in the beautiful night shimmering with neon lights
in the beautiful night another innocent taking flight
sound of music from a crowded bar
alcohol and wind, cigarettes and stars...
14th and Main, crossing bells, a passing train
the sorrow we've known all washed away
in the pitiless rain
your eyes are bright bright orange fire
hold me close, i am filled with wild desire
in the beautiful night, rude boys out looking for a fight
in the beautiful night, fists will fly the sparks ignite
sound of music from a crowded bar
alcohol and wind, cigarettes and stars...
exiled on lovers leap
campfires burn on the beach
we leave the city's glow, and head on out to Signal Reach
down by the ocean, green and blue, wild and deep
I could hold you here forever
lying awake, watching you sleep
in the beautiful night, i've never seen a prettier sight
in the beautiful night, with your baby when you know its right
sound of music from a steel guitar,
nothing but wind nothing but stars
we are made of water and electrolytes
you and I
orbiting satellites
there's no light
not like the light
not like the light that shines though the dark of the world
there's no love, not like like love
not like the love of the Philadelphia Girl
wishes are seeds wild and windblown
some may never cease to roam
from the ground they all search for
a bit of earth, a bit of loam
I miss my home, I miss my home
down along that muddy river shore
i can't follow this storyline after all this time
it feels like triage but its better than shame
there is no need to scorn me
it i who scorn myself
and believe me, that's bad enough
when i come around here now,
when i come around it's always like this and I like it
spilled paint on the boombox, volume stuck on nine
it echoes down these concrete streets to the porch of that woman of mine
Dion and the Belmonts sing to my hearts content
sweet music to my ears leaning on a chainlink fence
when i come around here now,
when i come around it's always like this and I like it
so meet me on the corner down by Wooster Square
by the grocer and the laundromat where Dimitri cuts hair
and we'll have a smoke in the graveyard and a slice of Sally's best
looking out on this great wide world and time won't even exist
see that Louis he was just a baby, now he's hanging out in the park
and the cops they watch his every move and call it their work
the dogs chase each other around the diamond, life somehow makes sense
you can see the whole damn city from here leaning on a chainlink fence
when i come around here now,
when i come around it's always like this and I like it
BROOKLYN BRIDGE
you and i go walking, hand in hand we're talking, down along the
waterfront docks
smell of fish it lingers from the midnight market. we're quiet in the
way new lovers talk.
On that dirt river we will be delivered across the Brooklyn Bridge
tall ships all along the pier, lines like the tracks of tears for some
lost glory of New Amersterdam. Flanked by silver scrapers of the New
Jerusalem makers. For the old New York they didn't give a damn. Some
built their dreams in arcs of light, some in sacrilege. Across the
Brooklyn Bridge
How I love to listen to the wind through her strings, how I love to
hear her sing
If you've ever been a rover, journey's end lies over the Brooklyn Bridge
50 degrees says the Watchtower, 6:15 the hour, the sun it sets on the
harbor haze
tugs are all going home, you lean over the edge and stare down at the
foam with your hair all a-falling in your face. Can you moor this
weary ship? Will you tie these lines to your slip? Can you love a
lonely sailor?
If you've ever been a rover, journey's end lies over the Brooklyn Bridge
We are the city, we are its pulse and its beat
We are the city, see us tramp the streets
steam rises from the iron grates, the smoke it fills my lungs
you can hear the sounds of all the world sung in a thousand tongues
the subway mariachi, the arias dying strains
and the busker in the station singing of escapades out on the D train
We are the city, in all its joy and pain
We are the city, our sins washed away in the rain
Gotham, Gomorrah
We are the stars dead but still shining, we are the constellations
high above the rush hour crowd down at the station
the lunatic asylum on Roosevelt Island, GO in the park in Chinatown
and the Loisaida poet, Molloch he's calling it down
We are the City, it all its joy and sorrow
We are the City, a prayer for all tomorrow
Gotham, Gomorrah
Watch for me when the leaves start falling
Watch for me and hear me calling
Watch for me through the tumult of the years
I will still be living inside of you my dear
rain rattles the cobblestones
there were kisses in taxi cabs going home
and late breakfasts on the roof
we stood against the burden of proof
its a funny thing how when you're weightless
gravity sneaks up on you
and it steals away with your only one
along with the roar of your youth
and you're walking like the ghost of a memory
down some treelined avenue
Just another anonymous man
checking into a roadside motel
just another blank stare on the bus
another beau who had lost his belle
it was so long gone, we were tender in our fashion
hey look at me in roughshod clothes
my face gone ashen
darling make your way and ill see you one bright day
best wishes for the future babe
fair play to you babe
watch for me down all the days, down all the years
i will still be living inside of you my dear
and the night lights shine on the Water Street bricks
we danced hand and hand down the East River strand
and the whiskey flowed like the Tigris though the Holy Land
the rats come flying out the gate, 100 if there is 1
and the dogs are dropped in to the roar and the din of the crowd who
like killing for fun
they swarm and they gnash and make a good play but the terriers win in the end
and the winner kisses the bloody snout of the hound for he's surely
mans best friend
CH
the good are always the merry, so at John Allen's dancehouse next doorCH
I have heard the words of Henry Bergh and petitions to the throne of grace
but a man who lives pious and waits for messiahs is all that much more
of a waste
for this former world is the only world with its crying its joy and its death
so I'll wipe my own tears and live for the flesh all lousy with drink
on my breath
CH
there is no need for words out here in the silence
where the ringtail stealthily walks
back in the city the noise conquers all
the shopping, the swearing, the useless talk
I am down on my knees under carved river canyon
under juniper my soul is laid bare
so throw me to the dogs
don't you know I'm happier there
the gutters can't suck me where the dust devils blow
out in painted desert of sagebrush and rock
under arroyo the turtle crawls
and the skin on my face it is dry as chalk
its an unspoken hunger that brought me here
out where the coyotes throng
so throw me to the dogs
that's where i belong
who was the fool that taught you to believe in
all these weightless faceless put on and put off faces
who was the demon that took you dancing down that roadless road
play it off and play it off a thousand times
you're still standing in that same old hole
tripping in the traps you seem to set for yourself
i know you never intended it to be that way
i know you never really wanted to be mistaken
when it comes to thick and thin
but everytime you're at my door
you're more and more a caricature of
all the better people you might have been
who was the fool that...
