- 24-Hour Store
Late, late at night
Twenty-four hour store
Ghosts fly up the aisles, across the shining floor
Opening and closing automatic doors
Hands waving mirrors
Angels fly through lights
But the sleepless and lost push their squeaking carts
- A Dark Eye
In the parking lot where I waited alone
A white bird sat sleeping on a broken payphone
And there came a black beetle dragging off a green fly
Underneath a parked car and then out of sight
And I felt a dark eye turn its gaze upon me
As if the earth, the earth could see
A dark eye, a dark eye
- After We Shot the Grizzly
After we shot the grizzly
After the airship crashed
After we lost the compass
After the radio went dead
We shot and ate the horses
We marched through deadly swamps
Inside a limestone cave
- Bowling Alley Bar
Dented cars make me think of you
Sitting on a red leather stool
Drinking with your sunglasses on
In the bowling alley bar
And the sound of crashing pins
Behind us when we kissed
The night I wrecked my father's car
- Capitol City
Capitol city skyline photo
Skyscraper shines the sun so
Low in the sky
Secretaries at the hot dog vendors
Cabs honk at the bicycle messengers
Rolling by
I can't call with a subway token
- Caterpillars
Sylvia was struck by lightning
While reading in bed one night
She'd left the window open
And the storm caught her by surprise
For days she lay as still as stone
Hooked to pumps and tubes
Then out her window the street lights flashed
And at last a finger moved
- Cold Cold Cold
Cold, cold, cold as the cold wind blows
Out on highway five there's a field
Where sometimes at night people disappear
That's the only road that takes me home
Across the open prairie and the drifting snow
I was halfway there one frozen dawn
When she appeared at the side of the road
- Dry Bones
Old Enoch, he lived to be
Three-hundred and sixty-five
When the lord came and took him
Back to heaven alive
I saw, I saw the light come shining
Shining all around
I saw the light come shining
- Emily Shore 1819-1839
She'd been coughing up blood since the dogwoods bloomed
Seventeen that spring and confined to her room
At night her heart pounded holes in her chest
Death, like a bird was building its nest
And so on the last day of her short life
Emily called for her father's penknife
She sawed at her head till the floor pooled with hair
- Everything That Rises Must Converge
Some folks are like umbrellas
They pass through your life with little meaning
And then there's the ones who make you hang on to every word
Well she was one of the latter
She came into my room and told me things that matter'd, like
Everything that rises must converge
When so-called experts try to tell you that
- Famous Blue Raincoat
It's four in the morning, the end of December
I write you now just to see if you're better
New York is cold but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening
I hear that you're building
Your little house deep in the desert
You're living for nothing now
- Far from any road
From the dusty mesa,
Her looming shadow grows,
Hidden in the branches of the poison creosote.
She twines her spines up slowly,
Towards the boiling sun,
And when I touched her skin,
My fingers ran with blood.
- Flies
Your fan of golden hair oiled with rose and cinnamon
As your blood bloomed poppy red across your velvet coat
Your deep blue velvet coat
Yes, there in Montana prairie grass the Sioux shot Custer down
His red scarf tied, his black boots shined
How beautiful he looked to the flies, the happy kingdom of flies
Dear Custer there’s a Wal-Mart now where once the grizzlies roamed
- Gorilla
Magilla Gorilla and Phyllis Diller
Having lunch with a serial killer
Talking about that pain in your heart
Talking about a pretty blue scar
Talking just to keep calm
Phyllis wasn't feeling well
She'd forgotten if she had fell
- Gravity
There's a blind man who hears angels
He hears them whispering in sacked potatoes
And from the curly leaves of blooming pants
And in the winding tracks of crawling ants
He stands outside, under the sky
Listening to starlight drifting by
Because gravity is not the only force at work
- Happy Harvest
Flowers, flowers, don't be sad
We'll put you in a vase
Puppies, puppies don't be mad
We'll lock you in a cage
Good ole' Spot see how he dances
Since we fed him Drano
Why does Timmy clap his hands?
- Hunter Green
Last fall I hunted white-tail deer
My dog and gun with me
I wandered to a shady grove
Where ivy grew dark green, where ivy grew dark green
I raised my gun so carefully
And fired into the trees
Then saw it was my true love fell
- June Bugs
I want to kiss you in thickets and dripping wet glades
As the stars rub against the dark skin of space
Every planet is turning and calling your name
For hundreds of miles the trees bend your way
Because the green buds are swelling
And the June bugs are back in the yard
- Last Days of Wonder - 2006
(Carrot Top Records, SAKI 040, USA, )
01. Your Great Journey
02. Tesla's Hotel Room
03. These Golden Jewels
04. After We Shot the Grizzly
05. Flapping Your Broken Wings
06. Beautiful William
- Little Sparrows
All you little sparrows on a swaying branch
Singing to the cars up on the overpass
When you fly away from here
Take me with you when you go
A herd of antelope
A sea of redwood trees
Schools of shining fish
- My Friend
I swear I heard a bird calling high in the chestnut trees
The sun was so bright that bird I couldn't see
No matter where I stood I couldn't see beak or wing
Just burning blinding leaves, still and silent trees
Were you with me then my friend?
