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DON'T HOLD GOD TO A PROMISE HE/SHE CAN'T KEEP


The Ballad of Harry Harlow

The past and the future are swirling around in my head

If belief is emotion and trust is a choice were all dead

I'm not sure how we'll fight world war 3 miss president

But the fourth will be with sticks and stones if we're not blown to bits

 

Harry Harlow that fucker put me and my dog in a cage

He said that you must die alone if you want to be great

There's no amount of genius that I wouldn't trade

I think love might be braver than knowledge I won't isolate

 

Edward and I dropped some acid and swam up the stairs

I watched the sun split the ocean and I didn't care

Who all was watching me stumble cause god met me there

Said son the folks with unopened minds are impaired

 

If women are unequal objects built only for sex

Who cares if the baby is starving please cover your breasts

Don said he's famous enough to reach under her dress

Decency died on the cross next to Jesus I guess

 

 

 

 

Darling If I'm So Great How Come I Always End Up Alone? (The Oasis) 

I’ve been kind and I’ve been hateful

I been thanked and been ungrateful

Been given more than I am able

To handle on my own

 

I got cash but screwed my credit

A penny saved can’t be spent in heaven

Life your life cause you'll regret it

rich and all alone

 

I’ve been cruel and I’ve been gentle

Done the drugs and been judgemental

The good lord made me temperamental

but with heart of stone

 

My brand new car's got a failing engine

The warranty's up son no extension

Red tape is a dead man's religion

We all end up alone

 

Fiber optic veins bleed across the land

Long distance lover with an empty hand

I’m doing 'bout best that an honest man can

With you only on the phone

 

But babe I want to see you on a regular basis

I know it seems crazy but goodness gracious

Why don't you come on down to the oasis

We’ll never be alone

 

 

Home of the Estranged

Oh give me a home where we aren’t so alone,

Where the black and the white children play,

Where seldom is heard an offhand racial slur,

and my muslim sisters feel safe

 

Home of the estranged,

Where the white and the black children play,

Some peace is preferred, let the county lines blur,

and the preachers hold hands with the gays

 

Corporate motives are pure, politicians stay free ,

of corruption and work to better our lives ,

Young liberals beg for change, politely from the stage

the vice president nods and he smiles.

 

The natives of our land, we so brutally banned

from the beauty they were born into first

It’s been 200 years, since that damn trail of tears

Yet we still hate them for loving the earth

 

Home of the estranged

Human life is not a resource to trade

It is not so absurd, to hear out the perturbed

We all see the same things different ways

 

How often at night, stumbling bodega bright,

neon lights burn like synthetic stars

bums ponder below, spare a quarter or so?

Does their wisdom exceed that of ours?

Pick a blue lotus flower from this dear land of ours,

if it helps you start to hear people cry

on a child to annoint, or you can lace it in your joint

I wish everyone got  just as high

 

Oh give me a land where the bright diamond sand,

Flows leisurely down in the stream;

With the grace of a swan, we go gliding along,

Don’t you wish it was more than a dream


Home of the estranged

Where no one has to wake up afraid

There’s a love we could learn, that could cover the world

I believe it’ll happen someday

 

 

As Above, So Below

The college will teach you to stay where you're sittin

The bar's gonna teach you how not to treat women

The church is the last place I'd go get forgiven

The fun things in life are forbidden

 

Rich blonde girls drink lattes and take trips to countries

For photos of orphans to show everybody

You don't need salvation if you've got enough money

I'll start saving my pennies honey

 

Now you know

You don't have to think everything that you're told

As above, so below

 

The liquor's no good for the ease of your mind

But the good stuff's been outlawed since '75

Let's meet somewhere north of Atlanta later tonight

C'mon babe let's go get high

 

The mushrooms might help cure your brain from depression

One less corrupt doctor livin' in a mansion

Red blooded Jesus on a cross for expansion

Of blue collar white man oppression

 

Now you know

You don't have to think everything that you're told

As above, so below

 

Can't talk to your dad about orientation

The porno's no place for sex education

Can't talk to your wife about masturbation

Go visit some bitch on vacation

 

My black friend got shot for running a stop sign

When he reached for his insurance the cop shot him outright

That asshole from Stanford got released round the same time

It'll make any decent man cry

 

Now you know

You don't have to think everything that you're told

As above, so below

 

 

Anthem

take all of your masts, for the world as we know

is as dark as the night, of the black hearted bleeding

you can cut them in half, for no flag should be flown

at the loftiest height, while so many are weeping

if we laid down our guns, loss of freedom for love

could a garden still grow, in a singe corner'ed sun

oh say did the newscaster finally pray

for a land truly free, and some truth to convey

 

 

