The asphalt and decay, in the cities that remain Dance like mountains on horizons And all the make believe And four-horsed catastrophes Rusty songs that sing Like 9 volt batteries Always burning the tips of tongues In the darkened woods we shared All the melodramatic fare
When we'd sleep in cars Or in the darkened fields Sliding through the mud Under thunderclouds running down the roads Past telephone poles Falling in time Parallel to our spines
When the leaves'd flutter In the disappearing light Crawling through the woods On elbows through the dirt Or huddled in diesel vans Trying to understand the street signs ahead That disappear too fast
Clock hands search around For things that can't be found Always spinning in denial All the things we gauge From the silence that depraves
The melodies that hit While our attention shifts To planes that move the sky above And staccato violins play All the songs we cannot name Empty parking lots And winding one way roads Traced around by firs And mossy power lines Couldn't reveal the answers To the torrential downpours Or the questions that dance On the tips of all our tongues The birds in your chest Try to reveal all the names Of the subtle little things We'd try to understand And the planes overhead That hum their own two cents Tell us that we'll never know Of what's and could's and if's Planes move the blue sky While violins play by and by And our attention always shifts