"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

We Haven't Found an Anchor Yet (But This'll Have to Do)



...

Tear the clock off the wall
We'll say we invented
A world where time passes
The way it was meant to


We'll build it out of bottlecaps
Or cadences of songs
That were sung a long long time ago
And will be sung long after
We're all gone

It was good to sing along

Or build it out of unmade beds
Or scratches on the walls
Or the things we said before
We went to bed and
All the parts we can't recall

I know I loved it all


Our hearts are still red
And the walls are still white
And we haven't got a map
But we've got all night

The sky may turn black
But the ocean's still blue
We haven't found an anchor yet
But this'll have to do


Tear the clock off the wall
We'll say we invented
A world where time passes
The way it was meant to

Throw yourself to the wind
Let it take us wherever it will
We've hours and pages
and glasses to fill



Art for Aeroplanes



It was something, it had to be
something about the sound
The wind chimes made
That reminded me

Below flickering shapes
of the last silhouettes of the leaves
in trees in autumn yards we
made our way through

The melody was
Aimless and the
Cadence never came
So much different than the
Saddest thing
A symphony could play

Like the sounds from our childhood
Resolved into a wordless hum
We understood


It was something, perhaps
A particular way that the light
Hit the street
That reminded me

Connecting the dots
On those stumbling walks between
Softer parts of mid December's
Muddy sting

It had rained and made those
multi coloured
columns on the ground
We went walking down the middle
there was
No one else around

I think I felt the way we did
In all our favorite hiding spots
When we were kids


It was gone in an instant
It was gone in an instant
And so were we
We had places to be


Afternoon's grid
Of jet trails overhead
Looked nothing like the lines we would've left
Had we spilled paint behind us
Everywhere we threw ourselves
When that high sun had set

Not sure what we're looking for
If anything at all

Something that we've seen before?
Something that we lost?

Or maybe this is it, for all we know

The light was bright, we turned away
And the bits of it that stayed
Looked something like the softly focused
Half remembered shape of things
From sun baked roads so long ago
On rainy days

Not sure what we're looking for
If anything at all

Something that we've seen before?
Something that we lost?

Maybe this is it, all I know is
If our faces showed a little of the lights inside our heads
We put on quite a show

And so
One more for the road



One Thousand Little Rooms



We've left our shoes
By the doors of a thousand places
Much like this one
Before

I've seen those colours
In the eyes of a thousand faces
Much like yours
And yours and yours and yours

Marilee is pounding the keys of
A piano all covered in ash
Below bottles in a row on a windowsill
With paint stains on the glass
Paint stains on the glass


I think we're made up of
Sparsely scattered instances
In places
In time

Like shapes of cities at night
Are but a million filaments
Of incandescent light

Marilee still pounding the keys of
A piano all covered in ash
Below bottles in a row on a windowsill
With paint stains on the glass

And our conversation fell
And our conversation rose
And our conversation fell
And our conversation rose
And all the things we had to say
Overlapped the notes to make a space
Your restless island souls could call a coast


One thousand little rooms
Where we light our little fires at night
Are like the places in our lives and inside our minds
The way the shape of the city is a million lights
From little rooms where we light our little fires at night
Are like the places in our lives and inside our minds
The way the shape of the city is a million lights
From little rooms where we light our little fires at night
Are like the places in our lives and inside our minds
The way the shape of the city is a million lights
The little rooms where we light our little fires

Are what we call our home tonight
Are what we call our home tonight
Are what we call our home tonight
Are what we call our home tonight



Farewell Fires & Flying Machines



That night you brought a camera
That night your hands shook, but
It was the closest that you ever came, I'd say
To how it really looked

That night you wore a sweater
You left it lying on the floor
The folds I traced with tired eyes like some old map with lines that led to
Places we'd forgotten things before

So throw your paint on every wall
Illustrate the cadences of our favorite songs
Give them a shape
They're prone to fade away

We still had lights behind our eyelids
Long after we'd all gone to bed
I'd love to save them but I've never been a painter
And so I write it down instead

And I'll fill one thousand pages
I'll write whatever comes to mind
And on the day I find myself one thousand miles away
Perhaps a part of me will still exist behind

So throw your paint on every wall
Illustrate the cadences of our favorite songs
While I'm describing fleeting dreams
Of faces, streets, and wine
We'll make them real

Oh, but what colour was that fire anyways, my dear?


