LYRICS & EPIGRAPHS

BABYLON
“Your mother shall be sorely put to shame, she that bore you shall be abashed; see, the last of the nations, a desert, dry and waste. Because of the Lord’s wrath she shall be empty, and become a total desert; everyone who passes by Babylon will be appalled and catch his breath, at all her wounds.” – Jeremiah, 50: 12-13

I’m shunning sights today, like half-sunk Cadillacs
(In Amarillo, the wheel’s on fire)
Killing motel time, rifling through his smears
(In Amarillo, the wheel’s on fire)
Here’s that pious taunt – says you’re couched on worms
(In Amarillo, the wheel’s on fire)
I guess the Lord of Hosts is nothing but a thug
(In Amarillo, the wheel’s on fire)

While the bombs were bursting
and the soldiers went drag
Your babies froze underground

Babylon, Babylon, Babylon
the world’s drunk on your barrels of blood,
my battered one
You’ve got the face of an oily saint –
too much rouge, no appetite
My breath catches at reports of all your wounds
Still they say that you’ve got to pay
with dry and waste, dry and waste

I’m looking across the plain that men and beasts have fled
(In Amarillo, the wheel’s on fire)

CABRILLO BEACH
“Birth is bursting, the shell burst. The start is violent. The great heroic deed is to be born; to slay the dragon, to kill the mother, to conquer Tiamat. Every child, like Athena, is born fully armed; is a knife that opens the womb.” – Norman O. Brown, Love’s Body

Things began at a grand taffy pull –
a roily place where two rivers meet the sea
Saturday night – cinnamon and rum
All the gods danced out of happiness

The mother of all was stirred from her dreams
that crept away like the fingers of the sea
Her belly ached, she begged and moaned
All the gods danced out of happiness

She was so tired – her love stretched thin
She was so tired – she roared for a war
and dragons and thugs crashed all the fun

This was a long time ago, I hardly know the tale
It’s like a half-forgotten song,
or maybe third class mail left on brown grass

I guess I’m wasting time on worn-out stories, nothing more
Ancient pages in a tomb flake and fine in the greedy air
I never had a chance with her love letters to me
She’s a forgotten language now – no one speaks her name
She’s a dead letter now

Grunions shimmer on moonlit sand
like silver knives belched from the sea
A granite orb can’t move my mind
Out of tune, the surf howls for happiness

OFF FOR COLORS
“A new world of perceptions opened out to[Henry Adams]; and with his companion [John LaFarge] as a constant guide, the education of the senses began, that led him finally to his appreciation of the 12th century glass, and the crossing of the chasm that divides the Anglo-Saxon mentality from the Latin” – Mabel LaFarge, Letters to a Niece

December ’85 knocked me windless
When suicide stole my saint away
Content for years a shadow in her shining management
I’m off for colors now in the South Seas sun

Yes, another woman haunts my wandering
(A young and married kitty-tamer type)
And then my unhinged brother’s moody quarrels and dreamy battlements
I was so sick and tired of that manly Southern town

This rustic Greek-like isle has its Calypso
Like me she is the last one in her line
Let singing-masters sail for gilded monuments
We average Joes resign ourselves to stained-glass Fayaways

“Courage,” cries LaFarge
“Let’s mount that rolling wave!”
I’m tossed around, she’s gone

STELLA MARIS
“Your idea of love, what you’ve thought of love, what you expect from love, what you cling to as love – this is what you give up. In that sense the real lovers, to my mind, are the burned-out lovers.” – James Hillman, We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy And the World’s Getting Worse

Mourning doves calling melancholy
Salty sea palm sways in the sweeping surf
Another crippled lover crawls to shore

I hang around this world like a desert willow
Drag like sturgeons on the water floor
Die asleep with the sinking sun

She’s the one who primps herself in seashells
Bids the crescent to bore into your groaning heart
On the beach she combs gold from her hair

