Kevin Devine Album

This is the window where
I watched the future start
My pupils dilated
The shock sped up my arms
I shut my ambushed eyes
And turned my face towards the heat

I felt the city choke
I heard the world at war
I prayed for providence
God said, 'don't pray no more
You went and made your mess
Now keep your blame off my feet'

So i got off my knees
I faced the devil's day
The sky was murder red
The streets were headstone gray
A flaming ferris wheel
Spun where the sun used to be

I watched its buckets dip and dance
I saw a couple making love lock hands
They were pushing for abandon and the answers it could bring
90 million miles from the graveyard growing over everything

I saw my lover chased
Through fields of sugarcane
She clutched her belly close
And whispered, "keep us safe"
They ground her down to dust
No more miracles today

I dreamt myself awake
In a resort hotel
Above a golden coast
Beside my Southern belle
We heard the sea reborn
In each singing shell

And every coughing car
And every coiled snake
And every shrieking star
And every burning stake
Dissolved to atmosphere
All of everything, erased

I spread into a distant hum
I droned along with everyone
And the earth grew green and nursed herself to what she used to be
All our senseless shouting calmed to quiet in her ancient memory

And oh!, what a joy,
To be free.

I quit the carnival and moved next door
Thought i'd had enough but i wanted more
So now i'm sneaking out at night
I clean my face and shine my shoes
And go where i'm not supposed to

See i tamed a lion once i stole his roar
Stripped his pride away but he found more
So now he's out to take what's his and shove
My future in my face and scare me back in my place
So soon so soon you've got it beat 'til it eats you

See i left my flaming sword beside your bed
I woke to find it pressed against my neck
You wept suggestion never works
So now i'm trying something else
I shut my eyes hold on.. oh well
And i felt a feather fall a tree trunk split
Inside my lying mouth played violin
He said you should give up your voice
Before we both end up destroyed

I quit alrighthe purred good boy
You'll fall for anything when you're caught
You'll believe anyone and
I said that's not exactly true
Only you, you do what you do

You awake in the hospital in a thrift store suit
You hear your lover's voice from the waiting room
You shut your eyes and pray for peace
Think i'm not here this isn't me
This isn't something i would do
I know the complicated truth
A big top tent a firey sword
I make a mask of lions roar
But they're not real and never were
And soon she won't be real either
This is the life you went and earned
Because you never fucking learn
You could use up all of your years
Fixing the mess you make in here
So as her nervous dress draws closer
Dress heels click off their approach
You clutch your chest and whisper
"oh no, what will i do? what will i do?
My love, my love, what will i do?"

It's a brushfire spreading, feeding as it moves
It's a disappeared glacier, it's an airborne flu
It's your disbelieving eyes locked in concrete miles
It's your yawning conscious and your lawyer's smile
It's an occupied country, foaming at the mouth
No smoking gun, no mushroom cloud
It's a military mother with a boy in hell
And it's a flag draped casket down an oil well
It's an Argentina school girl, gagged and bound
It's a torture camp, it's a long way down
It's the constant brace and shock of now
It's the whole damn world turned inside out, all right

It's a march to extinction with your god in step
It's his name in your mouth, it's his cross on your neck
It's a farm boy sprinting over desert dirt
And he's panting the 'Our Father' in staccato spurts
Now that's his automatic rifle and it tells no lies
That's his truth in your stomach, it's no alibi
But the trouble lies on the other side

With an equal truth prepping for his holy night
He sees his crescent and the star in the virgin sky
He hears the call of milk and honey from the afterlife
And as he eases to the check point, he is calm and sure
It's collateral damage, it's the cost of war

It's another bag of bones for the gods to sort
It's just another bag of bones for the gods to sort

It's the species disappearing, all the birds fly south
In a January heat wave and a pulsing crowd
It's an African militia, kids with sub machines
It's a conflict diamond on your bride to be
It's the dispossessed lining up every gate
It's the facts worth facing, faced way too late
It's the mission of modernity, go get what's yours'
'Til there's nothing leftover to get no more
And it's not what were owed but it's what we've earned
And it's closer than we realized that it's time now, to burn

It's time now to burn
Oh, it's time now to burn

In the hand of God there's a cattle prod
That keeps shocking us along
'Til we're flung from roofs without parachutes
To fill the patches on his lawn