When I leave I'm going very far away
When I leave I'm going very far away

When I leave I'm going very far away
I don't want to see your colours fade
When I leave I'm going very far away
I don't want to see your colours fade

I don't want to see you
Looking like those grey remains
Of last night's farewell fires
Waiting to be swept away

So throw your paint on every wall
Illustrate the cadence of our favorite song
Each and every brightly coloured, tired eye
We'll leave a mark at all
The highest spots we rise

There are things which have no shape



While We're All Still Here**



We hid away in places
No one else would ever think to look
Imagined that the things we said
Were inked and set in pages
Of some great book

Well in a way they were
I think
Although we'll never know
Quite how the whole thing ends

When the sun begins to rise
When all our lines are said
When, someday this moment's passed us by
The way we seem to pass our shadows
As we're passed by cars at night

Will we see pages?
Looking like familiar flags
Will we see them through Old Eyes?

It was hand on heart
It was heart on sleeve
Impossible to miss, but
It was hard to believe
It was staring at the sun
It was stumbling blind
It was a place
It was a time
It was hard to define
It was the sum of all our footprints
And the paint we may have spilled
It was a little like a blueprint
Of a thing we'd planned to build
It was the times we had to whisper
And the things we had to shout
It was the candle that we lit
To see the last one burning out
It was hazy
It was aimless
It was staying the course
It was a weighty affair
With direction and force
It was a world that we built
Out of bits of thin air
It was bent light in a parting glass we've yet to share

We're all still here


There will come a day
When the sky goes dark with
Aeroplanes, angels, and black clouds

But we're still here
For now

There will come a day
When the sky goes dark with
Aeroplanes, angels, and black clouds

But we're still here
For now

...

a crest of brittle, foaming sea,
a wave that crashes over me;
divided with uncertainty,
You fight yourself so mirthlessly.

no burden to my heart, you see,
Your smile causes it to bleed
and pulse and beat, in quickening,
a rhythmic lift so heavenly.

an ocean where the neurons breathe,
and sifting me so perfectly,
like sands across the jagged reefs,
bending back, and cleansing, me.

Walking by the sea at midnight,
the waves are crashing up a storm.
I take your hand and we step out.
The surface of the water is cool
and it swells as we walk atop the breaks,
following the waves back to the distant
horizon filled with bone-white stars.
Sharp melodies of wintry winds blow,
make our faces bright with cold as we go
above the seas, below the spangled skies,
together, side by side, just you and me.

We never turn or look back to see
the distant sandy shores where it began
with the seasons of summer and autumn,
the friendship on fire that sparked within
but we walk on, dancing along the top
of the gently stirring ocean’s brim.
The storm is long gone, the water settles
into a murky grey-blue but mostly green
brilliant, sparkling deep color that just
perfectly matches the shade of your eyes
why can’t I stop thinking about your eyes?
I walk with you for hours until we’re lost
in the sea together and the clouds begin
to light up and the cold of the night fades.
The sun shatters the stillness with its loud
triumphant rays for us, just you and me.

In the misty new light of day we see
a small wooden boat floating up ahead.
We climb in, find paddles, and begin to row
and row and row and never tire
until we hear a sound, faint at first
then rushing and rushing, faster and louder
and as the fog clears we see a waterfall
sky-blue and streaming, tall enough to ****.
You turn around and set down your paddles
and take my face in your hands and then
you kiss me and nothing else matters and
no one can see us and it’s strange and new
and thoughts are storming through my mind
but I push them away and give you
my heart, my word, my everything, and
you pull back and give me that smile
the smile I love, more than anything.
When we’re at the edge, for one eternal moment,
it’s just your eyes and mine; just you and me.