Unfinished Songs

Out the window through the branches
of the maples in the churchyard:
sorrowed singing of the bells,
‘tis another day gone by.

And it gets so late so early
in this candlelit November,
all those hours of the night to
wish I could’ve asked him why.

And the wind against the windowpanes,
the tapping of my pen
upon a barely started letter
which I cannot seem to end.

And the leaves they swirl like dancers
in the road between the people,
collars turned against the autumn
and there go the bells again.

There’s a cold wind, and it’s coming here today
There’s a cold wind, and it’s coming here to stay
There’s a cold wind, and it has a lot to say
If you listen to the whistle of the wind

There’s a cold wind, and it’s awful far from home
There’s a cold wind, blowing in between my bones
Telling tall tales of the places it has roamed
When you listen to the whistle of the wind

There’s a cold wind, you can see it in the trees
And the tall grass, and the skittering of leaves
And the branches know this ain’t just another breeze
For they’ve listened to the whistle of the wind

There’s a hot fire, and it’s just around the bend
Of this long road that don’t seem to have an end
There’s a hot fire where I will sit and then
I will listen for the whistle of the wind

I wrote this when I was walking in the woods on a hot summer day. I didn’t make the connection at the time, but I think this is related to the fact that I’d just seen Barbie.

It is a necessary complication
I don’t mind the agitation
Some things they just need a little time

Cause when you’re sitting next to me
Well I should be in ecstasy
But there’s one thing I can’t get off my mind

You see I feel a little hesitation
Matrimony trepidation
A door of mine is closing, this is true

Before we up and tie the knot
And settle down and have our lot
There’s one thing that this man’s gotta do

I just wanna ride horses
I just wanna ride horses

I wanna saddle up a restless mare
I wanna run my fingers through her hair
I wanna ride and ride until the sun is low

I don’t know how to make you understand
That this is not a total change of plan
I just feel a little caught in your lasso

I’m not trying here to rile you up
Just trying to say giddy up
What will it take for you to get the gist?

It’s not drama I want to stir up
It’s just I want my foot in a stirrup
And to cross this thing right off my bucket list

* interlude *
* transition to sadder music *

I saw a program on tv
It was horses, strong and free
It made me think: oh what could be!
But I have a fiancé

Oh I could be equestrian
I’d ride into the west and then
I’d be among the best of men
But fate, it seems to taunt: neigh!!

I just wanna ride horses!
I just wanna ride horses!

Before we go the bridal way
I want to ride down a bridleway
Oh, can’t you see, babe, that I have a need

If I could ride a country mile
Before you walk on down the aisle
Just me and my old purebred mountain steed

Yeah I wanna ride horses
I just wanna ride horses

I’ve been around as much as a metaphor
But I’ve never seen your face before
Yes, you’re a stranger in my eyes
Though I know I should recognise you

You ask me how my day has been
Just like you are my brethren
But I don’t know what I can say
Except I have to go on my way

When I saw you yesterday
Spreading toast with marmalade
I didn’t know it’d be the last
I didn’t know it’d soon be in the past

There are at least a thousand ways a person can look
And you don’t look like any of ‘em
No you don’t look like any of ‘em

This is where it goes somewhere weird. I don’t think this is the right direction but I think it’s kind of funny:

Well, I’m glad that the facial reconstruction surgery went fine
But I wish just a little bit that maybe we could’ve had more time

This is definitely unfinished.

When I think of all the oceans all the places I could be
There won’t ever be another like the mevigelevigan sea

When I was naught but twenty left for oceans deep and cold
But nowhere ever equaled to the memory of home

And the shallow watered halcyon was always on my mind

And the wind was like a river and the clouds were like a boat
And the birds were wheeling whimsical as lazy as they float
Where the water’s deep cerulian the waves are [sic.]

…something something in my tomb,
Sweeping cyclical and frantic like a mouse around the room

I got a one way ticket to old milk town
I got a big old bucket of bones right now

I’m gonna find a patch of unpicked ground
I’m gonna stake my claim in old milk town

I’m gonna plant those bones a ten feet down
I’m gonna watch them grow into a cow

And then a when my bones become bovine
And all the stars up high have been aligned

And yes and when my bones have come alive
I’m gonna make my fortune of milk so fine

I have no idea what this song is about. Definitely unfinished.