Are you with me now?
Were you with me then my friend?
- No One Fell Asleep Alone
I saw a deer limp across
A supermarket parking lot
Last night as I drove home from work
Old men sleeping in the dirt
Abandoned buildings full of smoke
Children jumping from the roof
Cars in ditches leaking blood
- Octopus
Verse)
The octopus has 3 hearts
And lives in caves below the sea
Or in a beer can or a bath tub
Or a puddle in the street
(Verse)
Any fisherman can tell you
- Pony
Mae West was a man who liked the feel of feathers
I am a man who dreams of baby beavers
Unicorns are cool cause they're cute and beautiful
Little dogs are cool, dressed up tough and playing poker
I want a pony, a big, fat pony
I want a pony, want to feed it carrots
I want a pony, a big, fat pony
- She Awoke with a Jerk
She awoke with a jerk
What had they done?
She awoke with the shock
What had they begun?
She awoke to the sound
Of their blue-white laughter
Hot in her hands
And an idea for a chapter
- Smothered And Covered - 2002
(?, ?, ?, 49:03)
01. There's A City
02. Sunday Morning Coming Down
03. Prepared Piano #1
04. I Hear A Sweet Voice Calling
05. Down In The Ground (Demo)
06. Cello #1
07. Trail Of Time
- So Much Wine
I had nothing to say on Christmas Day
When you threw all your clothes in the snow
When you burnt your hair, knocked over chairs
I just tried to stay out of your way
But when you fell asleep
With blood on your teeth
- Spider
In the shadows, in the bushes, in the space between the leaves
A spider in a thicket crawled up on my knee
I put my gloves on, put my hat on, and I ran from the trees
But that little black spider came a-crawling after me
From the shadows in the bushes, in the space between the leaves
A little black spider came a-crawling home with me
It crawled across my window as I lay me down to sleep
- The Dutchboy
My heart it goes out to that poor little
Dutch boy who stopped a great flood with the tip of his thumb.
Through parades and medals he felt no joy and took
to his bed with a bottle of rum.
The queen she arrived in her motorcade to give the good
- The Last
When you're too old to hit the timbers
But you still remember the sound of the planks
When the snow's deep in mid-December
You think of September and a girl you once knew
Well, you're too tired to sleep
And you're too old to think
So you pour another drink
- There is a Sound
There is a sound like breaking glass
When water falls on dying grass
There is a sound sung by the sea
And plastic bags caught in trees
There is a sound all buildings cry
Right before the morning light
The quiet sound that's left behind
- Through The Trees - 1998
(Carrot Top Records, SAKI-020, USA, 44:12)
01 Weightless Again
02 My Sister's Tiny Hands
03 Stalled
04 Where The Birch Trees Lean
05 Cathedrals
06 Down In The Ground
07 The Giant Of Illinois"
- Water into Wine
I heard tell of the miracles my blessed saviour done
He took a great big ball of fire and forged the blazing sun
But out of all of those miracles divine
By far my favorite one was turning water into wine
Water into wine, my lord done something fine
He saved my soul and gave me peace of mind
Now there's no cause for worry, everything is fine
- Weightless Again
We stopped for coffee
In the redwood forest
Giant dripping leaves
Spoons of powdered cream
I wanted to kiss you
But I wasn't sure how
Like those Indians
- Whitehaven
What a hideous forest surrounded Whitehaven
Twisted black mountains, wolves howled in madness
Never I ventured beyond the stone tower
As dusk spread her black wings at the edge of the dark wild wood
But one windy evening, gathering timbers
Under white elm trees in shadows, I saw her
The darkest of beauties with her basket of cherries
- Wild Wood
Give me a swamp, a deep dark bog
Where I can lose my way in pools of slippery mud
Give me cold, cold rain, a cloud of stinging bugs
Deadly nightshade, poison oak, give me the wild, wild wood
The wild, the wild, wild, wild wood
The wild, the wild, wild, wild wood
- Your Great Journey
Like four million tons of hydrogen
Exploding on the sun
Like the whisper of the termites
Building castles in the dust
You're no longer leaving footprints
You left your wallet on the bus
Your great journey has begun