Hindenburg Variations

It’s not that hard to be afraid Know every step will be betrayed And I was wrong to take you home It’s not that hard to be afraid And I was wrong to think you would And I was wrong to think I wouldn’t I have let down my fans It’s not so great to be alive Dig all the honey out the hive But I was good to take you home It’s not so great to be alive And I was wrong to think you would And I was wrong to think I wouldn’t Even diamonds have flaws I’m sorry for what I did and for what I didn’t do And I’m sorry it hurt you so to get me so wrong And I take it a day at a time and I do it all for you But I’ve been atoning for so long One life’s a dot, but life’s a wave Roll us ever onward toward the grave And I was wrong to take your home One life’s a dot, but life’s a wave

This is likely bad advice But don’t play dead and don’t play nice Watch their eyes as you slip the blade in Let them rage and let them hate Let them sputter and fulminate Make damn sure the whiners never win Concede nothing Bend for no one And every someone will bend for you Be mean Because what goes around won’t come around again Be mean. Don’t leave friends in your room alone Make your calls on a burner phone Never risk your thoughts in black and white All my lines untraceable All my thoughts erasable Never named and never brought to light Don’t trust your girlfriend Freeze out your husband Every loved one’s a potential C.I. Be clean Way out on the curve you get what you deserve Be clean Cash out Don’t let them tell you what to care about Cash in It’s all the same, the wage of love and sin This is likely bad advice Unrooted, broad, and imprecise But don’t trust every peaceful inner glow Steel yourself for pain for sure You’ve been down this road before I tell you nought you don’t already know Reveal nothing Bleed for no one But know that no one will bleed for you

Margaret lives Margaret lives in a four-car garage Alexei lives Alexei lives in her head Once along the way They saw each other in a chick-fil-a And they went about their day. Margaret takes Margaret takes her chances She knows she’s got Just a couple of them left And though she’s quite afraid She dances in the ghost parade And takes the last train leaving town. An empty chair An empty chair in an empty backyard She’s run off And she’s crying in the street And though you saw it all It was written on the wall Until the last good man came down Walk the plank on last year’s promenade Close your eyes and say it’s all OK The ambuscade, the fusillade, the deal you made. A bower boy A bower boy and an east Pavonia girl Fell in love And died in each other’s arms What am I supposed to say It was written on their graves And scars the surface of the Earth Walk the plank on last year's promenade Close your eyes and say that's all The roundelay, the fade away, the only way.

Walking out a graduate Trail a chain of student debt Grab the next brass ring and roll with it Never let them see you sweat Consult on the supply chain What you see is what you say Consult on the IT controls Tell them what they need to be told You can do whatever you want with this degree We're all so proud of you You've got optionality, pilgrim You do what you want to do Save the tragedy until your whole life is through The years will do as you will them What is time but a mound of clay Potential energy, a loaded spring every day Cast 'em two four six eight Who do we eliminate No kids no freight Every night a different date Planted at your PC Credentialed sea anemone Uber eats your sweet green PMC persephone This is a stepping stone to everything you want You've got a demonstrated history And you've got optionality pilgrim You're the top when it spins it never slows So your friendships thin so your network it grows Take your time and your pills, then There is hope for a new world yet Cross the agent sea, past the rocks of regret

Take a walk in my world, man See my river and my holly tree So everybody else looks just like me I’m still alone Every time I go out now I see something that I hate to see If this is what you call good company I’m going home I’m the king of my castle And nobody can come inside But I know every corner and closet hides A hanging rope Don’t tell me everything good’s forgotten All the beauty is misbegotten Let a thousand flowers bloom Make your soul an empty room Clear eyes and full gas tanks And the road unspooled for miles And not a snotty and crying child To spoil the view You shut your mouth they won’t hear that The sound of nothing buzzing in their ears But nothing’s all I see from here An empty blue We’re the mothers of this earth We laid the sod we managed the wild We spared the rod but lost the child Come sit beside me and watch the credits Wait until it comes out to spread its wings Let a thousand flowers bloom Make your soul an empty room

Twenty-three years old in Little Silver Desperate to be someone I am not Each day a space without a view You see through me I see through you Twenty-eight and murdering a memory Greasy-haired, incontinent, and stoned Only fans and only skin I never lose and I never win Reaped and sown Will my lover never come Bits and bone Missing parts and zero sum. Thirty-odd years old and off the deep end Out the pool and drying in the sun A blister then a running sore No use for this no something more Forty-eight years on they never found me Lost between the report and the shot What's not to be is not to be I'm living in the mystery. Froth and wave Will my lover never come Jesus saves At the barrel of a gun Mom and Dad are gone and so's the bloodhounds Generations come and went since then Waters flood and then abate Forever young at thirty-eight

You can’t go back there again Friends on the fire escape laughing The good people calling your name You’ll never win Would that you had what you had What you had was enough to begin. From the first to the last Now it's now now it's past Chart the course prearranged And they’re shaking their heads Though it’s better unsaid Saying you’ll never change. Third time’s the charm but the fourth? Fore is the cry of a man with a cudgel And unswerving course Returned to the scene Admire your work from the back, from the front On the screen on the screen Every laugh every itch Every unthinking twitch Is a permanent stain Now you laugh til you cry And we live til we die Then we do it again Cycle in cycle out That’s what life’s all about Tell me once tell me true What’s it all mean to you Take your last breath where you stand Nobody can be as sure as you were When you unclenched your hands Let it fly free I’ve seen a thousand since then but they’re All pallid epigones You’re a feast for the flies Ere you open your eyes Can we go back to then Now you laugh til you cry And we live til we die Then we do it again