Love from bloody sea foam blooms

AMAZON
Penthesilea: Now come, you sweet son of the Nereid,
Come close, lie down here at my feet – Still closer!
Be bold! – Surely you’re not afraid of me?
– Or hate me for defeating you? Speak out!
Do you fear her who laid you in the dust?
Achilles: Fear her? As flowers fear sunshine?
– Heinrich von Kleist, Penthesilea

Amazon, with your face all a-mess, I guess you lost your fashion sense
Never mind, I spent some time in drag, so I’ll lend you some of mine

Amazon, this war has done me drably, I’m sulky and demoralized
In other words, the wolf is at my tent flap – can you send your pack away?

On our way to roses
On our way, I hear echoes of Avalon
I might have got the story wrong

Amazon, the men all say I’m crazy, but I can’t help loving you
My fiery one, just leave your fangs on the table – let’s bite another day

Amazon, you’re too wild to woo peaceably – can you send your girls away?
Look it here, I’ll lie awhile for you – ah, honey, let’s fight some other day

CALAFIA’S MOODS

Mild-eyed days, long like careless arms
bangled loose with gold
The bellied sun, a bursting moneybag –
hot coins in our hands
Each sandy hour panned by rushing men
for luck that melts away

Then the land rocks awake
like a boat slapped around
cradled by the sea

Ceiling beams sacked like shattered webs –
a shiver at every sound
But wakeful days quickly pass away
like fevered flies in silk
Our mother’s reign is a purse of love
ripped and stitched again

SAMSON AND DELILAH
“Solemn lessons, and those of moral import, are given in the Book of Judges; yet, as a whole, the book does not leave one with an exalted opinion of either the men or the women of those days. But it certainly gives no evidence that in shrewdness, in a wise adaptation of means to ends, in a persistent effort after desired objects, in a successful accomplishment of plans and purposes, the women were the inferiors of the men in that age. They appear to have been their equals, and occasionally their superiors.” – The Women’s Bible

300 foxtails tied-up in pairs
lit on fire by the teetotaling lawman
who screams, “Burn, burn! Burn, burn!
– if I had my way, I’d burn these wheatfields down”

God’s own gavel stammering in his mind
as he brains 1000 men with his bone

Here she comes, bathed in the sun
spying, tantalizing, dancing like a ship of gold
She pleads, “Tell me! Tell me!
– the twist of your vim – unravel it for me”

Pipes and timbrels clamoring in his ears –
the strong and dogged man with his bone

Moonlit vines spasm in the breeze
Smoldering shades stretch and yawn
The carolers come and howl,
“Beware the god of grain –
toss your topiary tools and run!”

Blind and bald, bawling like a babe
a mortar in his lap, a pestle in his handcuffed hands,
he’s pounding at the days nagging at his mind –
by the empty brook he babbled his life away
(His bride merely knew what Medea might have learned:
1100 bits do you better than a hero at your side.)
You know how it ends – a coup of suicide
All said and done: God was no match for a girl

WOLVES
Lyrics co-written with Jeff Nishimura for the original musical “Chasing the Blues”

Wolves on the scavenge, no matter where you go
Driven to these streets by the winter in their souls

Angel choirs rang out when you were born
The story goes you just bawled in perfect time
Your mother knew you were destined for the scene
You couldn’t hold a job, but you could carry any tune

You believed that music was just a stool and stage
You forgot about the dupes, son, they’re how I get my pay
The prowlers of the night are coming from all around
Talkin’ about wolves...

You paid your dues in alleyways crooning to the moon
Once they stopped beating you up, the barkers howled your name
That’s when I came along and I promised you the sky
You salivated and licked your chops, and dreamed of Shangri-la

Appetite says Mr. Shakespeare is a universal wolf
Baby squeals, record deals – nobody ever gets enough
The prowlers of the night are coming in from the cold
Talkin’ about wolves...