There's an iron gate where patrolmen wait
To keep the chosen people safe
From the infidels and their terror cells
Rebels blessed with God's good grace

There's a shining half jewel that's shattered glass
Hemmed in with barbed wire
You can skin your feet but you can't climb free
Oh hallelujah, hot and hard

All your fox-hole prayers full of fear you share
With a bored and distant son
While you held your will, killing time until
Answers came from anyone

You curse their Lord for all he ignored
In his flawed and vengeful plan
Cut yourself some slack against a deck so stacked
I mean come on now, you're just one man

Maybe after all when your conscience calls
You might threw the missing link
And all that white hot air you sprayed around out there
Might have led to more than you think

So when you breathe, breathe deep, breathe in easily
Like you might never breathe again
Tell yourself the truth so all that work you do
Won't be worthless in the end

My brother's blood boils in my arms
It balls my fingers into fists
It bubbles, blisters, burns my palms
It floods with fury, fights and fits
It's got the good guy in me hiding
It kicks my humble heart around
It's got me fiending for the fire
That could finish off this town.

My brother's blood on a cherry tree
It stains the bark from branch to root
It puddles thick with pits and leaves
It strains the sweetness from the fruit
It kept me looking for communion
A meeting point off underground
An empty plot I could climb into
An (iron) (lightening) cartoon promise in my mouth

A blackout oath I swore and meant
But couldn't conjure up again
I don't know one thing about my brother's blood

My brother's blood
In my dirty lungs
In my crooked mouth
On my swollen tongue
On my father's gun
In each stranger's face
Across the bluebird sky
On each hand I shake
Night after night
Each chuckled prayer
Such sweet relief
Fists full of hair
My brother's back
My father's arms
Each twisted fact
In my sorry heart

All that dialogue
Doubling back at me
All that tangled talk
All that growling need
And each desperate drive
For elusive peace
And each endless night
And each wasted week

I spit and scream "what's done is done
Go make your peace with everyone"
They don't need to know about my brother's blood.

You're hot fog
I can feel you and you're not far off
I can taste you and you're what I want
But I can't know you even when you're in my arms.

You're burnt sky
A fever moon that makes the sun jealous at night
Your lava lips pour forth and branding iron eyes
Fix them unto me and bring me back to life.

You're quick sand
I work and fight but just sink deeper in the end
And every morning say I won't get stuck again
But by nightfall baby here I always am.

I tie myself in knots
You come and shake me loose
I'm bound up in you
We push til you're through
Lit up with proof.

I bite your belly soft
You make maps on my back
You blockade the door
I sink to your floor
Get ready for war.

You're hot fog
The bad decision that I lie here waiting on
Staring down your next mistake can take so long
When I hear your foot steps babe, I don't care that it's wrong
No, I don't care that it's wrong
No, I don't care that it's wrong.

you wrestle yourself to the ground
you springboard and kick yourself in the mouth
cause all of that drama, that embarrassed charade
couldn't stop you or settle you down

so you got back with your black hole
and you don't care who's out there or who knows
cause you're spent and you're sad
cause you've bronzed it, it's your badge
and you've fixed it to all your clothes

every t-shirt and overcoat
so it's with you through hot or cold
but i would tear it from the cloth
yeah, i would tear it from the cloth
grow up and knock it off

cause there's a world awake outside
with injustice and music and july, july
with history's arc,
with your family,
with art.
but it don't mean nothing
not to you, not tonight

you can't see past the length of your nose
the biggest problems, well you're sure they're your own
that girl you cut loose
those two friends that cursed you
and all that powder that you can't leave alone

and you say, you know, you know, you know
but i know that you don't, you don't, you don't
cause if you did, you'd really try
if you did, you'd really try to let all that die

so marry yourself to your work
and crowd your confusion with words
then round out your life with some records you like
while you bury your love in the dirt

cause it's endless, the ditch you can dig
you're stubborn, and you're prideful, and you're all over it
so i suggest you make sense of the time you've got left
so you don't end up back where you've been

and you say you won't, you won't, you won't
and i hope that you don't, you don't, you don't
but if you mean it, then stand up and fight
but if you mean it, then stand up and fight
cause i mean, it's only your life

i mean it's only your life
to fix or ruin
to figure what to do with
it's only your life
to fix or ruin
cause no one else is going to do it
cause it's only your life

