E.C.T. (Riding Horses in the Snow)

Well, Dad may not be always be quite 
         right, but he ain't wrong
He's just been up thinking too hard 
        for way too long
All through the night and into 
        the dawn
And still the leaves fall and 
    they cover the lawn
One thing in life I've surely learned
Some bridges there are that just
      won't burn
A shooting star is no bigger than 
      a grain of sand
The universe fits in the palm
      of your hand


There's comet dust in everyone's hair
Mom won't ever tell why Dad's not here
The boat draws near the far shore
The spectre in the mirror is there no more
                                                                                       


Tell me, my son, which way does the Nile flow?
Dad's not here, and only he knows
Where is he this time, where did he go?
He's gone again, and only he knows
My dad is riding horses in the snow
My dad is out riding horses in the snow

Look, did you see, that was him
That ghost in the bleachers at the end of the gym
Dad, Dad, I missed you, I'm so glad you came
Which one are you, son, I can't remember 
      your names
Boys, are you home, how were your games?
Mom, Dad was there but he wasn't the same
His eyes were vacant, he had rain in his hair
He couldn't have been, coldly, she said
      your father wasn't there
I knew different though
I'd traced every hollow in his face
Love was like a comfortable silence
      between us
A voice in the wilderness, saving grace


Tell me, my son, which way does the Nile flow?
Dad's not here, and only he knows
Where is he this time, where did he go?
He's gone again, and only he knows
My dad is riding horses in the snow
My dad is out riding horses in the snow

A man reads newspapers
A man reads books
A man sometimes drinks too much
And don't much care how he looks
A man gives without asking
A man cares for the poor
A man always has room at his table
Even when the wolf howls at his door
A man ain't redeemed
A man ain't saved
A man weeps like Jesus
At his own child's grave


Tell me my son, which way does the Nile flow>
Dad's not here, and only he knows
Where is he this time, where did he go?
He's gone again, and only he knows
My dad is riding horses in the snow
My dad is out riding horses in the snow

So how many times were you crucified?
How many denied?
I'll remember for you
I was the one who cried
For you, when you fell down in the rain
When the wires fell off the roof
And the night burst into flames
And then the cops came
Hey, Dad, you should see what they're trying this time
The fog hangs low around the trees 
        and the melting snow
The houses on the hillside look lonesome,
      but there's still plenty of money around
And off to war once more we go

Tell me my son, which way does the Nile flow?
Dad's not here, and only he knows
Where is he this time, where did he go?
He's gone again, and only he knows
My dad is riding horses in the snow
My dad is out riding horses in the snow

And didn't you see it all already?
Out there leaning on the fence, 
    attended by crows
With the leaves burning in a 
    rusty barrel
The ashes swirling every which 
    way the wind blows
Some of us got sick
Some of us died
Some of us did better than others
All the time we tried
Always we loved one another
Mostly we laughed, though 
    sometimes we cried
 
And as long as the story is good enough
We never say anyone lied


Tell me, my son, which way does the Nile flow
Dad's not here, and only he knows
Where is he this time, where did he go?
He's gone again. and only he knows
My dad is riding horses in the snow
My dad is out riding horses in the snow

Well, Dad's not in a bar
And he's not in the yard 
    hanged from a tree
And he didn't wreck the car
He's just somewhere else 
    he needs to be
And he's not in the 
    red-brick dungeon
Hooked up to the 
    lightning machines
And he's not in a hospital 
    bed neither
His life counted out on 
    instrument screens
The question's asked 
    without speaking
Or maybe I just thought you'd want to know
My dad is out riding horses in the snow
Dad is riding horses 
     In the snow. . . . in the snow

Indian Blanket

The light you behold upon awakening 
            the eyes
Is not as brilliant as the light 
            from within
The explanation means you must 
         confront the lies
You were not born in original sin
Life is so sweet it tempts the angels
             from heaven
So mean you'll probably have 
            to come back
So rich there's nothing else worth 
             holding onto
So old you'll pray to be released


Take back your Indian blanket
I don't think we ever wanted it anyway
The people ain't ever been the same ever since you brought it here
Ain't nothing more about it I can say

That spark which lit the eyes
Sheds lightly the body's disguise
A clock stops, the heart fails
Man at his gods foolishly rails
Fear not the graveyard nor the cold stone
For those that do perish alone
Closer you are than ever you've been
Just as it was, it will be again
Stars flame in the wintriest skies
It is there you will turn, if you are wise


Take back your Indian blanket
I don't think we ever wanted it anyway
The people ain't ever been the same,
      ever since you brought it here
Ain't nothin' more about it I can say

The promised land is a 
        charnel house              
The forest is filled with bones
Where did all the people go?
Who carved all these stones?
Let us sit on the ground and tell
    tales of the death of kings
Lamentations for princes
What died in the mud and was 
     buried in the snow
A people's dream died there,
     it was a beautiful dream

Take back your Indian blanket
I don't think we ever wanted it anyway
The people ain't never been the same,
      ever since you brought it here
Ain't nothing more about it I can say

Mattie Ready

    One picture I would draw if I could
    You deeply sleeping
    With your hands folded on the 
            pillow beside you
    The warm room lit only by 
            the light inside you
    And the flicker of a candle 
            lightly leaping
    A lover lying next with his 
            arm around you
    With you within all that 
            surrounds you
    Your secrets safely keeping
    Your secrets safely keeping

    O, Mattie Ready, you wanted a song
    But I can’t say much
    I didn’t stay that long
    Before we even started
    I was already wrong
    I would make things all right
    Only I’m way too gone
    Ah, but, hey, Mattie Ready,
         I wrote you a song