Honest work is noble if you don’t mind getting screwed
Or crying nightly in your gin
It’s hunter or hunted, and I set my sights on you
Who’s that knocking at your door?
That’s right it’s me, Mr. Wolf
I’m the leader of the back, my jaw is never slack

You’re looking stunned now like a champ stripped of his belt
I know, I own your voice, and your soul I’ve neatly shelved
In this biz, son, a lucky break might break you down
By the way, I will sue your ass if I catch you singing around

Nobody ever warned you or took the trouble to yell attack
You found out who you were best friend was once her knife was in your back
The prowlers of the night never seemed so at home...

THE DREAMSIDE QUEEN
“It is a pity for him that refuses the call of the daughters of the Sidhe, for he will find no comfort in the love of the women of the earth to the end of life and time, and the cold of the grave is in his heart forever. It is death he has chosen; let him die, let him die.” – W.B. Yeats, The Twisting of the Rope

Hanrahan was walking the roads
Chanced upon a house aglow with folks
Children gathered at the door
Wasn’t he the one with the school?
Who lost a vital year to the Dreamside Queen?
Quiet now, he’s apt to turn a wicked phrase

He drank his whiskey by the fire
Paid a sour mind to the fiddler’s call
All the boys laughed at his shoes
Wasn’t he the one with the school?
Who lost his learned tongue to the Dreamside Queen?
Quiet now, he’s apt to turn a wicked phrase

(Shapes of gray winding out upon the sea)

He moved upon the prettiest girl
Filled her dirty ears with rhymes and vows
Her mother hissed, fretted and blazed
Wasn’t he the one with the school?
Who lost his only love to the Dreamside Queen?
Quiet now, he’s apt to turn a wicked phrase

(Shapes of gray winding inland from the sea)

“There’s a place, on every side
Where Death’s old bony finger will never find
You and me
We’ll drink from rivers running red with beer
All the year”

Hanrahan was back on the roads
Turned out on his ear by a mother’s ruse
The shadows of the woods make light
Weren’t you the one with the school?
Who lost all your nerve to the Dreamside Queen?
Hurry now, she’s apt to turn a wicked phrase
Get on your way

LIKE MAIA’S SON
“Many a youth got a lot of attention and professional opportunity by stealing data, illegally getting into a computer network, and working his way up to the Apollonnian and Jupiterian bosses, impressed by his ruse. The establishment opened doors for him, as Zeus did for Hermes.” – Ginette Paris, Pagan Grace

He gets no kicks from your fixed exchange
and aches for hagglers in every mall
Your money talks in tight-lipped strains
He bursts out like ethanol

In his lonely room,
a hotshot at the helm –
night and day he plies the buzz

Streets and pipes and assembly lines –
you’ve made a mess of reading oral minds

When hard-up in a clinch,
he’s at his crafty best,
robbing corporate honchos blind

Uncouth angel in your dining room –
gizmo scars and a bloodless face
Preferring fast food to perfume
he’s to and for without a trace

He’s like Maia’s son distilled through grains of information

VALCAMONICA
“She who, from the throne of the Orient, taught mankind the virtues of plants and the motions of the stars, she who, seated on the Delphic tripod and, illumined by the very god of light, gave oracles to a kneeling world, – is the same that, a thousand years later, is hunted like a wild beast, chased from street to street, reviled, buffeted, stoned, scorched with red-hot embers!” – Jules Michelet, Satanism and Witchcraft

Run – the dogs are on the loose
Yapping, yelping, ya ya ya
Run to where the rocks talk in pictures – run

Crack – the thunder god awakens
Hacking, hammering, ha ha ha
Run to where the rocks talk in pictures – run

Howling – they’re hounding us like wolves
Up from the vales, hear what has been done

Torches wag like tails of flame
It’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight
They’re gonna burn every woman
They’re gonna burn, burn, burn

Run – court’s now in session
Bloody, bloody, blah blah blah
Run to where the rocks talk in pictures – run