Blackwing

Blinding lightening as the thunder cracks
Rumble from a graphite sky
Half the pressure, twice the speed
Drawing down a dark grey line

Palomino Blackwing 602
Looking for a place to land
There ain't much call for all that lead
If you're only writing on the back of your hand

Steep dolerite, sleek barrel
Hold the sharpest point
Cinder and arrow

Shading down in a shady grove
Acicular cedar grace
Fat rain falling on flat bedrock
Smudge the sketches of your face

The Rushing Dark

Benchseat ride six miles to town
Sky blazing over then night rolled down
Take the corners wide
Your own blue nile

Burlap sacks, blood and bone
Clay straw sticks and stone
Three hounds raised fat
Just like that

When the rushing dark meets the swarming lights
Cut like card through a blue-black night
It’s the dirt and damn, and the tear apart
Ripped like card through a blue-black heart

Gravel shoulder on a hairpin bend
Tearing it down with your new found friend
Through the blare and shout
We’re gonna drown it out

Milkweed stench and a crooked smile
Wind rattled that place all through the night
Looking right at you
With his one good eye

Hear it in your mother tongue
Rumble down down below, ringing up up above

When the rushing dark meets the swarming lights
Cut like card through the blue-black night
It’s the dirt and damn, and the tear apart
Ripped like card through a blue-black heart

Room To Burn

So much trouble, so much chance
All that strife, all this wide expanse
If we're all playing shouldn't we be taking turns
If it’s room you’re needing, brother we’ve got room to burn

Roaring water, ever-shifting plates
Under all that poison behind some concrete and some gates
Luck don't hold, the poison weeps
For a sweet old world we're playing for keeps

Is it afflicted vision, or is it maybe you can't hear the sound
From that magic bubble running on dirty big holes in the ground
Down there somewhere don't it cause at least mild concern
The climb gets steeper, brother we've got a lot to learn

Is your heart beating, or is it maybe you can't hear the sound,
The climb gets steeper, brother it's such a long way down

Darlin If We Could

I shouldn’t take the turn off
I should use the new bypass
But sometimes I’m drawn to take the road
That leads me through our past

The streets we walked together
Steep streets of your seaside town
The park, the hall, the hardware store
Sometimes I slow right down

To see if I can see you
But I also hope I don’t
Maybe this time I’ll keep from crying
Then again I know I won’t

Oh darlin if we could would you wind back to the start
Even if it all turned out the same, left you with a broken heart
Oh darlin if we could, would you turn it all around
Could you live those years again with me back here in your seaside town

The wharf is like a lookout
The ocean rolls below
Little shacks clinging on to the cliffs
You know it never quite felt like home

Never quite shook the make-believe
But how I tried to play the part
Tried to make the pieces fit
But those pieces pulled me all apart

Everything Sings

Kids playing on the street below
Laughter spills through open windows
Suspended in a golden light
You and I are gonna make believe tonight
Let's pretend I can stay
Make believe for one more day

Here where the ivy climbs
You're the one I walk beside
To shore against the ruin
Shaking hearts in a darkening room

Raise a border to the rift
Continental drift
One moment seals a sweet lament
On the precipice of your bed
Whisper what the thunder said

Let’s pretend I can stay
Make believe for one more day
Suspended in a golden light
Everything sings tonight

Lasseter’s Gold

Quarter to four and you're almost there
Blue pen twisted up in your hair
Pull the roller, bolt it to the ground
When you get out of there you just wanna get down

Can get pretty cold in a hot food van
We take chips and change brother yeah you can
Graveyard shift sees you to the light
When you get out of there you just wanna get high
Chasing down your rum and lines

Come on baby take me some place quiet
And sing me a song I’ve been singing all night
Gonna shake it up good for another round
When you get out of there you really wanna get out

So much wrapped in golden fleece
So many of them looking for Lasseter’s Reef
Gonna take their chances on another try
When you get out of there you just wanna get high
Chasing down your rum and lines

Not Waiting Now

Whole maze of prints down a narrow track
Wet road rushes above, pylon at my back
Street light drips smudge the stars
All the lights are flicking on down where the houses start

From that ledge I could see straight down
I was waiting then, but I’m not waiting now

When the weather comes in from the west
Feel the rush upon your skin, the pounding in your chest
Defiant nights stand up to the dawn
Suspended in between the letting go and the holding on

From that ledge I could see straight down
I was waiting then, but I’m not waiting now

Moving Colours

From over here, without my glasses
It’s such a pretty smudge of moving colours

You know from over here it doesn’t seem
So like a raging tide, as a broken boat
On its broken way, from a broken start
Young fisher boys and the broken hearted

We curse the callousness of your petty counting
The fear you love to feed with your poisoned spouting
Shall we keep rattling round like a box of jaffas
Filled up on room to spare in a flimsy package

I’m just over here, can’t find my glasses
It’s such a pretty smudge of moving colours

Up All Night

I wasn’t ready to leave
Walked through the dawn, down to the sea
Watching the sky turn in to blue
I’ve been up all night daydreaming of you

Through this sweet mist for more
I’m wending my way down to the shore
Watching that boat hove in to view
I’ve been up all night daydreaming of you

So as the swell grows calm
I’ll magic myself into your arms
Just close my eyes, it’s all I can do
Were you up all night daydreaming too

Green & Blue

Sweet breeze come in my window
Hope hanging round my door
I've got this forward leaning feeling
Like I never had before

Shook the shadows from the blankets
Chased the ghosts out of my bed
I got a carefreeness singing in my chest
And a ringing in my head

I got the threads of that old story
I got this ache that's hard to place
Got these little sparks hinting in the dark
And a smile upon my face

The sun against my backbone
Got this feeling in my blood
I've got the shifting sands and re-shaped lands
Of a valley after flood

Night birds calling near and far
Blue-blush shimmer of an evening star

I've got these songs that keep on whispering
I've got this wide open ground
and I've been listening to what's ringing true
and I got wired to the sound

Crackling steady like a tracking fuse
Little seeds of wonder green and blue

Heartsease blooming right by your door
Feed what you've been looking for