1. |
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We cradle in our arms your terror, the soldiers that you fight
Disguised as our children, they starve. Behold your enemy
Ringed around the village of the brazen infidel
As their eyes sink in, you can feel your muscles swell
Catapults throw hunger into bellies brave and small
While kings discuss the benefits in laden banquet halls
In Mosul in northern Iraq's no fly zone, we saw flocks of sheep
Which had been blasted to eternity with the small child shepherds
Who tended them. No other targets in sight
You cradle in your arms the terror that will bring the ceiling down
Crashing on your children, the harvest of this seed
In Mosul where Jonah rests the sheep are waging war
They dared to raise their eyes when the planes above them roared
On the sands of Babylon we lay down and wept
Morning light on you! Oh, vengeance we expect
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2. |
Blood in Our Guts
04:13
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Some days you tread the grass tipping the toe in awe
Some days you draw the sword, some nights you spit at the stars
We serve a God of grief and pleasure. We swim in passion and tears
Fasting fill our minutes but feasting fills our years
We're no sons of prohibition, no daughters of frozen beds
Pan and the nymph's weak shadows of the fires joined and wed
Seems you misunderstand me, not ice but blood in our guts
We're sober 'cause we're waiting for our Lord to drink with us
Been told we're rules and repression, weak in minds and taste
But only the one who has mastered desire ever has ridden its strength
I will not sit your silly perch, I got both wings on me
Judging from your paintin' of us I don't think you can see
A joy that outdances the pagans. A taste for moon and sun
Great board of wine and laughter when the watch of night is done
Sing of some pale Galilean, greying the world with his breath
This wraith is not my master; in fact we've never met
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3. |
Open the Records
06:25
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And they walk a thousand miles south
And they wear our gags upon their mouths
Yet they will rise, with dignity and grace
Open the records, shine a light in secret places
And finally the world will see Guatemala
Behold the marks upon her Mayan daughters
Seed the earth between the anvil and the hammer
The generals and the wealthy flew the same bloody banner
You offered them as martyrs but that was not your right
God's instruments of change sometimes walk beneath our sight
Indeed to take up violence can be the worst of votes
But before you criticize spend the night inside their booths
On him they spent their rage yet never did he speak
No safe house was given up, a dam that would not leak
He held your filthy torrents till you finally put him down
Her love let loose the waters but it's you who will be drowned
You will never understand how the truth can pass thru bars
It flies above the night and writes the names upon the stars
100 cigarette burns like maps upon her back
Led home to Washington by the strings of the attack
Look into her eyes the crazy isn't there
It's in the embassies and palaces filling every chair
This northern land is ours, for us judgment starts here
If indeed we fed the death squads our repentance should be dear
Master Mine look to the south
Open your ears and close your mouth
We turn the river and thank our gods
They fight the thirst against all odds
No more, no more the cry comes drifting back
Are grey skies growing lighter or will they fade to black?
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4. |
Masefield Drowned
04:14
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There is a land and there is sea you're the spot just between
Where the wall grow the thinnest to the hidden majesty
There is joy and there is grief, where they lap there is just belief
And I know that the sweetest glimpse of faith is in your eyes
Between night and day when the whites they are grays
And the green world wears a pale blue mask upon its face
I step through I fall in a long lost home I've never been
I cannot stay forever but I'll never leave again
"One road leads to London one road runs to Wales
My road lead me seawards to the white dipping sails
Leads me, lures me, calls me to salt green tossing sea
A road without earth's road-dust is the right road for me"
But one voice holds me steady, one voice hold me here
It's the voice of my only love calling me near
"A wet road heaving, shining, and wild with seagulls' cries
A mad salt sea-wind blowing salt spray in my eyes"
But I can let it wait, I can leave it all behind
For standing still with you is a journey of a kind
Like a jaunt upon an ocean of holy memories
Sails full and constant with a sweet stinging breeze
"I may go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that's hardest to deny
I may go down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy's life
To the gull's way and the whale's way
Where the wind's like a whetted knife"
But I'll not go alone my love from this day on I swear
Whatever current lays below, you and I will share
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5. |
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Birth like a drunkard reels and tosses me wet into the fields
surrounded by a company familiar and strange
Dangled like Achilles, dripping on the floor
The brine of a fateful journey, delivered to the door
Of ritual and custom, the woman and the man
With silver ring in the sight of all I took my lover's hand
Deep drums beat beneath skin-covered ivory cages
Patterns that we learned when the leaves shut out the skies
Turned face to face near the night fire, walls allowing
Is that the savannah still caught up in your eyes?
