Carlisle Indian

     He ran so fast no one ever saw him again
    They taught him to speak
    You are the greatest athlete in the world, 

            proclaimed the king
    Thanks, king, said he
    But Jim Thorpe don’t play here no more
    He couldn’t hit the breaking pitch, and
    He piled his Pierce Arrow into the ditch,
    Out where the Wal-mart used to be,
    And Jim Thorpe don’t play here no more
    No, and Jim Thorpe don’t drink here no more
    Someone said they saw him standing 

            in front of the cigar store
    But Jim Thorpe don’t play here no more
    No, and Jim Thorpe don’t drink here no more
    Jim Thorpe don’t drink here no more
    


Hey, Jim, where did all the Indians go?
Maybe to the Carlisle Indian School, I guess, I don’t know

Hey, Jim, where did all the buffalo go?    
Maybe to the Carlisle Indian School, I guess, I don’t know

Was that Jim Thorpe I saw out in front of the cigar store? 

No, no, Jim Thorpe don’t play here no more 

Jim Thorpe don’t drink here no more 

Well, we need a starter, tonight’s a big game 

And Chief Bender is in the Hall of Fame 

But Jim Thorpe don’t play here no more 

Jim Thorpe don’t drink here no more  

No more, no more, no more . . . 

How can you read the defense 

When there is no defense 

The rattling of the bones 

The rattling of the bones
 

They say the Indians will soon be gone 

That the red man is vanishing from this land 

The old ones say only the sky lives forever 

And I say the stars will always remember the way I ran
 

Look, a deer don’t say 

Today I’m going to run pretty 

It just runs 

And a horse doesn’t say 

Watch me run pretty 

It just runs 

And the wolf don’t say 

Today I’m going to hunt pretty 

It just hunts 

And the moon don’t say 

Tonight watch me shine so pretty 

It just shines
 

Kill the Indian, save the man . . . 

Kill the Indian, save the man  {chant throughout}

Grafton

If ever I make it back to Grafton
I’m going to write the definition 
        of loneliness
If ever I make it back to Grafton
I’m going to write the definition 
        of loneliness
 
Sliver of a moon, almost a frost
Everything you do, you have to 
        pay the cost
Sliver of a moon, almost a frost
Everything you want, you have to 
        pay the cost
All these faces in these cars going by
All of them look lost
   

There’s nothing more famous than 

That about which nothing is known 
There’s nothing more famous than 

That about which nothing is known 

Nothing emptier than

The room where the art was shown

     I know I been there once already 

I just can’t find it on a map 
I know I been there once already 
I just can’t find it on a map 
I heard my last kind words there 
And then something snapped
 

If ever I make it back to Grafton 

I’m going to write the definition of loneliness 

If ever I make it back to Grafton 

I’m going to write the definition of loneliness 

And then I won’t remember her at all

Ghost of a Flea

I wonder, does the water ever miss the stone
        once it’s worn away?
I doubt it, for it’s never the same water
        as it was yesterday
And does that whisper of a moon
        ever miss its better half?
Only  at night, when it remembers her laugh


Did I ask the right questions?
Did I tempt fate?
Did I find my own path to the right gate?
Did I ask the right questions?
Did I keep my head?
If it weren’t for this living, we’d be better off dead



The moon is low
I’m too high
Time to go
Don’t say goodbye
Wind on the rise
It’s getting cold
No time to die
Just getting old

Did I ask the right questions?
Did I tempt fate?
Did I find my own path to the right gate?
Did I ask the right questions?
Did I keep my head?
If it weren’t for this living, we’d be better off dead


The phantoms in your head
        Let them howl
The beasts beneath your bed
        Let them prowl
The banshees on the lawn
        Let them wail
The Vikings at their funerals
        Let them sail
The bandits in the mountains
        Let them climb
The stars in your eyes
        Let them shine
The stars in your eyes
        Let them shine
You’ll be fine, fine, fine
You’ll be fine


