I don’t want to be on offender I don’t want to be a victim I think I need some help I think I need some help I just want to take my mask off I just want to put my gloves on I just want to hear a sweet song that I knew when I was young I want the love that will never tell it’s secrets that will never share it’s name for I am such a shameful name and I have such and ugly touch I just want to put my mask on I just want to take the gloves off and feel the skin on skin on skin on skin I’ve shaved away the hair I’ve torn away my clothes my feet are in the mud of a dark field a dark field a dark field a dark field I’m tearing off my mask I’m burning off my skin my skin my skin I just want to hear you sing a sweet song I knew when I was young as I run through a dark field a dark field a dark field

I got a shiver did lightning pick that spot can I find it with a dowsing wand is it in a deep dark wood or a deep dark pond do others sleep there am I now in their dreams did I have a stake in that ground the moment I screamed chorus I don’t know, I don’t know but I’m cold and I shiver and shake I just know someone’s walking over my grave will it be frozen there will the dirt give no quarter when I’m buried there will I only dream of winter will I be on a high high mountain where I am close to god will it be to the east of eden deep in the land of nod) chorus I never spared my son the rod I always went to church but once when we were starving I stabbed a man and robbed him of his purse I worked my land i drank of gin it only seemed a minor sin everyday I tried to be a better man I’ve taken some with brutal hands all I could spare I gave but now I’m cold, and I shiver, and I shake I just know that someone’s dancing on my grave will my son be there will my wife In hate or sorrow will they shed their tears will it be just days from now will I be blessed with years (will I be cursed with years) I can not be sure of my character or if I’ll slip through that needle’s eye will I just lie down and sleep forever when I die will there be a marker will there be a stone when I lie down that final time will I always rest alone who can ever know who can ever know I’m so worried for my soul I’m cold, and I shiver, and I shake I try so hard to be brave but I’m sure there’s someone out there laughing at my wake and someone’s dancing on my grave

Let me alone chorus let me die alone the world can see me after I don’t want no sunshine I don’t want no shelter I don’t want no winter I just want a stand of pine and all can see me after let me die alone there’s no water in the river to hold me up when I fall in to bear me out to sea to take me far from all this sin but there are stones a plenty to break my fall when I jump in to break the bones of all my sorrows tear up all the sorrow of my skin there’s no wind to pick me up to bring a sweeter breath to carry off my prayers to god before my coming death chorus no history surrounds me to keep me solid preserving me in action, memory, or deed no lovers mouth to whisper words of need there are tears far too few to quench my desert's thirst too few to wash away the dirt no words, or letters, or weeping weather to wash the tears away chorus

slit the fine throats of 29 years on the 29th day hear the pistol bay see the bullets bite survive the 29th day just to be lost to the 29th night the first lightning is coming down coming down but the bird is born when it touches ground they all laid down to die on the 29th day heat smothers and murder is a spike driven into the heart of obsession as two queens held hands, and disappeared I fear that I’ll be lost to the 29th day just as they were lost to the years when the swan dies when it’s star explodes the night will split and I will slip behind the benevolent mother whose daughters were gagged, and bound, and bled upon an altar of furnaces, and smokestacks my 29 sisters my 29 lovers fell on the worst of all daggers and were lost to the 29th day the toll for heat is high the price of war is opium and the ocean strikes back with an ugly fist yet in tenderness carries so many on the tide of it’s wrists to rest gently with silt, and a lightless weight that clasps them to her benthic breast I fear for the men who cross oceans on the 29th day I fear for the atom that is broken, and bleeds winter on the 29th day and the men who steal dirt, to bury their saints for the drowning buildings, and the starving homes for those who sat down at tables dressed in rags to a meal of mud, and wood, and bone, bread of stone, and wine of discord that only fed despair men fell but were stopped before reaching the ground their seed spilling out without making a sound two sisters of perfect invention forged a bond of perfect destruction that was severed on the 29th day the first lightning came down melted sand into glass burned shadows to ash and all skin was dusted in grey I came, and I stood on the grave of the summer and I was lost on the 29th day

I’m so lucky I’ve killed a million men and laughed about every life I took I’ve run the length of every gam and stuck my hand in every crook where those stems meet all the ladies in a row shake, and twist, and shout In my dreams I dodged a million bullets walked between a million raindrops I’ve touched so many stars I’ve drunk so many bars under the table My life is fox and sable And I’m so goddamn stable I could kick over the table and never break a sweat all those ladies in a row shake, and twist, and shout out loud in my dreams I’m a lucky guy X 2 In dreams I bet a million on trumped up charges and I won big when the jury was hung I smoke a million packs a day still got angel white lungs a broken heart never stings a bottle never rung with sobs I’m jumping out the window, and it’s a million to one odds that I’ll fly but I know I’ll fly cause I’m a luck guy my life’s the stuff of dreams I waltz down all the moon beams I’m a lucky guy X ? in dreams

