Swamp Ophelia lyrics

I'm harboring a fugitive a defector of a kind
And she lives in my soul and drinks of my wine
And I'd give my last breath to keep us alive

Are they coming for us with cameras or guns
We don't know which, but we gotta run
And you say this is not what I bargained for

So hide yourself for me
All for me

We swore to ourselves we'd go to the end of the world

I sit two stories above the street
It's awful quiet here since love fell asleep
There's life down below me though the kids are walking home from school

So long ago when we were taught
That for whatever kind of puzzle you got
You just stick the right formula in a solution for every fool

I remember the time when I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school

I don't know if it was real or in a dream
Lately waking up I'm not sure where I've been
There was a table set for six and five were there
I stood outside and kept my eyes upon that empty chair
And there was steam on the windows from the kitchen
Laughter like a language I once spoke with ease
But I'm made mute by the virtue of decision
And I choose most of your life goes on without me

A LOVESTRUCK ROMEO
SINGS THE STREET A SERENADE
HE'S LAYING EVERBODY LOW
HE'S GOT A LOVESONG THAT HE MADE
FINDS A CONVIENANT STREETLIGHT AND HE SAYS SOMETHIN' LIKE
YOU AND ME BABE, HOW ABOUT IT?
JULIET SAYS HEY, ITS ROMEO.
HE NEARLY GAVE ME A HEARTATTACK. YEAH WELL
HE'S UNDER NEATH MY WINDOW
NOW SHE'S SINGIN
HE LA ,MY BOYFRIENDS BACK
SHOULND'T COME AROUND HERE

Now the parking lot is empty
Everyone's gone someplace
I pick you up and in the trunk I've packed
A cooler and a two-day suitcase
Cause there's a place we like to drive
Way out in the country
Five miles out of the city limit we're singing
And your hand's upon my knee

So we're okay, we're fine
Baby I'm here to stop your crying
Chase all the ghosts from your head

I'm waking from a dream
The neighborhood is green
All the sounds I've missed all the years
Come down to wedding, death, and fear
All I've heard has been in vain
Like water on a stain

Touch me I'm so beautiful
Rub your hands across my head just like this
Come with me now
It's not worth it if you don't
Are you hiding
I am hiding

Cypress moon I'm bald in June

The thin horizon of a plan is almost clear
My friends and I have had a tough time
Bruising our brains hard up against change
All the old dogs and the magician
Now I see we're in the boat in two by twos
Only the heart that we have for a tool we could use
And the very close quarters are hard to get used to
Love weighs the hull down with its weight

Each time you'd pull down the driveway
I wasn't sure when I would see you again
Cause yours was a twisted blind sided highway
No matter which road you took then
Oh you set up your place in my thoughts
Moved in and made my thinking crowded
Now we're out in the back with the barking dogs
My heart the red sun, your heart the moon clouded

I could go crazy on a night like tonight

We were down at Dead Man's Hill
Smoking vines like cigarettes
Looking through the trashy mags
Trying to feel what's coming next
You told me of crashing cars,
Older brothers and late night bars
I told you what I feel most
And you kept it like a ghost
Forever

Don't you write it down
Remember this in your head
Don't take a picture
Remember this in your heart
Don't leave a message

Fare thee well my bright star
I watched your tailights blaze into nothingness
But you were long gone before I ever got to you
Before you blazed past this address

And now I think of having loved and having lost
But never know what it feel like to never love
Who can say what's better when my heart's become the cost
A mere token of a brighter jewel sent from above

It's a fish white belly
A lump in the throat
Razor on the wire
Skin and bone
Piss and blood
In a railroad car
One hundred people
Gypsies, queers, and David's Stars

This train is bound for glory
This train is bound for glory
This train is bound for glory
This train

Measure the bones
Count the face
Pull out the teeth
Do you belong to the human race
Doctor doctor

(Dedicated to the memory of a great poet, Frank Stanford)