Did I ask the right questions?
Did I tempt fate?
Did I find my own path to the right gate?
Did I ask the right questions?
Did I keep my head?
If it weren’t for this living, we’d be better off dead

In Siam yesterday an elephant stepped on a landmine beneath a banyan tree   
This is a world of unfathomable obscenity
Sometimes I’m haunted by the ghost of a flea
I can’t ever find it, but I can feel it on me
We’re all haunted by things we can’t see
If you can, try to sleep, and to let it all be
Some of these spirits will help set you free
And not even grim death will hold the lonesome coyote

Did I ask the right questions?
Did I tempt fate?
Did I find my own path
To the right gate?
Did I ask the right questions?
Did I keep my head?
If it weren't for this living,
    we'd be better off dead

Gunboys

Tears beneath the window
More frightful than the storm
If I didn’t fear misunderstanding
You could come in and get warm

“And if this world had only one heart”
Sings the king of the bandits
“I would tear it out myself”


He quit the team for good reason
He was tired of keeping score
Of being whipped by some coach 
        who cannot play
He won’t be anymore

                                                    
“And if this world had only one heart”

Sings the king of the bandits

“I would tear it out myself”

Have you ever tried to follow a dream?

By day the way is not so clear

As it is by night when the path

To the treasure in the forest lies near

“And if this world had only one heart”

Sings the king of the bandits

“I would tear it out myself”

“You must judge us by what we are,” the minister says

“And not by what we do

Beliefs are not the same things as reasons

And we don’t have to explain either to you”

“And if this world had only one heart”

Sings the king of the bandits

“I would tear it out myself”

“I’m with the special-access program,” the ghost says

“Don’t you remember me?

Doesn’t matter if you do or not

I’m still going to set you free”

“And if this world had only one heart”

Sings the king of the bandits
"I would tear it out myself" 

“Where do you get all this change?”
The beggar replies, “From 
        all the gracious people
For the whole world is a church
For the truly needful”

“And if this world had only one heart”
Sings the king of the bandits
“I would tear it out myself”

Truth comes for some in dreams
For others in the shower
Chaos rules the world
Such are your earthly powers

“And if this world had only one heart”
Sings the king of the bandits
“I would tear it out myself”


Imagine waiting your whole life for justice
And finding heaven instead
Learning life is the only judgment
Desired by the dead

“And if this world had only one heart”
Sings the king of the bandits
“I would tear it out myself”


Here’s to all the gunboys
In all their days in the sun
May  the god they serve greet them at their death
Each and every one

“And if this world had only one heart”
Sings the king of the bandits
“I would tear it out myself”

Elegy

Is Harry Dean Stanton dead?
I don't know, I can't remember
Anyway, that's what I heard someone said
He got shot by a man with a grudge in a motel
In a warm, dry climate sometime 
            around Christmas
Or maybe it was in late September


Where is Robert Johnson's grave
And how come he ain't buried there?
When you think of all the lives he's saved
Couldn't someone have took a little more care?
Jealous lovers get to pick their poison
Hellhounds never lose a trail
Life ain't fair, and the devil plays a bone fiddle
Sometimes dyin' must feel like bustin' out of jail


David Thompson never said goodbye
Don't you wonder where he went?
The only man who could ever truly fly
The money gone, the talent spent
You pay a price to go so high
One day he just kept on going, all the way up, into the sky


I got a letter this morning
What do you think it said?
I got an e-mail this morning
How do you think it read?
It said, Better hurry, hurry
One you love is dead


There was this man I used to see
He begged coins and dollars outside the little grocery store
It was hard to really tell but he looked pretty old to me
He was weatherbeaten and a long time ago he'd stopped keeping score
Even so if you looked at him strange or didn't speak to him right
He'd want to know why you went and did that for
Sometimes he was drunk, sometimes he was crazy
I never see him anymore
And his people out there called him the Spanish nigger
Go figure


