches in the streets, her breath smoking in the cold.
But in the language of lovers we fall soft and warm on one another.

Tinderbox

The days may fly away from us,
But we will fill them with our fingerprints.
And their flight joins them with a sky that watches over us.

When the shapes take forms that are frightening,
Darling, tell yourself you were born for better things.
You are a tinderbox, and you will have your spark.

At the end of the day we will be loved
But at the end of all our days, we will be gone.
Still let us fear not death,
Though the temperature falls,
It's just to show us each breath
As its own miracle.

West Fast Enough

The doctor said "remission."
She put the keys in the ignition
She said, "The roads, they are all ribbons on a present that I almost left unopened in the dark."

See her on top of a mountain of sand,
Those words in her mouth and a dove in her hand.
Grains pour down from above; she stretches up from beneath
As the wheels of a clock drive the turn of a leaf
Turning beauty to beauty to be.

The signals up ahead, they will start turning red.
But if you time those lights just right,
You could make it through the night
Without stopping in the dark.

Drive west fast enough and the sun wouldn't set
But, the roads and the wires form their own sorts of nets.
The poisons that reach out for Julie are the
The poisons that reach for you and me.

Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of Your Fist

Our words will be thunder
Tomorrow will come with a crash
Because we love our country
With a love that will tear it apart

No more drinking till darkness.
No more love kept in closets.
We're raising our fists
Into a godless sky.

Your heart is a muscle
The size of your fist.

Our watchword is wonder.
We'll steal back our hours in the dark.
Till we don't need a number
To prove to ourselves we're alive.

No more lives lost to lifelessness.
No more desperation in silence.
We're raising our fists
Into that godless sky.