Two hunt as one for the passion that can bridge the grave
Gathering vows to love and to be
Walls dripping, Spirit digging eternal words from primate tongues
Dance before their burning and come next to me
Bottoms up—drink each day down
Loyalty poured by mercy
Call but one name—another round
Commitment is a thirsting
Wedlock step to ancient tunes
Till lungs they are a bursting'
Bottoms up—drink each day down
Commitment is a thirsting
Deep drums beat beneath skin-covered ivory cages
Patterns that we learned when the leaves shut out the skies
Turned face to face across the bright pyre of any others
That which could have been, laugh as it dies
Two hunt as one for the passion that can bridge the grave
Quickening vows to love and to be
Desires ebb but to return glowing embers roar and burn
Dance before that fire and come next to me
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6. |
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7. |
Jan 18, 1943
04:36
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Five fathoms down submission lies
Its bones of coral made
Too often Torquemadas lead
The brightest to the grave
The ideas of Christ are actions
Take courage heart of mine
And cease to idle fancy
Step across the line
The enemy hearkens—a beast in the darkness
The amuser it wakes in my hand
I imagine a day when resignation is violence
And know I would feel the command
In Vilna beat plowshares to swords
In the face of their pain pacifism unglues
S'vet a poyk tun trot: Meer ze-nen do
The enemy hearkens a beast in the darkness
It measures and qualifies me
How deep can it drink the blood of the people?
Before my vows are released
With each day of fumbling, does action learn something?
When will Love find its opposable thumb?
Will it reach as it prays or preach while it stays
And bask in noblest pledges undone?
The enemy turns—his humanity burns me
To avoid the fist we will try
Despise the crusader—reject the invader
But when must the ghetto arise?
Song of my fathers a voice in the darkness
The amuser it drops from my hand
I dream of a day when the violent are emptied
And peace is the only command
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8. |
The Rowing Song
06:05
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Hand over hand see the banner rise, from the depths of the ghost a deep bell cries
Driving us forth from our slumbers in Notre Dame
Down from the bell tower, leap on board, break the anchor, mock the shore
Rejoice in the toss and roll of our liberty
Lash the oars to our hands and let us pull
We're sick of these suffocating landlocked days of talk and drool
What's it like to love where you're going?
Further on and further in till these eyes are closin'
Recalled to life by a kingdom come, beggars and hunchbacks everyone
We leave each wave with no regret 'cause the next brings what it needs
We share the Christ tribe stories and the meaning songs that some have labeled
White lie wrongs from the infancy of man
Catch our answer if you can
Exiled to finally breathe am I
Doomed to actually see the sky
And the waters in all their glory
The best are the truest of stories
The best are the truest of stories
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9. |
George MacDonald
05:52
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One is a slow and melancholy maid;
I know not if she cometh from the skies
Or from the sleepy gulfs, but she will rise
Often before me in the twilight shade
Holding a bunch of poppies and a blade
Of springing wheat: prostrate my body lies
Before her on the turn, the while she ties
A fillet of the weed about my head;
And in the gaps of sleep I seem to hear
A gentle rustle like the stir of corn
And words like odours thronging to my ear:
"Lie still, beloved—still until morn;
Lie still with me upon this rolling sphere—
Still till the judgment; thou art faint and worn"
The other meets me in the public throng;
Her hair streams backward from her loose attire;
She hath a trumpet and an eye of fire;
She points me downward, steadily and long:—
"There is thy grave—arise, my son, be strong!
Hands are upon thy crown—awake, aspire
To immortality; heed not the lyre
Of the Enchantress nor her poppy song,
But in the stillness of the summer calm
Tremble for what is Godlike in thy being
Listen a while, and thou shalt hear the psalm
Of victory sung by creatures past thy seeing;
And from far battle-fields there comes the neighing
Of dreadful onset, though the air is balm"
Maid with the poppies, must I let thee go?
Alas, I may not; thou are likewise dear!
