1. |
A Tree/Grandad
06:14
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When I was young we played cricket in your garage,
With tennis balls and a blue plastic bat.
Your boat used to hang from the ceiling inside,
I never got to sail it with you, but I'd have liked that.
You used to do water colour paintings of flowers in your garden,
Whilst I drew pictures of animals
On beige coloured paper, with bright felt pen.
I must have been five at the time,
They hung in your study when you died.
You'd cook me lunch with the radio on,
Listening to Classic F.M.,
Whilst I crawled around your legs
Collecting the pretend rubbish from the tiles in the toy skip lorry you got me.
When I was young, we collected the apples
From the grass underneath the tree in your garden before Summer.
A water feature bubbled behind us with a spout shaped like a lion's head
And a lark ascended from the rosebush to the left.
-------------
Now you're gone
And we
Will never do
Any of that again.
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2. |
On Borrowed Wings
05:36
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A feather you fall, into the heart of a furnace,
You twist and contort, trying to fill it's shape.
The logs burning low, find yourself next to a turnstile,
You pay twenty pence, quivering like a toothache.
-------------
Drown the ringing out
I dare you.
Treasure buried in quicksand,
You sink down.
-------------
In that weeping grave Icarus shed his feathers.
The wax and the water never could properly mix.
You collect them up, making the shape that his father did,
Fixing them on, take to your wings and come home
-------------
Drown the ringing out
I dare you.
Treasure buried in quicksand,
You sink down.
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3. |
2.30 A.M. , Forever
04:52
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Your watch battery died yesterday, in the middle of the night.
The hands stopped moving and the face
Stood still and glassed over.
The internal workings deceased,
The cogs have stopped turning.
The leather grows weaker every day.
The surface fades.
It crinkles and cracks around the hole
That is perpetually punctured by the buckle.
The thing that holds it to me degrades
As I access it over and over,
Yet,
I'm scared to take it off in case I lose it.
Even though I knew that this would happen, I still didn't expect it.
Not this soon. Not this silent.
I convinced myself it would carry on forever,
In perpetual motion
At the edge of it's life.
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4. |
||||
All of the stars in the sky
Are ones that have already died.
Their light makes it's journey to earth
In time measured but beyond comprehension.
They're living on after the fact,
Burning whilst also a husk,
Smoldering pebbles of gods,
Flickering, spluttering, down to us.
And I've convinced myself
I'll do the same thing.
All of the stars in your eyes
Will eventually die,
I'll stay awake half the night
Thinking of things to prolong their flight.
I'm just so hungry for it
And your just asleep all the time.
I'm sorry for being a dick
But I can;t make it sit right.
All that we become
Is the dying light of suns.
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5. |
Storm Emma
05:09
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As we lay here in silence,
I search for comfort in how comfortable we are,
Search in our bodies,
That are draped over each other like ribbons
-------------
Yesterday I spoke to a stranger
He told me that the day before
Two of his friends had frozen to death.
I gave him twenty pounds so that he wouldn't die
And I prayed to a god that I don't believe in
That he wouldn't spend it on drugs or alcohol.
I'm ashamed that I felt the need to pray.
I try not to take this to heart,
To play in the snow and not to remember
But I can't help seeing the tips of their fingers
Protrude through the top of the powder.
No metaphor can describe how much
The lives of those people were worth.
Nothing can describe how much
The lives of any of us are worth.
As we lay here in silence, safe from the cold
My brain is weeping
My mind and my body secede
Unable to understand the grief I feel.
Will their gravestones bare a name?
Will they even get gravestones?
Or just jars of ash?
Any memory to live on in but with those who will also die and be forgotten?
-------------
Our bodies are draped over each other like ribbons
We flap in the chill breeze of time passing us by
And we must pray to the god that we don't believe in
That we don't get left in the snow,
Because anybody could.
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6. |
Interlude
02:43
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You've thrown it away
Or they've let you down.
In higher dreams
Feet sweep the ground.
All their smiles,
They say it all.
Your movement through a space...
I know you'll be alright.
You smile for hours,
You stay up all night.
Bid me a word,
Before it takes me up,
I'd like to say
...
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7. |
Song For A Customer
03:28
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As I walk through the door to your room
The walls are flooded with pictures I sold you
Of stony faced rebels with dinosaur bones,
Peering out over their frames.
I can't help but notice their eyes.
History book drawings, flat faced and fettered,
Icons reduced to a high margin sale,
Printed out thousands of times.
I move to sit down on your bed,
Wading through soft sticky incense of images.
You beckon me in with your Mona Lisa smile,
The one I've seen selling me lies.
You go lock the door and stand quiet,
Finding such comfort in familiar faces
You look to the pictures with a deafening awe
And then the whole world disappears
-------------
And there is nothing
Except the fading
Aeroplane trails of time.
I am standing
Behind the counter
Watching you turn out the light.
I say goodnight.
-------------
As you walk through the door to my room
The walls are sagging under sound that I'll sell you,
Chip-board and stolen lines that I just
Choose to ignore to get by.
You walk up to me with your arms
Full of celebrity faces and notes all recorded
On out of date format that clings to the world .
We occupy physical time.
-------------
But there is nothing
Except their eyes
Staring at me on your bed.
I am standing
By the back room
Waiting to turn out the light.
-------------
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8. |
I Could Never
02:24
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I walk drunkenly through the road
And I think about the way that
My forearms feel
On your stomach.
Air from the sea smudged my eyes,
Burrowed in deep.
-------------
Salt water from them
Rolls down my cheek
Like condensation in a glass
That was washed up two weeks ago,
And turned on it's head and left,
And forgotten
-------------
I could never leave you
And I'm afraid of this.
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9. |
5-23 to London Victoria
04:57
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I sit on the train and I fly down the track
Whilst others stream past in other directions.
I look at the people so firmly rooted in their seats
And I feel like I'm dissolving, sinking back into the pattern of the chair.
-------------
I have no idea what I am doing.
I feel weak to my core.
I feel sick to my sternum.
-------------
I try hard to contain my frailty
Within milk teeth and ribs
That would dissolve under
The slightest change in pressure.
I hold it precious with my fingers
That crackle and snap
Like logs burning.
-------------
Shed the nails from the tips of those fingers
To stop them from clinging on to the frayed edges of the fabric
And to soften the impact on the person that they hold.
-------------
It is so warm and inviting
To let go and to sink through the seat,
To depart the train before it reaches
A definite stop
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10. |
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I never gave it that much thought,
The moving on, the dusty year.
These cluttered objects know me well,
My deepest roots, my oldest fears.
There are certain things I didn't think I'd grow to love,
The noisy thoughts, the smell of mould.
There were many sleepless nights,
Lay on your side, and please don't cry.
I watch the water overflow
And sink into the patterned carpet.
I watch you standing over there
Dripping wet, without your clothes.
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Winnipeg, MN Brighton, UK
Slightly weird and mostly slow indie folk from Brighton / London, UK
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