    Well, can’t you slow down some
    You’re getting those tombstone eyes
    Man, you better slow down some
    You’re getting those tombstone eyes
    And when it happens soon
    Do you know anyone who’ll really be surprised
    Not me nor you, not I and I
    Can keep track of all these lies
    You know if you ever get tired
    You can always come back to bed
    And I swear once more I won’t ask you anything there
    About anything that’s been done or said

    O, Mattie Ready, you wanted a song
    But I can’t say much
    I didn’t stay that long
    Before we even started
    I was already wrong
    I would make things all right
    Only I’m way too gone
    Ah, but, hey, Mattie Ready, I wrote you a song


   
    Well, I got your keys
    But I guess I’m the one out of luck
    Cause I think I just saw you
    Climb into someone else’s truck
    Well, I suppose you shouldn’t try it,  sir
    Sir, I guess you shouldn’t try it
    Why do you stand so forlorn when all the others are gone
    In the dark out here out of doors?
    Well, I guess I could go back inside, I guess
    But then I wouldn’t be a horse any more
    Everyone asks me why
    Everyone asks me why
    Because in your eyes I see
    The wind at play and the oceans rise

    O, Mattie Ready, you wanted a song
    But I can’t say much
    I didn’t stay that long
    Before we even started
    I was already wrong
    I would make things all right
    Only I’m way too gone
    Ah, but, hey, Mattie Ready, I wrote you a song


   
    Well, in a while, how do you think
    That you’ll paint this story?
    With candlelight and incense and spells and poems and sighs
    And all that kind of glory
    Maybe something lower, vodka and felonies and pills and wrecks
    A little more kind of whorey
    A lot more glittery, less circumspect
    Even downright tawdry
    With me left alone among the dust
    That will become of all of us
    Blood on the pages of my books
    Luck and death walk hand in hand
    No one ever left me so shook
    There are only two rhythms, I tried to tell you
    The beating heart and a rolling train
    Only two gifts I had to give you
    A red, red rose and a bed inside the falling rain
    Now again I’m just another person
    I can never be
    You and me and baby would make three
    All I ever wanted, she said once that very first last night
    Is for you to marry me
    Come on, he said, as he bent down to pick her up off the floor
    Let me carry thee
    Let me carry thee

   

    O, Mattie Ready, you wanted a song
    But I can’t say much
    I didn’t stay that long
    Before we even started
    I was already wrong
    I would make things all right
    Only I’m way too gone
    Ah,  but, hey, Mattie Ready, I wrote you a song

El Duque

After hiding for eight days with seven of your friends
(In those first days we numbered no more than the apostles)
From the secret police and informers' eyes
(Having known their jails, this time we were prepared to die)
In the fisherman's hut on the beach
(We were down to three, one without shoes; another, unforgivably, had lost his weapon)
Sleeping at night in the netting, while the less talented others kept the watch
(We crept into the cane fields and hid there, sucking sugar from the same stalks that
             cut our flesh, the symbol of our bondage)
Mercifully unaware of the broadcast reports of your shipwreck and death
(All the while the American planes screamed overhead)
That so saddened your father, your wife and your children, the hallucinatory men
             you bathed on the ward
(To follow me, you must be prepared to leave your family and sell all that you own;
             my father's fields were the first to burn)
To whom even before, like all the living, you were little more than a ghost
(How many dreamers before had promised them liberation?)
A fable as unhelpful as their thoughts, as little connected
(He dressed my wounds and talked all the time, like a madman, as if our enemies had already
             been defeated, as we trembled in the cane)
To that other reality they had fled, which asked them to believe
(All was not lost, we would regroup in the mountains)
The greatest curveballer in the island's history was one and the same
(Swimming among the people as the fish in the sea)
With the sometimes sullen yet courtly attendant who sponged them down
(Creating ourselves the necessary conditions whereby history could inexorably proceed)
And put them in their beds and locked them away at night, while denying
(Triumphing of our willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice, of selfless love)
They were the re-risen Christ, thereby somehow serving the regime's immaterial needs
               and samely the ongoing glory of the revolution
(The new society will give birth to the new man)
Leaving at last by night with the changing wind, crammed gunwale to gunwale
(When we left Mexico, we were originally seventy-three,  in a ship made for twelve,
               plus guns and ammunition)
In a little patchwork boat around a single flaccid sail
(With each little swell we threatened to founder)
Provisioned solely with sugar water, the starving country's insular bounty
(If he erred, it was only in underestimating how long it would take to undo what history
                had made, and how fatefully you would oppose us)
Swamping almost always, driven across the sharky strait, not much closer
(Lacking an experienced pilot, we made an erratic course)
To the hallowed continent of refuge but onto another sandy cay, another sugarcoated paradise
(We did no so much land as wreck, said the Argentinian)
Deserted since those fargone ships took the natives away, forever
(And now some of their descendants prepare to offer themselves for the homeland)
Where you ran aground, as lost as its discoverers, perhaps more disappointed,
                still in search of gold
(Betrayed, we waded ashore under gunfire)
Like them, grateful for the sand beneath your feet
(Finding sanctuary in the cane fields)
Huddled together for warmth, without fire, for three nights beneath the soil
(He rigged his rifle so that even if surprised in sleep, he could jerk the trigger and avoid capture)
Until the American helicopters picked them up and carried them to the land of the free agents
(It was the certainty in his voice that held us there, beneath the cane stalks and the withering fire,
                  and all the while the American planes screamed overhead)
Would you be afraid to throw strikes in the too intensely interested stadium
(Later on, in the mountains, we even listened to the World Series on the radio)
Whose approbation is expressed in a mainly foreign tongue
(And he could not understand why Haney would not use Carlton Willey more than once)
And would that be a personal or a political act?
En la patria, si, es verdad, estamos muy pobre
Pero con el dinero, no es la patria
You hector us about freedom and deny us medicine
The Yankees win again, and my children remain

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}