I cry at her bowl, dog's dying day
A bone in her bowl, a watery grave

See, I am a sailor, but I'm not so great
I keep fishin' for roadkill, passin' out on the waves

Shimmering sea, stretched end to end
Shivering bowl, a flickering friend

See, that's Mr. Murphy, my leathery brave
He's whimpering "Taps" now, for his plank-walk grade

I've never been a joiner, no, I've quit every team I've been on

Now I'm crying in my coffee, that's not sea salt in my eyes
Cause me and Murphy, we have been through it, and I hate watching him die

(whistling)

So I wait for my wisdom, like I wait for my wife
Like I wait for a story, helps me wait out the night

Like when I was an archer, but I couldn't shoot straight
I broke all of ma's windows, I poked holes through her drapes

And I laugh to myself, but I can't tell you why
The hung-over sun, sneaks back in the sky

But Murphy went peaceful, he went decent and right
At least better than I will, when it's my turn to die

And I wear his collar on my wrist
And I bury him down at the beach

No crying, no coffin, just a body and a hole
No praying, no singing, no saving any souls

The only thing I'm saving, yeah
Is a bone inside a bowl

One, two, three, four, one

I could be with anyone
Just while the honeymoon burns bright
No electricity that keeps things light
I'm not saying that it's right
I'm not saying that it's always right
I'm just saying that it's not a lie.

'Cause I can talk to anyone
Care just enough about our wounded pride
A ballerina dreams a lead foot life
A sugar daddy and his clueless wife
And I know that it's not right
I just don't always know how or why

So I can stick to anyone
At least for a little while
A caffeinated stream of cartoon smiles
And conversations sharp and deep
A tempting sample of who I could be
Without the broken glasses waiting underneath

So I'd walk soft if I were you
You could cut up your feet
For now it's just what I am
But it's not what I'll be, oh hopefully.

See I'm in love with everyone
Every sweetheart on the scene
Each set of cheekbones that'll flare past me
I'm not saying that it's right
And I'm not saying it's a life
I'm just saying it's where I'm at tonight.

And I could be with anyone...

Your husband,
He drinks like a writer,
But he writes like a banker,
I hope his pens all run dry.

You watch him from your cave in the corner,
Full moon eyes flame and flicker,
The wild way that I like.

From my part,
I pretend I don't notice
Dumb friend you're a poet,
And I could do this all night.

And I'll stay like that,
Hands locked in my lap,
What I want jailed up in my mind,
Until I slide to sleep
Where you're waitin' for me,
And we do what we want to,
And shut ourselves off for the night.

Til morning barrels in like a brides maid,
Drunk and desperate for her day,
Drags me out, picks a fight.

And I see I'm alone here
Picture frames and a hot plate
Stubborn sun spites the hallways
Paint chips blink yellow white.

And I'm stretching, in the act of forgetting,
Bear teeth and blood letting,
Signals crossed half my life.

And the local grown
Sees your notes towards my home,
Dreaming fits as we crawl underground,
And you're shedding skin,
So I keep what I can.
Yeah I fill up my pockets,
And stuff all that's left in my mouth.

Now you are a part of me,
For as long as I sleep.
I could trick myself into a trance,
Where were as firm as facts,
And I don't give you back
Every morning the sun comes to shuttle you back to your man.

you drag your tigers paw across
your chapped & cracking lips
and open up a crimson slur
you spread each time you kiss

and the broken boy you bargin with
to turn back to the man
that you fell in love with once
but never saw again
is he in there?
do you think he drowned to death?
well it's his decision to show his face again

You grind your tired teeth
& curse the day that you were born
to a sunken line of irish wives a million miles long
devoted to the suffering they're certain they deserve
a husband, a cross to bare,
worry lines & a silver string of hair
come too early, come to steal your sainted youth.
but it's your decision to stay or else to move

& i'm not a man of faith, no gospel oak for me
but you wear a crucifix to broadcast your beliefs
and the god i've read about can't go where he's not asked to go

so you've got a choice to make
Shut him out, save yourself or sit and wait.
but you're waiting on a man who will not move.
so you must move for him and do what he can't do

Cause it's worth it, it's the one life you can't change
and i'm sorry sister but it has to end this way
Yeah, it's scary sister, tomorrow's just too late.

so stand up sister,
there's an albatrose to shake.