Raise up Roof Beams Lyrics (All lyrics by Nathan Robinson) Oh, Great Paradox Drinking To You Magdalene White Looks Can Kill Opus I Am Magellan, Pt. 1 Carried Away Heavy Machine I Am Magellan, Pt. 2 She'll Be Fine Undressed in our Sleep Fingers and Photons Like Children Astray Letter to Alyosha Burning Building My Forbidden Fruit Egypt Faux Revulutionary Concept Other Lovers Pablo Picasso Strange Perfume Cradled 1999 Stained Glass Shivering Cold ------------------------------------------------------ Oh, Great Paradox Drinking to You She said, "Your ears must have been burning because I have been talking about you. I have been thinking about you. I have been drinking to you." I said, "I wish you would go away because I have reading to do. I have thinking to do. I have drinking to do... Well, okay... Well, okay. I don't have songs of sadness pouring from my broken nose anymore, and everyone is probably better for it. I don't have dances of infidelity, baby, because I found another way to be important. I am sorry. I just like privacy. I just seek an inner peace. You are not a part of that because God made Appalachia. Yes, God made the mountains 'tween us, and I will not fight the reality that brings. Because, I am in love now, and we are all smoking outside of sex shops under oven clouds, laughing out loud. 'Hahahaha,' we are laughing out loud. These things do not surprise me. Every day falls asleep the same way. Every twilight is giving me the same face. Every city is all black and grey. And, all these homeless people? They have homes, but, God, they are alone. Oh, my God, they are alone. They are alone." Then I said, "My ears have not been burning. It took me four long years of learning to find out what you mean to me, but do not worry. Do not worry, because Sartre will forgive you for using his copywrighted sickness for your own personal gain. Yes, Soren will forgive you just like he has forgiven me again and again and again and again." "Oh, not again." Back to top Magdalene When she undid your jeans, you called her 'Mary Magdalene', and you thought you were the Son of God, but you are not. You are not. I am tugging at my roots again. I am tugging at my roots again. I am tugging at my roots again, but I will never sever them. All of my old lovers are locked away in a car, dying slowly in the left lane. They are passing semi trucks that are passing freight trains. Mortality makes a lot of things okay. I am tugging at my roots again. I am tugging at my roots again. I am tugging at my roots again, but I will never sever them. Back to top White Mary, did you know that I had dreamt of you before you wrote me that distant letter? Mary, did you know that my head is a massochist that never wants to get better? Mary, you know just how I have been doing, but you ask me so earnestly. Things happen between people, Mary, and love is so cheap when it is not free. I am going to school here, Mary. I am learning things about the world. I go out drinking every night, Mary, and my eyes turn from white to pearl. I want to learn another language, Mary, so I can hurt people across the sea. I want to bleed white like you, Mary, but now I know that just is not me. I want to bleed white like you Mary, but now I am going to sleep. Now, I am just going to sleep. Back to top Looks Can Kill This is about economics This is about logistics This is about the glove compartment and what it holds Let's not get old. My dreams are dirty tricks My dreams are magic They make no sense in my head Why does my brain want to see my body dead? Sense is not the only thing I make these days It is just the thing I hold the closest (like the glove compartment, like the skin we're in) Look at how much skin we are in I remember holding her so close The leaves fell outside We were so close We found no use for our clothes I remember being a boy I will hold all of these as priorities I will hold them all so close I will hold them all so close when I hold someone else I will hold someone else My blood could be in a pool on the floor I could be riddled with bullet holes, but I hope that you would show some remorse If looks could kill. If looks could kill (and they will) Back to top Opus All of my old lovers are getting together, and we are all going to go for a drive (None of us are alive). We are trying to figure out why we bothered to live and die. Our bodies were easy to bury but they didn't know what to do with our hearts. Everybody needs one. Everybody bleeds once in a while. I'm just trying to say that's where I'm at now. But I've got an opus up my sleeve and it sounds just like a bonfire. It sounds just like a bonfire, but don't grieve me. Don't grieve me. You sounded just like a saint when you screamed, "Don't leave me. Don't leave me." But I know the difference between martyrs and liars, and this makes a difference to me. Yes, I know the difference between martyrs and liars And this makes a difference to me. I look so respectable in the daytime. I must look like some kind of monster at night. Your love was so expectable that I didn't even try. I didn't even try. I did just what I didn't want to do: I did an awful thing to you. I did just what I didn't want to do: I did an awful thing to you, but you'll pull