This was not the highway I took a lot of bad routes in my time You were never going my way We thought that you could be the reason for my rhyme But now I can see a pale glow I can see it burning in the wind and snow A wilderness of indigo All of your friends will be posing for pictures But I don’t believe you were there for that shot Thirty years on they'll be asking each other Hey where is the guy that the future forgot I’m driving right for you Half-caf half-caste half-cocked half Lovingly restored to The way I looked before they took me out the box Now I can see as well as them The fact that nobody will look me in the eye Don't cry for me ad nauseam Well Richie told me that I came up in a conversation Hmm funny that, I would’ve been there but I never saw the registration Well I know that they know and I'm loved where I'm bound and I’m halfway home without a map and turned around but even so It’s not official ‘til you shout it to the congregation. Let the bells hang unrung keep the word on your tongue

Last time someone spit in my eye I said This time you won't live to learn why every One here holds a vigorous fear of the dark. First off I don’t owe it to you to say If the tales they tell are all true the way You want them to be I resent that remark. We don’t have to be brutes Let’s not summon the lawyers We don’t have to stack bones We can tamp our desires Remember that day I told you you’d soon see My face in the glare of the sun Well look to my eyes And look to my mien There’s life in the old girl yet Decked out in my learned disguise I can Trust that you are all I despise but then What is left for me to fight for in this earnest dark. We will need to be cruel We will need to be loyal You will want to cut through You will need to despoil Remember that time I told you you’d soon hear My voice in the crash of the tide Well this is my moon And this is my cry There’s life in the old girl yet You will need to be cruel We will have to be loyal You will have to cut through We will need to despoil You can take what you like The spirits have moved They will return to claim us in time Our thumbs in the dike We’ll press and we’ll prove There's life in the old girl yet

If your words are friendly and your thoughts are cruel So the love you give me marks us both the fools You can walk and talk about Jesus Why not say it to his face Every phrase a punning on the last one Nothing that can't be erased But I don't want to live without you Though there's nothing I can say for sure Maybe just one thing, I doubt two, Alianore Alianore. You can tell me something I don't want to know You can take this somewhere I don't want to go If all our scenes are nothing but a read through Ring the bell at your own stop For my part I've selected a few favorites Everyone back to the top But I don't want to live without you Though that's nothing I can say for sure All our friends are down and out, too, Alianore Alianore We are thick on the ground Where we burrow without a sound And though I won't be around Will the hush settle gently on you With the crush of intent upon you If our lives pass and nobody has changed their mind You can find me and baby I will make the time You can tell me the truth I can handle the truth I don't want to be forever on the wrong side of a great divide Fated though we are to choose this You decide You decide And I don't want to live without you Though that's nothing I can say for sure Maybe just one thing, I doubt two, Alianore Alianore.

When the big storm comes it’ll blow away everything Gonna white out the sky and throw the tall buildings up in the air And the water comes down Gonna lay out a hand and let the blackjack take it back See the stalemate break between the hoe and the scythe and the plow And the water comes down And how did I let this dialogue out of my control And how do we act when there’s no one left in charge And how did I let this dialogue out of my control And how From the high ground watch an angry Earth commit infanticide See the black choppers fly and the birds being flung to the dirt And the water comes down And how did I let this dialogue out of my control And how do we act when there’s nobody in charge And how did I let this dialogue out of my control And how Well if you’re so strong why don’t you come at me while I’m awake While the infinite scrolling banality keeps me alive And the water comes down

From far away Well it's easy enough to say It's easy enough to see the fields of clover wherein we play on an eighty-year holiday well it's easy enough to see with a view from nowhere. Last night I got a little news. Made me want to sit still and feel the lion's breathing. If I could I'd will you all, my heir Be kind to me, Jill because I'm easy enough to kill don't know my bowsprit from my keel the touch of life from my fingers I get a little bit of news now everyday Say it's nothing but a work song for the compromisers the overtired the last survivors. This is no way to live But it's the only way to live. Admitting of everything that's easy enough to love everything that you think the whole world of That's still the world we're leaving. This is usually the part I come to terms ambition never gets you far without a lot of lying If I could I'd make you who you seem to be. Still, if there's this A moment easy enough to miss A flower plucked out of the abyss You're still lucky to be

Two by two we followed But once they shut the door It was both of us and not a liver more A record-skipping fire The candle burning low We could end it here and you'd never know Prepare yourself for torture Don't weary of the fight This can't go on for another night My cuts they runneth under Our lady out of spite Hands up they've got us dead to rights Leather slowly crumbles Even iron rusts in time What we bury here everybody finds Burning out the hollows And carving through the door We will leave our words on a sycamore I'm just a little crazy I'd just as lief defy The errant sun and the fractured sky Don't brook a great deceiver Don't stand so surely by This all you get, there is no second try We both belong to the world We long don't we girl?— For the pull of a Star, break us out of the plan Of the orbit and sphere of the dread caravan I can't be that kind of man. Is it right to be OK? Is it not for us to say? Won't they hate us in return? Won't they want to see me burn?