Three hits to the heart son and it's poetry in motion
One could send you down the river three's a strange way to be delivered
Would you trade your words for freedom that's a barter for a blind man
Three hits to the heart son and it's poetry in motion

Are you leveed like a treasure only words can help me find you

Galileo's head was on the block
The crime was looking up the truth
And as the bombshells of my daily fears explode
I try to trace them to my youth

And then you had to bring up reincarnation
Over a couple of beers the other night
And now I'm serving time for mistakes made by another
In another lifetime

How long till my soul gets it right

There's a letter on the desktop that I dug out of a drawer
The last truce we ever came to from our adolescent war
And I start to feel the fever of the warm air through the screen
You come regular like seasons shadowing my dreams

The Mississippi's mighty, but it starts in Minnesota
At a place where you can walk across with five steps down

You said the world was magic I was wide-eyed and laughing
We were dancing up to the bright side
Forget about your ego forget about your pride
And we will never have to compromise

And you were only joking
You were only joking brother

We talked about mothers kissing the wounds of our fathers
I could have been your sister I would have been your brother

I left my anger in a river running highway five
New Hampshire, Vermont border by
College farms, hubcaps, falling rocks
Voices in the woods and the mountaintops

I used to search for reservations and native lands
Before I realized everywhere I stand
There have been tribal feet running wild as fire
Some past life sister of my desire

Jonas and Ezekial hear me now

I guess I wasn't the best one to ask
Me myself with my face pressed up against love's glass
To see the shiny toy I've been hoping for
The one I never could afford
The wide world spins and spits turmoil and the nations toil
For peace
The pause of fear upon her chest
Only love can sooth that beast
And my words are paper tigers
No match for the predator of pain inside her

A love struck Romeo sings the streets a serenade
He's laying everybody low
He's got a love song that he made
He finds a convenient streetlight and he steps out of the shade
And says something like
"You and me, babe, how about it?"

Juliet says, "Hey, it's Romeo!
You nearly gave me a heart attack"
Yeah well, he's underneath the window now she's singing,
"Hey, la, my boyfriend's back

Some will strut and some will fret
See this an hour on the stage
Others will not but they'll sweat
In their hopelessness in their rage
We're all the same the men of anger and the women of the page

They published your diary and that's how I got to know you
Key to the room of your own and a mind without end
And here's a young girl on a kind of a telephone line through time

I am an only child born of the wild
Riddled to spend my time defending the land
You are the only one born in the sun
Riddled to spend your time defending my plan

Dead dog on the highway
Median cats are growling at me
I turn my lights on brighter
I'm counting through the night ride

And it's one more life for the taker (Chickenman Chickenman)

Up on the airplane
Nearer my God to thee
I start making a deal
Inspired by gravity

If I did wrong I won't do it again
Cause I can be sweet and good and nice
And if I had enemies their friends
I'll hold on to my life with the grip of a vice

And I'm up on the airplane
Nearer my God to thee
I start making a deal
Inspired by gravity

That little spot on the ground is my hometown

As I drive from your pearly gates
I realize that I just can't stay
All those mountains they kept you locked inside
And hid the truth from my slighted eyes

I came to you with a half-open heart
Dreams upon my back illusions of a brand new start
Nashville
Can' I carry the load
Is it my fault I can't reap what I sow
Nashville
Did you give me half a chance

Sticks and stones battle zones
A single light bulb on a single thread for the black
Sirens wail history fails
Rose-colored glass begins to age and crack
While the politicians shadowbox the power ring
And an endless split decision never solve anything
From a neighbor's distant land
I heard the strain of the common man

Let it be me (this is not a fighting song)

You dug a well, you dug it deep
For every wife you buried you planted a cedar tree
The best, the best you ever had

I stand where you stood, I stand for bad or good
And I am green and you are wood
The best, the best he ever had

I dig a well, I dig it deep
And for my only love I plant a cedar tree
The best, the best we ever had