Are there ditches where you are, Billy Martin?
Do you still need a run, more middle relief
Someone to drive 
And a safe place to drink?
They all said you were a miserable son-of-a-bitch
I never did care what they think

Old Pine Box (Sorrow Song)

When I'm gone, don't you cry
Please remember me with a smile
When I'm gone, don't you ask why
I just needed to rest a while
And this old pine box
Feels just like home to me


If you saw death coming 
        down the road
Arrayed so fine
If you saw death coming
         down the road
Why then you'd have to be blind
Not to know why this old pine box
Feels just like home to me

There's a magpie on the gallows
And an emptiness on the line
She's going to get to heaven before us
Without even hardly trying
I wonder if they lay her down in the ground
In a box made out of pine

For all the poetry of the placenames on this land
There's no place left for me here where I can stand
These words you wrote I once believed
Now I think they're just practiced to deceive
And I don't know anymore what it means to be free
This old pine box feels just like home to be

If just once you saw those plastic bags at night
Blowing through the trees like haints
You'd know why it feels all right
To lie here with all the dead and the saints
Seeing things with second sight
This old pine box feels just like home to me

Yes, the ice on the trees can leave you to shiver
But the stars in the sky can make a soul quiver
If you came out here just once
Then you would see
Why this old pine box 
Feels just like home to me

Each night at twelve, Jesus 
            comes walking
Then all these last souls to him 
            come flocking
And he forgives them for dying
Three by three
This old pine box
Feels just like home to me






It's been so long now I just can't remember
What year it was death stole my child from me
And whether it was the Spanish influenza
Or just that old TB
This old pine box
Feels just like home to me

Build a cross out of sticks, plant it in the ground
Come raise it again when the cold wind blows it down
Write her name on the marker
Or carve it on a tree
This old pine box
Feels just like home to me

And the people are kindly
Kindlier than you thought they'd be
Some of them leave red roses
And some of them leave tea
Some of them leave tears
And some of them leave whiskey
This old pine box
Feels just like home to me

For you don't have to walk in 
            this lonesome graveyard
For to hear this singing
Don't have to go to church
To hear them bells a -ringin'
Don't have to ask for whom 
            they're tolling
They toll for we
This old pine box
Feels just like home to me

I don't need no more of hope
I don't need no more of glory
The nightbirds serenade me
And the wildflowers they adorn me
And there's nothing so very special
About any of this history
That's why this old pine box
Feels just like home to me 




 

A Rose in Winter

I've been looking around for grace
But all that's coming down is rain
For a minute I thought I found it
      in your face
Guess I better start again, again
Getting real tired of this chase
Just can't settle for something plain
Running around from place to place
Like a rider on a downbound train
I've always been searching above
Then it hits me from below
Always wanted something holy to love
But the body is all that we know


Sometimes I feel just like a rose in winter
Holding back the snow

 Come real close, not too near
Yeah, I want you, but I can't stay here
Time out of season, I'm the last one around
When it gets too cold, I'll go down in the ground

I'm not saying you're a saint
I've still never found one of those
It could be you're an angel
That's something only you and God would know
To me you're like the sunlight
That holds the bloom in the rose
The radiance in the garden
That holds off the wind when it blows
Cause always the seasons will change
And always the ages will roll
And always that time will come
When you have to go
Sometimes I feel just like a rose in winter
Holding back the snow


Come real close, not too near
Yeah, I want you, but I can't stay here
Time out of season, I'm the last one around
When it gets too cold, I'll go down in the ground


So what is the essence of a rose
The flower or the thorn?
What is the essence of living
The dying or the being born?
My petals might be fading
And my coat it might be torn
That doesn't mean I won't make it
To see another new morn
So you get a little older
Time to help the younger ones grow
Teach them not to be so afraid
Of the scars where they show
Sometimes I feel just like a rose in winter
Holding back the snow


Come real close, not too near
Yeah, I want you, but I can't stay here
Time out of season, I'm the last one around
When it gets too cold, I'll go down in the ground