One thousand fathoms of water (lyrics)

Drifting slow in one thousand fathoms of water

where do you go, when i'm left overthrown
in broken beds, my winter homes
to lay down alone while you turn back to smoke and you fall.
you float down like ghosts.
your leaves and your skin, and your songs
asunder and below.

to leave me with glows, with cold thrashing bones
to float through your rooms
(when i could know you)

Appalachia

dangling, of gentle stars,
your pages fell in fevers far
i’d shake you off like a vapor ghost
like all your storms.

don’t let me falter, fall
my swollen sides collapse as one
to be bashed down on walls and coasts.
you’re composed white, of a stolen sky,
in faded ways and sworn to dying.
it’s not mine.

it’s not mine to own, just a sigh to show
so retire to your canopies of snow.

in tidal waves and ghosts of things,
you appear and steal away.
to fracture fast in all my traps,
my well worn sins to hold unread.

where are you now? in winds and falls,
cast away and rained upon?
to sleep so soft in stony dreams
to hide from me
to hide alone

it’s not mine to own, just a sigh to show
so retire your body and bones to your canopies of snow

Of Foxes

lover, i'm an empty sea, a waking dream
that can't be kept too far
a mouth of tangled branches caught
me cold and caught me knowing nothing more

it's not a sigh drifting by
dreams like winter foxes hiding fast
in hearts and chests, your favorite words
were bested once again, so you said.

everything will change
in clocks and hands, our twisted spines
left crying and untied
i know everything is kept alive
in warmer words
dispersing all the time.
and how will i know you while
you disappear, you disappear, you disappear

i wanted you to float away like petals
torn, a whisper disarrayed,
to drift about, in corners, doors
of greyest rooms that all would lay before
open, unadorned

everything will change
our twisted spines, all burning bright,
left crying and untied

i know everything is kept alive
in warmer words
dispersing all the time, but how would i?

you disappear

Lulls

i hear your songs in restless homes
to lay me to rest with lulls and poems
at the foot of ancient stairs
wrapped in rags of ancient beds

we separate in dreams
to float between twin seas
with sparrow’s spans and wings
swallowed by a wave
and cradled back to sleep

i fade from these simple rooms
to haunt all the streets
to sing of
simpler things

Magpies

it’s a cold morning my dear, and you linger everywhere,
in winter's blush all weathered fair,
to float around my bed, like a demon wrapped in red
with my stories all engraved down your spine

i don’t want to be left unknown,
to crumble with the slightest of snows,
and we return like all the birds
to homes that we would know.
i’m unstitched, threaded, still, by your will,
by your will,
but i will.
i will, i will. i will.

we collect by every stream, all plain and white as me,
keep your wars from me, your feathers to keep,
i will be a suitor unto thee, in broken blackened wings,
unfit for courts or kings.

in feathers faded black of a magpie just like me,
trapped in currents deep
with no warning songs to sing.

i don’t want to be left alone,
a single cell in a silent storm.
and we return like all the birds
to homes that we would know.
i’m unstitched, threaded, still, by your will,
by your will, but i will.
i will, i will. i will.

Asunder

a child like me
white as
a sheet
in blackest forests
howling
pure and cold, in every
gentle dream

(in frozen days i return fall to silent ways i have known)

Stables

you come to me as a dancer or thief,
in the gentlest of scenes,
in whitest of dresses all torn at shoulder and seam

and i'm crouched down and worn
a crow or child like me
without branches or boughs to lay down asleep

i won't pose a fight, or smother a light
that trembles and sighs
behind gentle eyes, without a demise,
a locked door, or "goodbye"

and i fall through the roof
and a morning pours in
around stables or beds of
the weariest names
so familiar to me

i arrive like blistering winds
through opening doors
and sounds of your skin,
warm blushes of springs all unpunctured and thin,
unremembered and hid,
all marked like a map
for oceans i’ve known and things left unkept.

i disable my traps
and my body drifts down and forsakes all the land
till i return and i sing of things all unseen
and forgotten by, by me.