I am but human, and thou has a fear
When she hath not but splendour, and the glow
Of a wild energy that mocks the flow
Of the poor sympathies which keep us here:
Lay past thy poppies, and come twice as near
And I will teach thee, and thou too shalt grow;
And thou shalt walk with me in open day
Through the rough thoroughfares with quiet grace;
And the wild visaged maid shall lead the way
Timing her footsteps to a gentler pace
As her great orbs turn ever on thy face
Drinking in draughts of loving help alway
Sister Snowdrop died before we were born
She came like a bride in a snowy morn
What is a bride? What is snow?
Never tried. Do not know.
Now let us moan and cover her over
Primrose is gone. All but the flower
Here is a leaf. Lay her upon it
Follow in grief. Pocket has done it.
Deeper, poor creature! Winter may come
He cannot reach her—that is the hum
SHe is buried, the beauty! Now she is done
That was the duty. Now for the fun.
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10. |
The Channel
04:12
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How many mornings lay against their evenings
With nothing worth remembering in between
The last dune rises in the lower glass
One pull would snap these bracelets clean
Walk me to the edge of no returning
Let the hands lead the tongue into unlearning
The likes of which my eyes have never seen
The gates of the Bastille hang from their hinges
No more waiting for the living to begin
Lather me from head to toe in sheep fat
For the cold dark channel I shall swim
What do you offer that we really need?
What do you starve—what do you feed?
Artless forms untouched by craft
No potter's breath just industrial draft
Technicians fill our empty feeders
With bits of business from producing theatres
We're consumed and all the junk remains
The gates of the Bastille hang from their hinges
Cut the cords of possessions from my neck
Toss your scepter in the mud, Otto of Brunswick
Naked we will walk from this wreck
The chains of shallow solutions
Protect arrogance from the persecutions
Without which Faith will surely die
Look full in the eyes that suffer
The fighter is the only lover
One pull would snap those bracelets clean
The gates of the Bastille hang from their hinges
Run out beyond their swaying pipes so string
We sleep not with crusaders or cynics
We'll wake tomorrow in the rain where we belong
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11. |
Crescent
07:00
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Fertile crescent of fire and dirt traded for knowledge, what was it worth?
Yesterday's desires are stronger today. We eat our fill but hungry we stay
Like the hips of the snake emptied I am of reasons to dance on, my lover's like sand
That slips through my fingers without a trace that something sacred slept in this place
Four rivers flow past the beaks and the jaws
Anarchy, Judgment, Mercy, and Law
New cities rise upon history's dust. Cultures revolve between wonder and lust
Guillotine blades release peasants and slaves. Peasants turn princes and chain them again
The rivers flow on, they join and they grow
Mixing life and death into all that we know
Steep the last steps from nature to man
The altar, the fiddle, and a little girl's dance
She moves through the hills and sings to the night
Of Eden and serpents and dizzying heights
Each morning she wakens and knows she won't end
A new creature rises against one that descends
We're on our own again, my friend, the vanguard's been derailed
They'll hang me next to you, my friend, as they follow in our trail
Too late we see the broken heart is the seed of the broken state
Remember me in paradise, tell them I couldn't wait
A future's on its way, my friend, where hate will be like gills
Gills that cannot breathe, my friend, in the sharp air of the hills
We saw so clear the rights of all, the path was the mistake
The vanguard is forgiveness, the light for which we ache
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12. |
Sons and Daughters
03:40
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You crawl up into your bed and pull the worn thin blanket over your head
Trying hard to momentarily escape the touch you feel
What is the worth of soul and skin? Price plummets down
As each one comes in
As if such short-armed men could ever reach that sacred place
I am the God of Rahab I see past flesh and culture
Never do I mistake the songbird for the vulture
Your life burns pure before my eyes
I name the virgin I crush the flies
They dress you in scarlet but all that I know
Is the child you are is white like the snow
Bangkok sun creeps out red-faced but without shame
It knits in fire upon the hills the purity of your name
Other names are knitted too but black the thread
They form a noose rising slowly but steadily
A gallows for grown men to hang their own hearts
Pour from your soul the rice your family needs to eat
Like Mary pouring oil on the Son of God's feet
A child should sleep through the dark in peace
Another night's over, light comes to the east
Pull your blanket over our head it's us who are dead
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Ballydowse Chicago, Illinois
Ballydowse is a folk punk band that sang of social and economic injustice.
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