Jim O'Rourke - Only Skin lyrics

And there was a booming above you That night black airplanes flew over the sea And they were lowing and shifting like Beached whales Shelled snails As you strained and you squinted to see The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry You froze in your sand shoal Prayed for your poor soul; Sky seemed a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl And when the bread broke — Fell in bricks of wet smoke — My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke Then there was a silence you took to mean something: Mean, Run, sing For alive you will evermore be And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulking Has gone east While you're left to explain them to me — Released From their hairless and blind cavalry With your hands in your pockets Stubbily running To where I'm unfresh Undressed and yawning — Well, what is this craziness? This crazy talking? You caught some small d**h When you were sleepwalking It was a dark dream, darlin; It's over The firebreather is beneath the clover Beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever: A toothless hound-dog choking on a feather But I took my fishing pole (fearing your fever) Down to the swimming hole, where there grows a bitter herb That blooms but one day a year, by the riverside — I'd bring it here: Apply it gently To the love you've lent me While the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed And the string sobbed As it cut through the hustling breeze And I watched how the water was kneading so neatly Gone treacly Nearly slowed to a stop in this heat; Frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath Press on me We are restless things Webs of seaweed are swaddling You call upon the dusk of the Musk of a squid: Shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib Rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it! Smell of a stonefruit being cut and being opened Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking And when the fire moves away Fire moves away, son Why would you say I was the last one? Scrape your knee: it is only skin Makes the sound of violins When I cut your hair, and leave the birds all the trimmings I am the happiest woman among all women And the shallow water stretches as far as I can see Knee deep, trudging along — The seagull weeps ‘so long' — I'm humming a threshing song — Until the night is over, hold on Hold on; Hold your horses back from the fickle dawn I have got some business out at the edge of town Candy weighing both of my pockets down Till I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them (and knowing how the commonfolk condemn What it is I do, to you, to keep you warm: Being a woman. Being a woman.) But always up the mountainside you're clambering Groping blindly, hungry for anything; Picking through your pocket linings — Well, what is this? Scrap of sa**afras, eh Sisyphus? I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain Little sister, he will be back again I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain Spiders' ghosts hang, soaked and Dangling silently, from all the blooming cherry trees In tiny nooses, safe from everyone — Nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done — Be a woman. Be a woman Though we felt the spray of the waves We decided to stay, 'till the tide rose too far We weren't afraid, cause we know what you are; And you know that we know what you are Awful atoll — O, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow! Bawl bellow: Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow Toddle and roll; Teethe an impalpable bit of leather While yarrow, heather and hollyhock Awkwardly molt along the shore Are you mine? My heart? Mine anymore? Stay with me for awhile That's an awfully real gun I know life will lay you down As the lightning has lately done Failing this, failing this Follow me, my sweetest friend To see what you anointed In pointing your gun there Lay it down! Nice and slow! There is nowhere to go Save up; Up where the light, undiluted, is Weaving, in a drunk dream At the sight of my baby, out back: Back on the patio Watching the bats bring night in — while, elsewhere Estuaries of wax-white Wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped * Last week, our picture window Produced a half-word Heavy and hollow Hit by a brown bird We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake And pant and labor over every intake I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace Then thought I ought to take her to a higher place Said, “dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view.” Then in my hot hand, she slumped her sick weight We tramped through the poison oak, heartbroke and inchoate The dogs were snapping, so you cuffed their collars While I climbed the tree-house. Then how I hollered! Cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two; Then saw the treetops, co*ked her head, and up and flew (While back in the world that moves, often, according to The hoarding of these clues Dogs still run roughly around Little tufts of finch-down The cities we pa**ed were a flickering wasteland, But his hand, in my hand, made them hale and harmless While down in the lowlands, the crops are all coming; We have everything Life is thundering blissful towards d**h In a stampede Of his fumbling green gentleness You stopped by; I was all alive In my doorway, we shucked and jived And when you wept, I was gone; See, I got gone when I got wise But I can't with certainty say we survived Then down and down And down and down And down and deeper Stoke, without sound The blameless flames You endless sleeper Through fire below And fire above And fire within Sleep through the things that couldn't have been If you hadn't have been And when the fire moves away Fire moves away, son Why would you say I was the last one? All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone Take my bones, I don't need none Cold, cold cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on! s** all day on a cherry stone Dig a little hole not three inches round — Spit your pit in a hole in the ground Weep upon the spot for the starving of me! Till up grows a fine young cherry tree When the bough breaks, what'll you make for me? A little willow cabin to rest on your knee What'll I do with a trinket such as this? Think of your woman, who's gone to the west But I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed! Then I'll crawl across the salt flats, to stroke your sweet head Come across the desert with no shoes on! I love you truly Or I love no-one Fire moves away. Fire moves away, son Why would you say that I was the last one, last one? Clear the room! There's a fire, a fire, a fire Get going And I'm going to be right behind you And if the love of a woman or two, dear Couldn't move you to such heights Then all I can do Is do, my darling, right by you