The South Will Soon Rise

I've been driving down i95

Seen Christ riding tanks on a sign

A holy dog tag, confederate flag

Singing the south will soon rise

 

Slim boys on the field playing ball

Keep lifting son, soon you'll be tall

Your daddy is proud, when your skull hits the ground

The brain damage broadens your jaw

 

That's the ugliest girl that I've seen

With her face on my morning tv

She tightened her dress, to push up her breasts

The forecast today is obscene

 

The pills that my doctor prescribed

I'd honestly rather get high

The bugs in my brain, don't seem so insane

With the pot glazing over my eyes

 

Take a photograph of the full moon

My camera can't quite get the zoom

Put the phone away, kiss her on the face

The whole world will unravel soon

 

 

An Ode to the Seahorse Oceanfront Inn
(Last Call at Lemon Bar) 

You'll find that you can make new friends

And still see old ones sometime again

If you dig a hole fill it back in

Paint it red so you don't forget where you've been

 

You could build us a wall or tear it down

It shouldn't make you smile to watch the world drown

Next time an election rolls back around

You can bet I'm gonna get the hell out of this town

 

If you find somewhere that you want to stay

Might as well start carving out your grave

There's always another debt to pay

Another damn dollar drive you insane


You get a little fucked up and fall asleep

In the morning baby tell me your translucent dreams

Wrote a song about it, heard it on tv

Don't trash the ceiling, just let it be

 

I should have known if you take me and my songs to bed

That you'd use them for pleasure without loving permanence

 

You can ride to neptune on a gold dolphin

Take out a room at the Seahorse inn

Last call at lemon bar and let the great world spin

A turquoise eagle for your next of kin

 

You can suck all the oil up out of the ground

But There were already people in the land you "found"

You tap your foot but it makes no sound

You've already spoken more than you're allowed

 

Hold your mother in your arms as she passes away

Last light in her eyes the first light of day

"Love you" seems like such an empty thing to say

Son please don't remember me this way

 

If Jesus comes walking up out of the sea

I'd give him a kiss and smoke all his weed

You don't have to try so hard to believe

don't hold god to a promise he/she can't keep

 

I should've known if you're cupping the world in your hand

Some people's problems slip through your fingers like sand

 

 

Angel 108

At a bar called Ginger's place

A burnt out waitress with a pretty face says

What's your name boy I haven't seen you this way before

 

I just moved back from out of state

I missed the golden full moons and the ocean spray

It's quite the place miss to retrace what you ignored

 

I won't deny I came a little unlaced

I guess I owe all my collectedness to angel 108

And a lucky silver door

 

God's an old white man with a weathered face

He's always up there watching from the top of the staircase

Doesn't want to watch us anymore 

 

 

 

The Boots Her Father Gave Me

When I tear through the boots her father gave me

From wearing out the places I could hide

If wandering money runs out honey maybe

We could hole up somewhere quiet and wait to die

 

But let us live long, the wine we sip on

Like our love never run dry

 

When all the strings on this old guitar are rusted

Cause all the songs I sung to her got tired

The fiction of a family well adjusted

A small house by the dallas countryside

 

No place to go, the garden we’ll grow

Like our love spring up so high

 

“Son, when I burn through the time the good lord gave me

A back porch cigar and bourbon every night

With a big full moon play an old guy clark tune at the cemetery”

Yessir, I’ll hold her hand, wear her father’s boots with pride

 

The memory lives on, the man that he was

Like our love could never die

 

 

For When I Can't Articulate

Won't she ever take off that necklace that I gave her

It's chaos to recall how it once shined

I know she knows I notice, we smile so demure

When your love runs underneath there's no sense in crying

The people I use, same new year's eve blues

And a new man by your side

 

 

Easter Sunday

I grew a garden, planted petunias

I only tend to what’s my own

But all the corn that I saved to feed my family

Was burned up heating soldiers homes

 

The other day I went and paid my taxes

So we might build some better roads

The eagle smiled slyly counting up my quarters

But some expensive red white and blue clothes

 

Simon Peter, and John went fishing

Out to the ocean to escape their nagging wives

“If I have one more hook that comes up empty

I’m gonna go get drunk with Judas tonight”

 

Easter sunday, the choirs singing

Jesus stands there idly by

“Was it for a pastel dress and chocolate candy

That I was fucking crucified?”