The sea that I see is a mirror,
the hue of the sun-faded sky.
But I hear that beyond our horizon
is a shore where the winds never die.

Hark! Here it is, an end to this lull,
fill our sails and our souls with the breeze.
Let us fly at a run to the red rising sun,
till the tillerman runs out of seas.

I came up with this when I was walking in the Lake District. It should be longer but now that I’m down from the fells I can’t seem to add to it.

Sometimes I get the feeling
I should go up to the mountain
And look out across the valley when it rains

And see all the little droplets
And the people in the village
As they duck into the doorways as it rains

The musicians of a family of instruments played
with the grace of a breath of fresh air

As the columns and arches of old town
danced in the deafening dust of warfare

The chimes in the wind were a chorus of
swords, a mosaic of blood and hot spit

But the strings in the alley kept singing,
down with the city like down with the ship

I’s heading back home bout quarter to nine
In an alley so dim I’s walking blind
Heard a funny little thing coming up behind
Put real big worry in the back of my mind

Was a cat in the alley with an overcoat
Little mean little eyes through cigar smoke
Had claws in his paws and they gamme a poke
He said how’s bout you take a ride on my boat

He said I just want to be a little
Ship cat eatin ship rats
On the high seas in a fine breeze
Where to go up in the crows nest
For a catnap lookin out west
Is the only escape that I’d need

He said I just want to stalk a little
Rodent down below decks
Tween a bulkhead and a crew bed
Or to see in the fold of a sail
Little twitch twitch of a pink tail
Is the biggest thrill that I’d ever need

He said I just want to feel
The churn of the ocean
Where a vermin devotion
Is the only life to lead

He just wants to be a cat
On a ship on the seas
But he’s stuck on the land
He’s a lubber it seems

Now he found him a boat
He’s as close as can be
All he needs is a captain
That’s what he’s asking me

This is a song from the early pandemic. Maybe it reflects that somehow, I’m not sure.

There’s a spider in my bathroom
in the corner of my shower
And I don’t know where she came from,
what she’s doing at this hour
Her web is spare, hexagonal,
but dotted with no flies
And she’s pacing back and forth,
her pincers primed to paralyze

There’s a spider in my bathroom
in the corner of the shower
And she sits there all alone
atop her silky ivory tower
I can’t turn on the water now,
I’d wash her home away
Guess I don’t need to shower now,
tomorrow’s another day…

I’ve been showerless for thirty days,
the flies are closing in!
They’ve made a home up in my hair,
the future’s looking grim!
That spider still won’t move,
please contact my next of kin,
I haven’t cleaned behind my ears in weeks,
I’ve given up my head like Anne Boleyn

I didn’t know they lived that long!
I didn’t know they lived that long!
When will that spider die?
When will that spider die?

* musical interlude *

Now I’ve left that house behind,
the wait is done, the spider’s won
I took an amtrak cross the country,
didn’t sit next to anyone

I had a car all to myself,
my stench drove them all to go
And I landed on the riverbank
outside of Buffalo

I built a house next to Niagara
let the spray weigh down my hair
I don’t know if that spider’s gone
and frankly I don’t care

But I’m happy, now, or
At the very least I’m clean
Under this permanent shower
Life can be a dream

I walk a muddy track down through a field of wilted wheat
I got a map that ended miles ago and blisters on my feet
I don’t know where I’m going and I don’t know who I’ll meet
But I know wherever I go I can’t never linger

I met a lonesome weary lady lying in the mud
She said stranger don’t you like this little grave I dug
She said won’t you lay with me and we’d be like two spuds
I just smiled for a little while and I said I’m bound to wander

I saw a band of merry men were stealing from the pope
They emptied out his pockets, trussed him to a tree with rope
I asked him should I free him and he only just said nope
I asked why, and he said my, I need this time to ponder

I climbed upon a mountaintop, sat on that mighty stone
The view it flew along for miles across the land I roamed
And there in hazy distance was the place I once called home
I heard the beating of my heart and felt it growing fonder

I came upon a scarecrow it was walking awful slow
I said where you even going man and he said I don’t know
He said I never ever had a gut or bones to call my own
He looked at me like a bag of leaves and said I have a hunger

It was autumn when I left, was fall when I returned
It’s hard to cross a river when all the bridges have been burned
But I swam the current mightily and kissed the shore for being firm
They asked me then, oh where I’d been, and I just said over yonder