1. |
O, Muse
03:56
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Death, carry me
Across the river deep
Death, sing in me
Tune my harrowed breathing
Death, comfort me
Wash my fever clean
Death, return to me
Oh, death, bring me peace
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2. |
Winedark Hall
03:32
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Stumble in drunk to a dark apartment
I throw my hands out in every direction
I fumble for the light, so I can continue my
one way discussion
Because loneliness is a gossamer thread
Thrown out in hope of connection
But blows away short and I fall down in the dark
I speak out loud an unanswerable question
Mmm
I stare at the ceiling
and listen for bumps in the night
And sometimes while I stare I imagine
someone in the space to my right
Bumps become beats of a heart
While I lie on the bed in the dark
And I whisper aloud “you want but don’t need it”
Mmm
I drink when I’m lonely,
But it just sharpens the edge
And since last October,
I got a thirst that I can’t seem to quench
So I call who will answer and spill
All my guts out my mouth
It’s not a secret,
How the pastor will deal with the mouse
And I say a prayer that I thought I’d forgotten
Mmm
Please,
Neither the devil or I believe
Much anymore
So plant me in the mud
along with a seed
And my car keys
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3. |
CV
01:54
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I can crack an egg one handed
Two at a time
I can hold a note
I can play guitar
Do both while keeping time
I can run a hundred miles in
A week or maybe two
But there’s nothing I can do
To impress you
I can write a poem,
I can make each stanza rhyme,
I know what terza rima is
Who wrote in it and why
I can quote foucault by page number
And know just what he means
But there’s nothing I can do to make you
Notice me
I can bake sourdough on sunday
With a crust as crisp as leaves
And I could brew an ale
That’d bring goliath to his knees
I can cook a steak on a cast iron pan
On the highest heat,
But I cannot make you fall in love with me
I could write the saddest songs that
Make you wanna cry
I could climb the fire escape
Sing through your screen tonight
I could write your name on paper and
Then set it all alight,
But the flames are always technicolor
I tastes like home, I should know better
I claw and scratch and beg, but it disappears without a letter
For everything I am, for my powers and my plan, for my bones of salt and sand
You my love will never hold my hand
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4. |
Mouthful of Skin
04:14
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You tie me to the bed
And you play with my wounds
You pull my hair
But you don’t make a sound
Please speak to me
I bleed
While you peel off my skin
Your mouth is full
Of my tongue that you keep chewing on
You look in my eyes
But you won’t let go
I guess it feels right, if only you’d
Please speak to me
You bite my neck
Till you know it will bruise
You tie the rope
Into a noose
Your pale hands
Start to tighten round my neck
I can’t say I hate it
Cause i’m not quite dead yet
Please speak to me
Put my head in a jar on your nightstand
To turn away or to look at, follow your demands
My arms hold up the mailbox in your front yard
But I don't mind, as you pull your bow long my vocal chords
I’ll sing like censer for you
Please speak to me
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5. |
Cool, Thanks, Sorry
01:44
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You know I wouldn’t,
Even If I could,
I already have a hard enough time
With want and should
I’m nervous,
all the time,
I know that you are too,
so why try to fight
Let’s giggle wishes
Beneath our breath
And pretend that we don’t see
Drink our coffee till our death,
The way it ought to be
I couldn’t,
Even though I should,
The words get tangled up
Won’t come out good
Cause I’m crazy
I suppose,
But so are you
Don’t pretend that you don’t know
So we’ll whisper prayers for dreams we had
We know they won’t come true
Cause we wouldn’t if we could
Neither me nor you
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6. |
Märzen
04:59
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We kissed by the car
At 2 in the morning
You offered your flannel
When I was shivering
I never took up the offer
I never wanted anything to stick around
I made a mistake
It’s always that way
You asked if it was okay to like me,
Like a middle school kid,
You held my face in your hands
Like it mattered
It didn’t
I just needed something boring and stable
You have a predictable schedule
I just wanted a taste not a meal
At least, that’s what you think I think,
You play my words through Daedalus’ maze
A mobius strip of of my lips on your neck
A reason for you to forgo regret
You’ve failed at grief before
Like a eucharist you’ve forgotten the ritual for,
You stand instead of kneel, you taste my body but you say the wrong prayer in my ear
You said “we don’t get want we want”
But boy I knew, or are we trading scars
Cause a bathtub isn’t blood,
And I never claimed it was
So I met his parents on our first date
And you just bury notes on my windshield
And claim it’s the same
But it ain’t
Can I still love you?
