John Prine (as promised)

The night that John Prine died, it felt like John Prine died.
Three days before, I heard a song but just one.
Brad put it on cause it felt like a good time,
and it was a great one but still only one.

The night that John Prine died, I was on a bike ride
and listening to Clem Snide; and he sounded done.
That night I swear it's as if every folk song
had fallen to pieces and they all became one.

The night John Prine perished, "the president killed him"
and then "we all killed him" how we'll kill everyone.
I wondered if John Prine had really stayed inside
and washed all his fingers and not seen his sons.

The night that John Prine died, the world was on a bike ride
and it's nowhere near finished. We ride close to the sun.
That night I swear it's as if every folk song
had fallen to pieces and they all became one.

David

David, why'd you do it?
I love you. I'll prove it.
I'll lay where you need me to lay.
I'll take up your arms
while you play your guitar.
I'll follow your voice to the grave.

When I'm lying there naked,
with her side by your side,
she delivers the judges.
Myna-bird has your eyes.

David, why'd you do it?
I love you even through this.
I'll lie when you need me to lie.
I'll take up your arms
while they sound their alarms.
I'll follow your voice to the sky.

But I hear your wife pleading
for her kids to survive.
And can she take her niece too
and her sweet sister bride?
Because the Lord took her father,
gave his life for this pain
and all that you are who you are.
What's there to lose when there's all to be gained?

David, you're dying.
I love you. Why'd you do it?
David, there is no escape.
I'll take up your arms.
Wrap your head in this cloth,
and I'll send us both to the grave.

Fight the Spirit, Jackie O!

Fight the spirit! Hate to see you go.
Ever closer, taped up Post-it notes.
I saw you look in the mirror when you said,
“That’s Jackie O.”
Jackie, why not make yourself known?

Pursue sainthood! Make yourself known!
Treat each evening like the dew just showed.
I saw them taking tests. I said, 
“That's one quick way to grow.”
Why not take the scenic road?

We can only hope for children half as unkind.
Spent the night awake on the landline.
Dream of us when the leaves fold over.
Corded left behinds left behind.

Dream of us when the leaves fold over.
Corded left behinds.
Jackie, worry not. We'll be fine.

The Man I Met

Read the write up on the Internet.
Pixelated photo of the man I met.
Said that he died peacefully one night in his sleep.
26, hard to believe
and hard to read.

So Joseph died the other day, I guess.
He was somewhere in Kentucky when his spirit passed.
I won't ask his family for the rest. I'll have to wait 
‘til I see him, maybe, out in space.

I won't go see his made up face,
whatever's lying in his place.

Now Joseph's gone, and I won't know how he went.
They wrote him so Christlike I won't believe it yet.
Easier to think that he was violent and he was ill
and on the lam and he planned to kill.
But every word that Joseph spoke to me came through a grin. 
The world's worse off with his end.

Hurricane Sally

Hurricane Sally was no joke.
She was the first one I'd seen 
coming 90 degrees
twisting and turning all slow. 

I loved her like I loved a woman
as she spit on my face with her waves.
I couldn't help but return.
Some live and some learn
but some decide it's worth the pain.

So I drive to the Lakefront alone
and say hi to some other lonelies
and we all let her love overwhelm us.
It's how we all know
we'll wake up in the morning.

She came and went as quick as the winter, 
running her hands through his hair on the couch,
unaware he would never
feel that wind again for some time.

Some live and some learn.
Some say that it's worth
the pain that she brings
for this life in this sink.
Some buckle and leave
to never return,
only to get burned
by the ghosts of the things
they left in this hole.
So what if she brings
the end of your life
when she gave you the chance to sing?

Sally, deliver my bones
to the river. I'm going on home.
Sally, deliver me whole.

Going to Houma

In Manhattan (Nation of Language)

Strung along by a fiction, read it in a magazine.
Strung along by a fiction from a movie screen.

In Manhattan.

Turn around for a picture, watching from the balcony.
Another hymn to addictions that you move between.
A glance back my way.

In Manhattan, you cannot have it all.
In Manhattan.

I'm staring into the room. 
I wish I’d known what I know.
I walk the halls and sing,
“Carry me home, my love.”

Gracie, then Jon and Nick

Gracie, I'm writing
‘cause I'm tired of fighting
with words and the world and it all.

I wanna know
what you're thinking 
when your heart is sinking.
Show me mountains and creatures.
What you're seeing, I'll believe in.
Both hearts off the deep end
when words miss the mark.

Grace, with your answer,
you deal me a sentence.
You send my back up to the wall.
And when I'm serving, I'm thinking
of your thoughts and your feelings
to send you a song you deserve to be hearing.
Attempting a right in a world full of wrong.

Grace, when you answer, think of someone besides me.
You've given me more than enough.
There's a weight in this world that you love
and only your thoughts lift it up.
I'll return all my goodness to you.

Jon and Nick found us in the woods
where the trail was cut but the light’s no good. 
We showed them love and we said they should stick around.
Oh how I wish we’d turned them around
in the big house, bed and breakfast. 
Come and visit us down south, 
down in Athens or New Orleans.

Melanie

Melanie and I have everything,
live inside a waking dream,
stomach bursting at the seams. 
Spent the day at my abandoned powerhouse,
stupid smile across my mouth, 
rode the river back down south. 

Then I was watching you fall asleep. 
Skip the prayers. I’m wide awake, 
lying still in disbelief. 
Melanie and I, just her and me. 

Melanie says I got problems with the past, 
but I just hadn’t met her yet, 
all I ever wanted. 
I say, “Let it go, it’s nothing anymore.”
We’re living on the hundredth floor, 
biting down into the core.

But I can’t say why
I’ve been feeling
so detached from my head.

But then I’m watching you fall asleep. 
Puts me back behind my eyes, wide awake in disbelief. 
Melanie and I, just her and me. 

Oh, you wipe the dirt off your feet at the door
as if we don’t welcome your kind. 
Leave your crying all over the floor
where their army’s nowhere to be found.

Anthony

When I can only hold one note, I'll sing that note only
over and over ‘til you scream.
I'll park my car. You'll worry when it's not where it is seen
day in and day out for weeks on end like my neighbor, Anthony.

Anthony leaves his lights off but keeps his TV loud.
He wakes up with the sunrise, shuts his eyes when it goes down.
He never makes a single thing and only has one note to sing.

He stopped me by my car one day. “What do you for your living?”
I said, “I'm drawing buildings on a screen. It's honest and obscene.”
He said, “I did the same for fifty years, and now I'm free
to sit and watch the tree I planted grow and outlive me.”

Anthony left the FEMA X on the facade.
His windows didn't match, but he was proud of his garage.
He built that thing some years ago, and now he only holds one note.

When Anthony reveals his teeth, he struggles just to breathe.
If that poor soul is ever me, you'll love the note I sing.

ALL! TROUT!