MUSIC
Stream Clap the Houses Dark
LYRICS
Number Them Clouds
When the sirens
When the wind
When the wind
Who let all this lightning down in here?
What is your own eye with it flashing in the glass?
What is your own hand if it shocks the knob?
What put that green shine in your dream brain?
Who brings that blind flash down to clap the houses dark?
Who let all them smokes go up? Who spun them funnels down?
Who made the deep water boil like a pot?
Who let the wild ass run free?
Who let the wild ass run free?
When the wind
When it thunders and moans
When the sirens
Who could number them clouds by wisdom?
Who could number them clouds?
Who could number them clouds by wisdom?
Who could number them clouds?
Who could number ...
Who could number ...
Who could number ...
Who could number ...
When the sirens
When the wind
When the wind
Circus
Blackout windows, Lester says.
Quick off the line.
Just two guys on a fishing trip.
Gonna bag our limit.
Lester says it's all AI.
There are no facts.
Says God calls us and we go.
Says the sky cracks open
And the thunderbird screams.
My kid said, Dad, don’t go.
All that schoolin’ And the boy can’t think.
We are NOT coyotes.
We are NOT the salt of this earth. You know that.
Lester says Goin’ to see the founders.
Have a little talk.
Says, pull over by that statue.
Let’s ring the register.
Before those alphabet boys—FBI, CIA—can frame us up.
You know that. You know that, right?
Not my circus
Not my monkeys
Don't think too much about it
Night by night and
Dream by dream
Just learn to live without it
House by house and
Sea to sea
The clown car empties in the center ring.
Last clown out's got a gun.
Always a gun.
One more gun.
Holding back the flood?
Trying to be the flood?
Camo and badges and hats.
That swagger by the popcorn stand.
Afterwards
Until the afterwards, the day was like any other,
Green of bough, loud with birds.
Then less was left of you than air.
A smear of green, an afterwards of birds,
The afternoon was unlike any other,
The air you left us less and less.
The night was like the others only in its look,
The shadow branches and vanished birds,
The afterward of air so dark to breathe.
Less was left of you, less and less,
The air all afterthought, however loud or green,
Until one day, finally, could blur into another.
The day was like any other
The afternoon was unlike any other
The night was like the others only in its look
Until one day, finally,
Until the afterwards,
An afterwards of birds,
The afternoon
The afterward of air,
The air all afterthought
Green of bough, loud with birds,
However loud or green,
A smear of green, an afterwards of birds,
The shadow branches and vanished birds,
Then less was left of you than air,
The air you left us less and less
The afterward of air so dark to breathe
The air all afterthought, however loud or green,
Until one day, finally, could blur into another
You Could Show Me How
I can’t remember how to
Dress a lie up in a style
But when it comes to that you’ve
Always had me by a mile
Guess you’ll take your beaming encore now
Can’t imagine—trading your soul for a bow
But you could show me how
I wonder when you learned to
Turn your words and cash ‘em in
Seems to make you shine to
See who’s twisting in the wind
Guess you’ll take your beaming encore now
Can’t imagine—trading your soul for a bow
But you could show me how
[Humming]
I’ve found my footing now and
You’d hoped to sell me out for life
I know you’ll find the strength to
Keep on shining like a knife
Guess you’ll take your beaming encore now
Can’t imagine—trading your soul for a bow
But you could show me how.
Carry Them With You
So the sun in the redwood and the rose tree
And the smoke from the wildfires, a weightless ash
The chromatics, the afterwards,
Rising all day toward such
Toward such sunsets
What is a radio an interstate what’s a cloverleaf
If you’re looping through on music a supernatural
A supernatural orange
Over the village of tents and tarps
A burn from sky to dead grass if you’re living there.
What oranges and golds are you dreaming
If you’re sweating in bed under the AC—
Or the reds you’re sensing in the night air, if you’re lying
Under a car sawing the rare metals from a chassis?
All these towering smokes, and at sunset the wonders
The wonders. You carry them
With you, carry them
With you.
​
Carry them with you.
Carry them with you.
Over the Transom
Coming over the transom, coming over the wire.
Once it starts every glance is a crime, every word.
I was brusque in the diner, too friendly in the queue.
Next door they were burning the masks.
You'll have to choose a side, he texted. You'll have to choose.
Twelve Hail Facebooks, four Our Twitters.
The floor was moving under me, whatever I was.
My jokes and jibes, my touch, the floor was moving under me.
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Who or what was stacking canned goods in that basement?
Were they laying weapons out? and body armor?
Where was I when those plans were hatched?
The neighbor's truck is blasting outraged talk.
The phone in my hand lights up with accusations.
The text, the feed, the news alert.
The flood will wash this all away.
The flood, the fire, the line of funnel clouds.
A contagion of roses ringed the stump pond. They dragged
The jon boat to swamp-edge, inventoried gators, set drift
Through sedge and spike-rush, where they leaned and stripped
From beggarticks their leaves, to dry and chew to ease the ache.
They were stumping, they claimed, for freedom, stabbing flags
Into the blue. Chemistry, valences, quivering quanta—they skulked
The periphery. When dark fell, they cobbled a lean-to from half- drums
And sheet metal, slept a stunned sleep, woke into an ancient story.
In the bang and tumble, they drifted in the waves’ rondure,
Watched ghostly flames spill across the deckwood.
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Every room haunted, every stare cut through me.
A shriek, a glimpse, a clatter of agents.
The phone pinged and flashed in the darkness.
The scroll, the feed, was listening.
I said banner and a flag appeared.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.
Hadn't they accused me of doing what they asked me to do?
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Over the transom. Over the wire.
Over the transom. Over the wire.