1. |
Cowboy
05:18
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I’ve been lonesome,
A cowboy riding low,
Wandering & wandering,
No heart to call a home.
Sometimes you ride,
Forgetting to mind the light.
I’ve tried to keep warm,
The embers dying slow,
Wondering & wondering,
Is the saddle up, really worth the fall down?
Sometimes you ride,
Just for riding,
Sometimes we ride,
Just to find ‘em.
But all these plains stretch wide,
The yearning don’t subside,
The yearning pays no mind.
I’ve been told some,
“The violent bear it away”,
Sundering & sundering,
“This trail is just my bones”, you say.
Sometimes you ride,
Just fixin’ to survive.
Now there is just nights,
The wind’s shadow up on high,
You hang on every breathe,
Your embrace in every step,
This longing, & longing,
Keeps the map in the hand,
& leaves your prints in my sand.
Sometimes we ride,
Eye’s on someone else’s light.
Sometimes I ride,
Not realizing, I’m but dust behind them.
But all these plains stretch wide,
The yearning don’t subside,
The yearning pays no mind.
Just to hold your one,
Heart to abide.
“Hey, try to take this in your stride.
Now, take your paces.”
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2. |
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One Thousand Cranes,
(caught the wind & flew away),
Like the one thousand suns setting,
At the dawn of new days,
Nothing’s as sweet,
As the death of the page,
When it meets with the reaper,
Of the quill dry with age.
One Thousand Cranes,
(caught the wind & flew away),
Although I count up a third,
That seem crooked and strange,
They float & then fall,
For the shiftless to claim,
While the rest just drift on,
With no nation to name.
A work’s wish bound in tape,
Will this mark my escape?
I’ve never needed song,
Just the hearts to grow fond.
One Thousand Cranes,
caught the wind & flew away,
And if it’s all the same,
Let it take them where they’ll lay.
One Thousand Cranes,
(caught the wind & flew away),
Find: the bottom of the well,
That is dry with decay,
Nothing’s as sweet,
As the dismal disdain,
Of the bastard who doggedly demands this domain.
The arching arcane,
Of this awful ordain,
Is there’s no wisdom to parse,
From this stutter & shame,
Just a wick that awaits,
Its everflowing flame,
But no wax wants that fate,
It would rather abstain.
A work’s wish bound in tape,
Will this mark my escape?
I’ve never needed song,
Just the hearts to grow fond.
One Thousand Cranes,
caught the wind & flew away,
What is there but to remain?
What is really there to save?
My one thousand paper cranes,
Caught the wind & flew away,
A lesson learnt in vain,
For the learning’s stark & plain,
My one thousand paper cranes,
The boundless love that they contain,
I’ve needed one to stay, & stay,
But it rose & flew away.
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3. |
I Have Not Loved Enough
05:24
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I feel I once knew,
Those chosen by the few,
Had not done the work,
Spoke in muck & murk.
Now I know I feel,
This endless, endless reveal,
Sounds the clear clanging bells,
For the meeting at its knell.
“Hey,
Did you ever say,
Be kind,
To all those you find?”
Self in silent sluice,
A tree with shallow roots,
Bears no lasting fruit,
Keeps all those sheltered mute.
“Could you ever get through?
Burst & blossom anew?”
Like those who choose the few,
I still search, in deadened dew.
“Hey,
Did you ever say,
Be kind,
To all those you find?”
“I have not Loved enough”.
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4. |
Watching Babylon
04:03
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Perfume stains the cinema seat,
These hands look lost in some grim retreat,
You’re all that I care to know.
A fluttering stutter enters the scene,
Enflames & engulfs, envelopes everything,
You’re all that I care to know,
You’re all that I care to know.
I could spend,
All my days,
In this, reflected light.
And we could have our garden spring,
Grow from all this lingering,
It’s all that i care to know.
As simple as this darkened room,
Brightened by branching into two,
It’s all that I care to know,
We’re all that I care to know.
We could spend,
All our days,
In this, reflected light.