 

When I was younger I once loved a woman

Not unlike children love their god

It was irreverent to pick a pale white clover

For sex we’ll kill whatever we want
 


On the computer I saw her topless

I felt more lonesome jacking off

But if I don’t say something vulgar in my lyrics

No one’s gonna listen to my songs

 

 

Too Sad to Get High

At a strip club on the poorer side of Memphis

Bartering forgiveness with eleven dollars cash

Desiree was slipping off her canvas

Her body lit up bitter blue as the officers drove past

 

I thought I might lose them when she shook her ass

But I was too kind to be crass

 

A wooded outskirt wedding up by Portland

My baby dries her tears with a pretentious leather hat

I caught her sneaking off with one of Chris's groomsmen

Head down to the open bar to try and win her back

 

The beam usually brings me the manhood I lack

But I was too drunk to relax

 

A boardwalk on the beach in palm coast Florida

Our long lost cousin's countenance still clouding up the sky

When you said “brother isn't family boring ya?”

Some scrawny California bastard came and took your side

 

I popped one more pill, she was waving goodbye

But I was too sad to get high

 

By the greenpoint tavern underneath a willow

A corner man sells ginger ale and daisy colored drugs

Baby you can cry into my pillow

And help me iron out the type of man that I'll become

 

Well watch the S.S. Isabella sail into the sun

Anchor down in love

 

 

Montauk III

When the price of coke’s gone up

money's running out

Pack up all my hindrance

And head down to the south

 

I hear that work is steady

And there's a woman I could love

Truth told I'm not a praying man

But I'll ask the lord above

 

For family, wine, and walls around

The places I get stuck

Some time out on the water

The chance to teach my son

Failure is a mindset, all the foul things that you've done

If you can give them to the ocean

There's a good man you might become

 

So the devil and I walk down

To the Tifton county line

There's a flask inside my pocket

Liquid blood orange moon-light

 

I didn't know revival

Could be planned and advertised

But an Easter dressed beauty

Walked right up and changed my mind

 

She said family wine and walls around the places we get stuck

A cool night on the back porch

With a smiling newborn son

Failure is a mindset, all the sinning that you've done

If you give them up to Jesus

There's a good man you might just become

 

It feels like I just got here,

I guess the time rolled gently by

That same preacher at the graveyard

Where we buried my poor wife

 

A couple headstones over

Flag draped red & blue & white

My baby boy at 18

To the Great War, and I feel no pride

 

Cause I couldn't keep the walls around the people that I love

Suppose a man can't ever pay

The debt of who he was

Failures been my mantra, lord I tried to give it up

Give my body to the ocean

Finally forgotten, to rest, a good man to become

 

 

Hospital Hymns
(Where I Sat While He Spoke)

Why did my dog have to up and die

Sweet Lord it wasn't his time

Why are all the good people I know crying

Goddamnit I'm doing just fine 

 

What is the doctor gonna find

When he drills a hole in my father's spine

If the cancer doesn't kill you it'll take your pride

Sweet Lord we're all gonna die

 

I haven't spent any time with you

Singing Hospital Hymns in the waiting room

I'm the very last one to hear the news

Now there's nothing I can do

 

Cause death is a game you can't refuse 

Sweet Lord we're coming home soon 

Mama I got holes in all my shoes

Still plenty left to lose

 

They told me read that old book it'll be alright

But the bible never gave me any peace of mind

Aren't these protests a big fucking waste of time?

Why are all my gay friends crying?

When did black skin become a crime? 

Maybe I'll give up on trying

To convince myself, and convince this lonely world 

That everything's gonna be fine

 

Women are masters of wasting time

And men rape everything in their sight

Together all we're good for is starting fights

Sweet Lord we ought to burn in the fire

 

If this song is my final breath

If I'm killed by the cancer in her breast

Let me give what little I have left 

And die an honest death 

 

 

The Ballad of Corey Kilgannon

I can't recall what the child astrophysicist said

But I've read the books and the papers and the Internet

More human consciousness than one man could ever collect

For progress and freedom too much beautiful blood has been bled

 

I fell asleep standing up twice already today

Hoping the cat would come home before my hair goes gray

Both love and hatred take seats at the table and say

"Bring us your wine and your bread were not going away"

 

Buddha weeps under a willow and pulls out his hair

"Smoke what grows next to you; things you enjoy always share"

They paid me to burn down his village and pollute the air

Son there's no room for your dreams in the land of despair

 

Naked we came and so naked we climb into beds

With a man or a woman, we all must bear our own regrets

I found a beauty I don't want to leave or possess

Tonight I'll just hold her and let radiant phaedrus rest

 

Give me a second the cold front came quickly this year

You aren't cursed you're careless with the folks that you claim to hold dear

Speak truths to strangers but treat all your friends insincere

Roll down the road and become what your family fears

 

 

A Treaty

I can start talking to god when the world is asleep

Wishing the prayers that he'd answer would be the ones in our dreams

To love each our neighbors and hold the world more tenderly 

Grace as an ocean and freedom the choice to believe 

dhgtaphsck.jpg
 

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