through. Because I have an opus up my sleeve and it sounds just like a bonfire It sounds just like a bonfire, but don't grieve me. Back to top I am Magellan pt. 1 I am Magellan. I know your circumference. When I am sailing, you are my compass. I am top-heavy. I have lost my legs. I must have thought I was ready for something as real as this, because we laugh off old loves like we laugh off bad dreams. We don't know what they mean. We don't know what they mean, but, how they have consumed my pages with ink that bleeds and then stays in place. It is always changing in purpose and meaning, but never proving anything about anything. Back to top Carried Away The war called me on the phone today. The war called me on the phone today. The war called me on the phone and I called my parents to tell them I was going away. I called my lover and told her I was going away. I called my sisters and told them I was going away. I called my parents on the phone. Didn't I want to know my father better? Didn't I want to know my father better? Didn't I want to make my father proud? Well, he doesn't sound too proud now, panicking on the other end of the phone now. He does not sound too proud now. He does not sound too proud. Didn't I have other plans than this? Didn't I have other plans than this? Didn't I have other plans, like to kiss you every night when you come home from work and your feet are tired? I'd like to kiss you every night when you come home from work. Didn't we want to get married? Didn't we want to get married? Didn't we want to get married? Wasn't I carried away every time I saw your smiling face? Wasn't I carried away every time I saw your smile? I know it will not make a difference. Well, I know it will not make a difference. I know that it will not make a difference, but I loved the way we felt. I loved the way we felt. I loved the way we felt before the war. Didn't I have other plans than this? Didn't I have other plans than this? Didn't I have other plans like to kiss you every night when you come home from work and your feet are tired? I'd like to kiss you every night when you come home from work. Back to top Heavy Machine Finally, I am surrounded by friends and numbers. The night is a heavy machine. The curbs are all parking lots here, and the cigarettes are free. She had me over like a promise for peace. She sounded so good on the phone. But the air is a blind hypocrite, and sleeping next to her felt so alone. It felt like an emptiness I had felt for years. It felt like an emptiness. I felt it in Virginia; I felt it in Spain. In New York City, it was January's pain, January's chill, January's confusion. It was refusing to progress in spite of the caress of Providence (oh, the sweet caress of Providence) It was human meaninglessness: all of the perfect grievances that can not be redressed. I cannot emphasize enough the need for compromise. I cannot cauterize without smelling my own lies. I am only searching for the beauty of self-sufficiency, but that beauty only serves to frustrate me because I find it in you. I find it in you. Oh, great paradox: I find it in you. Back to top I am Magellan pt. 2 So, come over lover. Come over quickly. I will make you dinner. Come over quickly. We will drink to faith and reason until we decide upon a winner. There will be a winner. We will end up intoxicated and liberated and consecrated, but we will still be under age when we sober up and try our best to change. Our chrysalis is a hypothesis: we have free will as long as we can touch and kiss. If this is proven true, there will never be any space between me and you. Back to top She'll Be Fine I have four desires. I am sorry that you only met three. I am driving into a low moon. It is looking to swallow me. I have four desires. I would not argue if you called them needs. I am driving into a low moon. It is looking to swallow me. I have three desires because I just made love to the fourth. She doesn't know I have a new lover every time I unscrew a cork. I think that she'll be fine (even though she was mine). So, let us flee these borders. Let us find another city on a hill. We have grown tired of treating symptoms with dose after dose of short-lived thrills. Now that we are comfortable with addictions, let us shrug them off like the rain because no bastard son of men and angels will keep our ark from floating over this pain. I think that she'll be fine (even though she was mine). Back to top Undressed in our Sleep There was mulch around our front porch until spring. Now there are just ashes that wait like dead men for anything. I am a dead man waiting for anything. I am a dead man waiting for anything. You were so faithful to me when I was alone. You were so faithful to me when I was alone, but I was afraid then- afraid of falling in love. I was afraid then- afraid of falling in love. Maybe someday I will come to you, broken, and say, "I am sorry I pushed you away." Will the buzzards undress us in our sleep? Will we die here, swept up in anxiety? How can I live here, swept up in anxiety? How can I live here like a dead man, waiting for anything? Maybe someday I will come to you, broken, and say, "I am sorry I pushed you away." I pushed you away. Back to top ------------------------------------------------------ Fingers and Photons Like Children Astray Don't you smell my hair as if it will leave me bare. Don't you understand that it is more than me holding your hand? Please play your flute and hope that the other rats follow suit. Please play your guitar as if it will get you far. But everyone knows that pipers make excellent liars and women can be led like children astray. Everyone is dying for affection, they're vying to catch the slightest glint in your eyes today. Sweet girls compromise and sweet girls tell lies to themselves on beaches that reach into cities. Just because we are dying does not mean that I should be crying; even stiff old Kant knows that sweet girls don't want pity. Everyone knows that pipers make excellent liars, and women can be led like children astray. Everyone is dying for affection; they are vying to catch the slightest glint in your eyes today. Walk away. Back to top Letter to Alyosha It is getting harder now to remember all the places I have been and all the people I have hurt (they will not speak to me again). I have been counting them out on fingers and toes since your mentor died and decomposed. You did not expect him to pass that way, and his stench almost destroyed your faith. Now I am holed up in a basement in the South, writing notes to the whole world from the underground. Why would I be born just to die young? Could it be that some little demon has me all high-strung? I am not going to string myself up, and I am not giving up belief because existence should not be a reason to grieve. But what if it is? Then grieve with me and move on. You have to believe I would love to tell you what is going to become of me. You have to believe I would love to tell you what is going to become of me. But there is just no way to know. There is just no way to know. So don't lost hope. Don't lose hope because existence should not be a reason to grieve. But what if it is? Then, grieve with me, and we are all going to move on. Back to top Burning Building My body is a building burning so quickly and I will not wait for these ashes to become me. I am pulling sentences out in desperation like the family Bible or photographs of friends. I know my life is short, but that is not enough yet. I am going to call God’s bluff and smoke this last cigarette. Oh! The joyful loosening of bonds! There is no anxiety when opportunity is gone. Do not worry, honey, I saved the family bible that I wrote. "What does it profit a man...?" Yes, that is a direct quote. I wrote all of my fear down in a book of leather and found out that people love to hate together. Don’t you dare tell your friends that I am a bad guy when you wore that tank-top so that I would not look in your eyes (I am not going to look in your eyes). Love has become a list of names, numbers, and dates. It is a history book filled with bold words that I hate: days and years and people I tried to erase with Spanish wine and a microphone on a stage. They always say that they have been used (yes, it may be true), but I am no user; I just hate to be refused. I kissed her in a crowd to warn all the other Judases away. She is mine and mine only, the only one I was destined to betray. Then I will hang myself with paper until I fall down and explode to nourish the earth in all of this posthumous sorrow. It is a heavy load (such a heavy load). Don’t worry honey, it is the only one I know. You are the only one I know. Back to top My Forbidden Fruit My mind was born in Arizona, but I lost my youth at Urquinaona where I found out that being a grown-up means standing on the safe side of a smoking gun. My face was broken and I did bleed there, so I raised me an ebenezer. Then, I tried to lose it in a whisky fever, but I still remember. I still remember. Now my guitar is calloused and my fingers are strung. I am marching toward a chalice and I am singing sad, sad songs. But when I reach that goblet and drink my forbidden fruit will not make me think. It will open my ears and it will dilate my eyes. It is going to take away my knowledge, and it will make me wise. It will teach me how to love, and it will kill me with kindness. You will not even know me when this shit is finished. Now we are standing here facing each other with our journals drawn like naked swords, and we are fighting to the death with each fountain-penned word. I am going to cut you with my poetry and you are going to kill me with your prose (as long as neither of us knows), but there is one thing that I have to know. There is one thing I have to know: why do you care when you know that it is not safe? Why do you care when you know that it all could go to waste? Why do you care when you know that it is not safe? It was not safe. It was not safe. Was it a waste? Back to top Egypt Road trip back to Egypt, for I am sick and sick and sick of the Promised Land, but all of your monuments and money can not touch the milk and honey of my Canaanite lover: she has a steady hand. I wrote a hymn in jet black ink that I stole from you. You wrote a summer’s worth of epistles, they were diseased with truth. I wrote a hymn in April, and I will write my own eulogy soon because I have died 24 times a day since you foretold what I would do. You foretold what