But the stories, they all just bend,
Ushered into some fitting end,
Held only by those to relive again.
But the stories, they all just bend,
Ushered into some fitting end,
Held only by those to relive again.
“Let’s start the show.”
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5. |
This Wandering Wren
03:06
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“If you’re going to miss, miss big,
At least then you know you’ve risked,”
Looking straight through the basilisk,
Is it worth all this troublesome jig?
But you’ve to know when to quit,
To stop all this raging horseshit,
To know your nest is a wretched writ,
Of a sun that sets its own obit.
Held in some great regret,
Is love’s dutiful, boundless debt,
Oh shame & sadness, how they beget,
The need for this, our doomed duet.
Two steps back, to one again,
Dance on, this wandering wren.
For I am but a wayfarer,
Still a stranger, searching further,
For where trouble meets its maker,
Where there’s not but a warm acre.
Still the darkness keeps its vigil,
And this pit will never be filled,
But you know the jig that we built?
It will linger long in this will.
Held in some great regret,
Is love’s dutiful, boundless debt,
Oh shame & sadness, how they beget,
The need for this, our doomed duet.
Two steps there, & there again,
Dance on, this wandering wren.
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6. |
Big Black Dog
04:48
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I once tried to tame this Big Black Dog,
Trap it, trusting it’ll never bark,
But the weird and wild let their needs be stark.
Like the lost that limp through the ceaseless fog,
It’ll gnaw all that’s left of its hapless spawn,
The pitiful just yelp like their fate’s forgone.
Still, it waits,
Snarls, in spates,
Seal, to sate,
Life, inchoate.
This Big Black Dog.
I once tried to starve this Big Black Dog,
Its bowl filled with naught but some simple jaunts,
It’ll find ways to eat, be your countless confidant.
Like the strays that stumble in the deep, deep mud,
It’ll sink all that dare to command its flood,
“Well, there’s always a new way to draw some blood.”
Still, it waits,
Snarls, in spates,
Seal, to sate,
Life, inchoate.
This Big Black Dog.
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7. |
It Does Not Pass Away
03:02
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It passes, but it does not pass away,
It passes, but it does not pass away,
Like those looming clouds, on those clearest days,
It passes, but it does not pass away.
In this gust & gloom, one never assumes,
That the one you know, is the one that’s true,
A pint to forgive, all those set in sin,
For the ones you don’t, are all those who’ll relive,
Saloon doors swing, as the past starts to slink in,
Who I was, who I am, when I’ll begin,
In a room full of all those you’ll desert,
Who’d be the one, that’ll choose to go first?
It passes, but it does not pass away,
It passes, but it does not pass away,
When it closes, you’re left with its echoing bray,
It passes, but it does not pass away.
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8. |
Keep on Livin'
05:52
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It’s the hope that kills you,
Transcribed in your tomes,
Left to be known, wherever I roam.
It lives every time I see your face,
But hope’s not a home, hope’s just a trace.
That you leave to the Earth,
Bury in your dirt,
Just for one to uncover, it’s held in your hurt,
You say “maybe your soil does not grow,
A hope’s hard to sew, when you want the wild Doe.”
It’s the hope that kills you,
Searches wide in your songs,
Stretches far in these trills, keeps the longing, longing long.
& does one yearn to just keep riding on?
When the stirrups break & bust, when the Doe leaves her dust.
When the bottle’s a lone scout,
& the searching is a shout,
Does the riding stave off, the darkness & the drought?
You say “perhaps you should remove all doubt,
How many paces, partner? Before you face & find out?”
“You’ve been howling at the moon again,
In this grotesque glen,
Leave your load light of this lullaby,
The sun is rising high.
You don’t have to hold,
Onto these such things,
You can keep riding, Cowboy.
You don’t have to hold,
Onto these such things,
You can keep riding, Cowboy,
You can keep on living.”
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Axel Carrington Perth, Australia
Perth based guitarist, keeping busy with writing songs about bins and bowls clubs.
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