Winter Buries Autumn rots breath, and lung, and branch rots time, and towers, and hours drowns in showers flower spiders and spider flowers the worm is fat and the sunlight cowers Autumn rots the tooth, and bone the seat of the soul and golden throne the apple cheek and bitter crone the wood the spine the anguished stone rots the ink in every word and drives the wind from wings of birds Winter buries buries secrets buries time buries diamonds buries mines with pockets lined in lead it buries the living it buries the dead murders the wheat kills all the bread buries the heat and buries the bed fills the pockets up with lead buries the living as well as the dead winter buries buries well in coldest clay beneath all hell

My Hunger The elements eat The insects eat The dirt will consume All come eat of me Let me be thy bread For my own mouth has forsaken bread Chorus I’ll live on bird and insect song and breath A food that brings me peace A feast that brings me death My hunger is a symphony My thirst is an aria As I melt my grave wax Fat is pregnant mud And potash soul The rain and my rendering Wash the stones Wash the stones clean My heart in waning meter lurks beneath Intestinal brass and Weezy reedy lights All of nature is ravenous But I’m outside of nature now I’m outside of drive, and light, and hope But soon I will be taken back in Folded back into the dirt again I will be part of everything again Chorus Slip and mud my mother Take me to your breast I’ve left behind all I knew of living And all I thought I knew of dying The taste of air and light is all I need I have no lust for even the most tender meat Chorus End

Roman Nose I couldn’t find you I can’t find you sisters and fathers I can’t save you I can’t find them I found you I can’t recall their faces I can’t find them let’s run away and get married 15 years ago we were still young then I’m old now I’m not sure I knew you I knew you where did I go when you fell, where were you where was i your call could have come from a million years ago a million miles away I would have answered If I hadn’t forgotten you let’s run away and get married 15 years ago there would have been war, and we would have choked and I’d still be missing you today so I love you now as you were then a memory of when we were young I love you now as you might have been as you always were i love you then I love you now where did you go while I was sleeping maybe fifteen years from then you never thought of me now I don’t know we should have run away and gotten married fifteen years ago where did you go there’s a picture here you are black and white as beautiful as ever as beautiful as everything I didn’t know and all the things I don’t know now I’m not sure we ever touched I love you that much did either of us really grow we should have run away and gotten married 15 years ago from here I know you loved me then we’d be severed veins now I’d still love you anyhow I love you as you should be now your roman nose and heavy brow hands that never touched should have no memory of touching I have no memory of touching but I know how you would feel silk, and laugh, and wood, and steel hammered string, and bandage peel and everything I thought was real the cutting eye and despairing glow we should have run away and gotten married 15 years ago

He is one he is alone I am one one of many we are of him but he is not of us He is alone X2 there must be such sadness in greatness such despair in perfection He is alone If I could take him to my breast and kiss his worried brow I would make a solemn vow that in my arms he’d always rest and never be alone now in our time we can not touch for kindness breeds distrust we must arrest the urge to reach for the distressed forsake the burdened stranger leave him bereft of comfort’s warm caress (c) still we will never be alone there must be such sadness in greatness such despair in perfection such grand isolation he is alone X2 If I could take him to my breast I’d make for him a home and fill it up with sons, and daughters whose voices sang like river waters who were not afraid to touch or give themselves to every troubled heart with love and bare up the hallowed olive branch and tend the faultless dove on muscle, blood, and soul, and bone on wife’s devotion, mother’s love, and blessed home (c, g) I would make my solemn vow that he would never be alone X2 he would be my joy, and pride and that would be my sin (so) in the whole of me I ache with what I know that when I die I’ll go to him but he will always be alone X2

the lights of Marie that light never shined on me never in the night of my life did it shine through the trees I peeled back the curtain I peeled back the veil I parted the bell, and the dress, and the sea I rose through the smoke, scrapped the stage with the nails in my boots and I showed them the lights of Marie thy countenance languish thy words become stilted thy dress become jilted, and wilted, and flensed thy bone become yoked to terror, and tragedy I wore her heart on my sleeve I stood in the smoke and I showed them the lights of Marie the heat did not cleanse me the kiss could not cure me did not but obscure me and lure me to her ugly end I did not quail at the threat of the gallows the knife of her light never carved all my shadows away with thy countenance averted I did pale sing the Lark of Mont Blanc break the day, and show that my body is shale and aspires to nothing so great as the song from her lips but the grime beneath her sharpened nails

Organs of the firmament I heard the voice that is the sum of all love and I was changed I died on a widow’s lips I heard the world pray with a lisp but my own lips were burned clean by a blessed kiss I was transformed by a cleansing fire left alive in its wake just to see the death of all men the first letter is heavy on my brow a great sword laid the night aside a great sword flayed the night alive and I was shown the organs of the firmament and the veins of sorrow that ruptured and wept the blood that ran was a river that fed my soul and filled up the cup of my mind till it overflowed soaking my bones, my tongue, my lungs and my guts that were filled with the shit of the world I pinned myself to a throat filled with song with nails that I drove through my wrists my side was pierced by blue lightning there were thieves at both of my sides they held my hands as I fell and was swallowed by the night that was flayed alive that was drawn from between my lips as I spoke of the end and the death of all men and the souls that rise from decay that are called to the naked breast of the night that was flayed alive and I know that some men become angels it is written in hidden books but it is written just the same