I would do. Go ahead and cross that river alone, but there is something I have to tell you (it is something that you already know): the bridge freezes before the road and even fire seems cold when it is written in stone. No one reads what you write in stone. I wrote a hymn in jet black ink that I stole from you. You wrote a summer’s worth of epistles, they were diseased with truth. I wrote a hymn in April, and I will write my own eulogy soon because I have died 24 times a day since you foretold what I would do. It is so heavy. It is so heavy. Kiss me. Kiss me before I am out of breath. It is so heavy. It is so heavy. Kiss me. Kiss me until there is only lightness left. Why so heavy? Why so heavy? Turn off the light because we are going to wallow in the mess. It is so heavy. Why so heavy? Kiss me. We will pretend we know what is best. We will pretend. Back to top Faux Revulutionary Put your boots under your pants, you faux revolutionary. Use your hips when you dance. This city is getting scary. Give me a chance (I am so sick of writing songs). Use your hips when you dance (you knew me all along). I am ready for something that has not appeared and you are making me so angry so far away from here. I am so sick of hearing about love; it is so overrated that my stomach is sick. It is so easy to forget. All of the girls I have ever met were replaced easily enough by a pack of cigarettes. But, cigarettes leave me coughing and wanting more and bottles are empty long before I am satisfied as whisky seeps through the cracks in rough-cut wooden tables. Existence is crippled by my thoughts tonight as I stumble from the bus closest to my apartment (It is so close that I can see it spinning. Why am I the only one standing still?) What was so thrilling about a night on the town? I can not even remember. I can not even remember my name. So, put your boots under your pants, you faux revolutionary. Use your hips when you dance. This city is so scary. Put your boots under your pants, you faux revolutionary. Use your hips when you dance, but be wary. Use your hips when you dance. Use your hips on my hips when you dance. Be wary. Back to top Concept I remember that we stopped talking then. That is when I realized that we were made of wax with fragile hands and fragile backs, and how we melt! We run away from flames. We run down wooden shelves and leave a trail of our hardened selves deep in the grain. I ran away from fire (It was arson. I was sure.)! I was wallowing in mire, and she was writing things to me (things so impure). She said, "I am dying, and all I can think of is you." What do you know of me: my name and address? You say that you could love me or at least try your best. Well, love is a concept that I have trouble with. Please, tell me if you think that this sounds like something close to it: Cities are being destroyed by thousands upon thousands of homesick girls and boys, and all I can think of is you. Back to top Other Lovers Do you know where we belong? I know it might be wrong, but, if you would like, you could share a drink with me in my crowded living room. Too many eyes are on this sparrow. The hallway to my bed is neither straight nor narrow, but I will take you there if you feel the need for some privacy. I am surprised at you. Are you aware how much damage we could do? The weight of these decisions can be too much, even if you only take half. I can accept this math if you can forget my past. Our current denial should be enough for the both of us anyway. We are going to help each other get over all the other lovers who made us want to lay down and die. We are going to help each other get over all the other lovers who stuck those spears so deep into our sides. Now I am just being selfish. Look at all the harm I have done. I will understand if you do not want to mention me to anyone. We will wipe the slate clean. You can ride tucked away in the back seat. The last thing that I want is to hurt your reputation. We helped each other get over all the other lovers, but what will happen when you do not want to be mine? We helped each other get over all the other lovers. The best ones pass through your glass just like wine. Back to top Pablo Picasso Postcards from Spain do not come every day. I hope you feel okay as you throw them away. They would not burn, so I tore them in pieces and buried them in mud where moonlight reaches with fingers and photons to a rock pile that grows. It was smaller when we sat there ages ago and talked out our problems while I kissed cigarettes. You have made a mess now that you will grow to regret. I lay on my back and watch planes slowly overhead, crawling lit across the sky. Soon I will be so dead. Soon I will be so far away on interstates flying with aeroplanes and fighting for anything, but now I am an industry sick with productivity. I am cold with the delivery of truths that you will not see, but truth is not pure: I can not see everything. I can not say everything. I am a human being. I am buried in mud now with Pablo Picasso. I am painted in white, all covered in gesso. I am all cured from sin and pure from all this apathy. I am wounded within by a guilt (there is a guilt from everything). Every word that I am saying has significance. Do