once upon a when you had a piece of it
once upon a then you
you wouldn't let them take you down for anything anything at all
you used to laugh like you were living now there's nothing there at all
Trina fell for a punk named Silver from Southern Illinois
who'd been living on the streets of the West COast since he was a 13
year old boy
he knew every free meal in Stumptown, every dry place to keep warm
and he'd take her to 'em when the darkness fell and they'd lie in each
others arms
Silver hustled now and again in the backs of drunk mens cars
scars ran up and down his arms like the tracks in the railyards
when he'd offer it to her, you know she never once took it
beneath the I-5 viaduct his teeth clenched to a tourniquet
one day the cops found his body by the train tracks where he'd hop the
line to Frisco
But for the last year of his life, he loved a sister of the road...
Trina found her way up off the streets and works in a clinic downtown
all the kids she used to know well she never sees them around
but there are more where they came from cast aside and left behind
walking down a lonely street and strung out on the line
for the old hoboes, the migrant laborers, the lost and wayward teens
there's a place where a buck twenty five will get you a plate of eggs and beans
and there is nothing like a cup of coffee when the winter winds blow cold
you can find them down in old town on 6th, the Sisters of the Road...
we'll bury our dead (let us cross the river)
and lay them in the ground and they'll (lie easy in the shade)
their gravestones proudly standing (let us cross the river)
underneath the crooked trees (lie easy in the shade)
again we'll see our loved ones (let us cross..)
we have been so long apart ( lie easy...)
how my heart it does leap (let us cross...)
to see my own sweet Annie (and lie easy..)
my children my children (let us..)
my children my children (lie easy..)
may we heal all the wounded (let us cross the river)
and not be downhearted (lie easy in the shade)
dark winds, dark winds do blow here. deep inside i know such fear.
to let myself go. to let myself believe this time i won't end up in tears.
sleep tight, sleep tight my baby. i am sorry i'm so fucking crazy.
no quarter is given, no slack is let go for the man who just says maybe
he spent 10 years in Bozeman with nothing left to show
just an empty place inside him where dance the hungry crows
where growl the roving coyotes on their nocturnal prowl
and relentless memories of Jenny and dancing cheek to jowl
radio Montana, and a long and lonesome howl
the station fades to static, the world fades to blue
as he rides towards the oxbow on the edge of the Badger Two
can't shake the job from the scars when the fire got too close
can't shake the mark of her leaving and that's what hurts the most
radio Montana. life is full of ghosts
We are memory against forgetting
Still we hold the line.
A true and secret history in the ocean of time
Young hearts on fire with the old age and burning in the new.
We are memory against forgetting. We are the past and the future too.
Fascism didn't start in '33, it didn't end in '45.
It's cancer affects the souls of men, and it's tumor grows and thrives.
For years lying dormant, asleep but still alive.
Like hibernating hornets, ''til someone kicks the hive.
When this world has come and gone, like all things passes on.
What will they say about us, and how the west was one.
Will they find the remnants of the sad and free in the rubble and the re-bar.
Too slow, too slow to realize, before it went too far, before it went too far.
There was smoke in the street on that clear November morn.
I can see the banners still waving in the sun.
The way you looked at me, and the way you said my name,
And since that very day nothing's been the same.
On up the valley.
On up the valley there's a wrecked rusted Chevy.
Twenty years ago someone went and wrapped it around a tree.
We'd fill it full of bullets and we'd rattle it with bee bees
Over the burms, down Forest Service Road 73.
On up the Valley
Danny found a hornets nest in the hood of that car.
And I found a birds nest way down below.
Fog in the river bottom, heat lightning in the mountains high,
And a fire I can't name, hidden behind my eyes.
On up the Valley, on up the road.
On cold nights the whiskey warms the soul and lets the stories flow free
of the hobo jungles all over hells half acre
the lost love laments and the candlelight whispers
bring her rushing to my mind and how her eyes could leave this world behind
Here's a toast for tomorrow, a cheer for yesteryear
a wink and a drink for all the drying tears
for the lines on her face for the curve of the land
but most of all, for the sad bones of her hands
She left me like a fading ghost like the summer leaves the fall
like the first cold wind that brings the October frost
like the birds in migration for the far southern reaches
Euridyce after Orpheus turned
betraying loves trust and forever to him she is lost
CH
Come come sweet water
Come come sweet water
Come and flood the road again
the markets are choked with merchant wares
the watchmen light the lanterns
as I stumble home all through the asphault night
and I know not where you now live but sleep sleep you r untroubled dream
and a blessing on you wherever you may be