Can I still live?
Can we still be friends?
What would you give,
To keep making the same jokes
To make strange sounds
To feel the cracks in my throat
And I believe you are everything
I never will actually need
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7. |
Deep and Wide
04:14
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I’ve got words on my left arm
And scars on my right
To remind me of the time I waded
Through a river deep and a river wide
Sometimes I want to hear my
Funeral song, but instead I stare down
At my palms, and I
Trace my lines across my time a river
Deep and a river wide
I carve a little bit deeper every night,
With the dulling blade of a serrated knife
Into the banks ‘pon which I cried
A river deep and a river wide
I see boats passing in the night
Lanterns just beyond my sight
Like a moth to the flame I chase their shine
Cross a river deep and a river wide
I never agreed to the terms of life,
But I guess that’s back on the other side,
So fate breaks my knees and says “my money please”
As it smiles teeth from above me,
So I spill my blood and I sign the line
Of a river deep and river wide
I see the reaper hold his scythe,
I say, “listen friend, I’m on your side, you don’t have to ask me twice, to cross that river deep and that river wide”
It’s about damn time I say goodbye
Put silver coins on both my eyes,
I wade on in and let it all float by
On a river deep and a river wide
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8. |
Book of Signs
03:56
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The smoke of the thurible
The echo of a prayer
A psalm at sunday school
The impression of my knees on a pew
I cannot love you like this
I cannot love you like a thief
Like faith
All those saints, tested
Each wish, contested
All wordly wants, deried
All in infinite resign
I am no knight of faith
I am no hero, however tragic
However brave
Christmas lights blinking
After yuletide mass, driving
Where’d that beauty go?
Can I see anything but myself in the fogged over window?
I don’t want your pity
I don’t want your attention
I’ll work through my salvation
In fear and trembling
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9. |
Ideomotor
02:38
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In my dreams,
I saw this future
We were all
Already dead
I can read it
On a ouija board
But I know what it says
I saw each and every death
Always starting with my own
I’ll be dead and buried
Long before I make it home
I saw the abyss long before I reached 18
Now I’m waiting on some bravery
To wipe the ledgers clean
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10. |
Seeds
05:20
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You consistently crumble
In the face of good fortune
As if hope never gave you a choice
And so you give up before
You have to return to
The place you feel safe
And secure
But there’s seeds
You can sow
In a field
You have harrowed
With every first step you don’t take
And maybe you will someday
Don’t worry, Brian, it’s ok
Cause there’s seeds
You’ll make your peace
In a suit in your bathtub
alone and by age 35,
The terror of fire
drowns out all the hope
That comes each time you open your eyes
You’ve come the river
One too many times
You know which way it’ll flow
Dig in with your hands
To divert the water
And give crops what they need to grow
But there’s seeds
You can sow
In a field
You have harrowed
With every first step you don’t take
And maybe you will someday
Don’t worry, Brian, it’s ok
Cause there’s seeds
Be patient seeker,
I’ve followed you well
I know your feet are blistered
Cause you’ve wandered through hell
So warm up the soil
As you walk through the field
And hold out as you toil
Because the sunlight eventually heals
From seedling to sapling
To rot and decay
But you have to die first
Before you can be born again
But there’s seeds
You can sow
In a field
You have harrowed
With every first step you don’t take
And maybe you will someday
Don’t worry, Brian, it’s ok
Cause there’s seeds
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Two Hearted River New Jersey
Sometimes, I make music. Most of the time, I teach. This started as a model project for my 2016 senior class.
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