not pass them off as mere happenstance. Do not pass me off to your bastard friends. Love is more than just chemicals and circumstance. I lay on my back and watch planes slowly overhead, crawling lit across the sky. Soon I will be so dead. Back to top Strange Perfume Friends do not help friends when they are down. There are so many nights these days when friends can not be found and I have silent messages to leave on the beeping tapes of telephone machines. I wish I had not come along to upset you. I wish I had not come along to infect you with my heart of gold (it is cold and highly prized). You could pound it to nothing if you tried, and you could purify it with the heat of your body every night, but I will not let you get that close because life is just not right if you are not good and used to being alone. I go to bed each night so confused. Everyone here wears the same strange perfume. It intoxicates my heart and it waters my eyes. It makes me weave all these stories into lies, and I am not a man to tell untruths. I am trying to be a man (on the deathbed of my youth). I will be gone soon, and you will be fine. We will both be so much stronger in time. I will be a corpse, young and dead in Georgia, sucking life through packs of filters and some sort of book I have read or only heard of. Jerome wrote out our lives and then he deserted us, but we are going to get rid of these memories and they will not hurt us anymore. They are a millstone around our necks, but they will not burden us because I am walking out the door. I am sitting in my car and turning over engines until my taillights are so far away. I think some reeds on my harp are frozen because, honey, these are not the notes that I would have chosen. Frost on my windshield makes it look a little broken, but maybe this is all for the best. Let us hope that this is all for the best. Back to top Cradled A crowd is singing. My ears are joyfully ringing, but she is not interested in my childish, anonymous dreams. She is cradling her cello as I have always wanted to be cradled. The big dipper, tonight, is an overfull ladle, dispensing April rain and thick, black springtime sky. I take mine like medicine, but it chokes you and makes you cry. The crowd disperses (still quietly humming verses), but I am not interested. I am still thinking of her movements. She cradled her cello as I have always wanted to be cradled. The big dipper, tonight, is an overfull ladle, dispensing April rain and thick, black springtime sky. I have had my fill of darkness, but you will use it to paint your eyes. It runs down your cheeks. It has been doing that all week. I think I know what I have done, but that does not mean that I know how to speak, because she cradled her cello as I have always wanted to be cradled. The big dipper, tonight, is an overfull ladle, dispensing April rain and thick, black springtime sky. We will let it soak us through, and then wait until later to wonder "Why?" (not tonight). We do not need that tonight. No, not tonight. We do not need that tonight. Back to top ------------------------------------------------------ 1999 I held a girl; it was 1999. Her red curls still burn in my mind. She was 19 and my heart overflowed. But, Christine, where did my innocence go? Feeling was so easy then. I exhaled when she held my hand. Feeling was so easy then. Now I just feel so damned. My memories bring numbness. They make me guilty of too many regrets. I know of pills to stop depression. Maybe morning will bring a new impression. Feeling will be easy then, when the sun breaks over trees. It will be so easy then, in the residual cloud of sleep. Eventually, I will awake. Back to top Stained Glass Break me off at the branch. Twist me off on a whim. Send me elsewhere, sweet. Don't you mind where I have been. I have no hope but that which you encompass. You are stained glass, and I am your buttress. Break me off at the branch. Twist me off on a whim. Plant me elsewhere, sweet. I won't be so hopeless then. I have no hope but that which you encompass. You are stained glass, and I am your buttress. Back to top Shivering Cold Yesterday I visited Tereza again, and it is amazing how close you can feel to old friends. She lay down with me in mud (she was shivering cold). She spoke and said, "Lover, you are looking so old." She told me that friendship, at its best, is just death, and love, well, that is shorthand for ‘cardiac arrest’. I am all dead in my chest and my right arm hoping that you do not come to any harm. God was angry. God hid from me. I transgressed. I transgressed. What a mess. What a mess. So now I sow salt in the soil of mine enemies. Yes, did not God give me over to mine iniquity? I kissed her mouth in some Pavlovian mishap, but she will explode when she hits the road just like a dying cigarette. But I will be fine. I will be fine. I will be fine with one fist on the prayer book and one on the red wine. God was angry. God hid from me. I transgressed. I transgressed. What a mess. What a mess. Today left me feeling disappointed and blessed. I received a letter in the mail, it had no return address. It smelled like an offer, but it read like much less. I think that forgetting all of this would be for the best. Back to top