1. |
Where?
01:12
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Q: “Where is Mount Eerie and how do I get there and how long’s the walk and what should I bring?”
A: Mount Eerie is nowhere. Mount Eerie is playing tonight.
Q: “Where is the concert and will it be all ages and what time are doors and how much’s it cost?”
A: The concert is nowhere. There is only one sky.
Q: “I accept the invitation. I would like to ‘fulfill the pregnant night’. Where should I set my stuff up?”
A: Those things are not yours and tonight you will be taken in dark arms.
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2. |
Calf In Pasture
01:37
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Every time my knees shake when I stand I think,
“Let me stay in this uncertainty”.
I would like to not stop asking.
I would like to stop pretending I know anything.
So if you see me acting strong at the show remind me
about the calf shaking in the pasture in the bright spring.
There under the roofs I will have nothing
but the wind that’s blowing through my ears.
Only for a minute we could give up
and know nothing in the morning light.
Because knowing nothing again is the only way
I can forget the weight I’ve been tricked under
and see it doesn’t exist
because nothing exists for a glass of water in the lake.
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3. |
the Intimacy
04:40
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The only reason I am moved seeing clouds and hills mingle
is because
the intimacy of the world otherwise stays hidden
even though I know it’s there
(in animals calling
in the cave overflowing
in the food I’ve built on
in the song of the bat
and in rotting bodies unfolding)
I am touched each time I can see hand holding.
Mist
married to branches
married to me with my eyes,
stopping my work for a moment to say
“What a generous place is unveiling here!”
and
“We have enough.”
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4. |
I Whale
02:48
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So I set out on the sea
with a little food for me
and a sharp harpoon for the whale that I’m hunting.
The fine women on the shore
called out “Give us more”
but I had nothing to give, as if I did before.
Before my house burned down last night
and I killed my friends in a fight.
So, like I said, I paddled out in mourning light
to see if I could see
the shape come from the deep
or if I could hear its song of love at night taunt me
and though I know I’m getting some
my fingers are getting numb.
I sit and toss and the cold waves wash over me
and I’ve been out here for 60 days.
There’s no sign of spout or spray
and the cold dark night falls down on the flat black sea.
In the calm I close my eyes.
I lean back and rock from side to side.
I am placid. I have slowly gone starry skies
with half closed eyes.
But with a thump thump beneath my boat
watch the water rise
and storms rage!
and my skiff crumbles!
and the whale beneath assails and humbles
and says “Knock knock from beneath.
You know it’s me. I’m your heart.
I’m a whale on the bottom of the deep black sea.
My mouth is wide and toothy.”
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5. |
O My Heart
03:01
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What I find will be found easily and only when I’m not looking for it,
without looking for the morning in the sunset
and like this, my will to live hides implied in my heart beating,
without looking for fulfillment but accepting it.
What’s this?
Are you my heart and are you thumping?
O my heart! O there you are.
I had stopped hunting.
I thought you would be as big as a whale.
My nets were knit. My harpoons armed,
my hunting ship sailed.
O my heart! O there you are,
mouse nest in my hair.
O little heart!
O sleepy heart, what do you say?
Should we keep loving?
(“yes”)
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6. |
instrumental
02:10
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7. |
Where Is My Tarp?
03:56
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I can not sink into your bed tonight.
I have to go.
My arms have to row.
Your bed is soft. Your face is sweet and your gaze is true.
Your eyes are blue
but mine see through.
Where lies my tarp tonight?
Where lies my sunrise? Where my heart?
There is a ball of fire above your house.
You squirm and coo.
I’m petting you.
But there is a ball of fire inside my chest.
I’m a mirror moon.
You black lagoon.
I’m a birch canoe.
I’m a wind that blew.
I’m a migrating moose
on the prairie, loose.
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8. |
Don't Smoke
02:54
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Is it because there’s a little part of you that wants to be dead?
Or is it because your life feels empty without some ritual?
Or is it because the rebellion against the adults hasn’t ended yet?
Well, the adults sell cigarettes
and you have the ritual of waking up each day
and it will fill you.
There’s no excuse to start smoking.
Where is the rebellion in acting like a fuck up?
Why not embrace simple health?
It’s obvious there is work to do, strong and deliberately.
We are the ones. We have to do it.
No more parents or gods taking responsibility,
living in the world on your own,
there’s no punishment.
Only knowing what to do, no excuses.
The time is now. Do not wait. Go.
Improve yourself right now.
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9. |
Get Off The Internet
02:11
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Listen to me:
Get off the internet.
We are the ones who are alive right now so let’s start living.
We’re obsessed with “freedom”
and living easy lives
but what use is an easy life, hungry and blind?
The hollow core,
the crawling hunting,
indulging your weakest parts and still you’re hungry.
Why not wake the fuck up?
and smell the air outside
and do a little real work and come back to life.
Clean out the fridge.
Take out the garbage.
Sweep the floor.
Open the doors and windows.
Read the news.
Shut up about music.
Ask a stupid question.
Stop feeling too ignorant.
This is the one world where we live, curious and busy.
As the world is ending
can I survive this cold dawn?
At least I can sit here in the street, exhaling and strong.
Clean up the mess.
Get off the internet.
We are the ones who are alive right now so let’s start living.
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10. |
Cooking
01:43
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Maybe it’s not fair to expect so much from you
young people of the modern megastate.
The adults have always brought you food
so you won’t know who to ask how to cook
when it’s time to walk into the night alone.
When you walk into the night alone
unbury the hunger you were born with.
It will show you where dinner is hiding.
In the branches, the pools, in the beasts, in the world,
in the corners of the dark foundation.
When you’re hungry beneath the full moon
in the dark belly of the modern megastate
try to imagine that you were just born there.
Try to imagine that you could be in the world
and the world could be in you
and cooking food will be easy.
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11. |
Give Totally Up
02:19
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If you can manage to give totally up,
to go limp, to go tender
(surrender)
your body will hold together.
I know it seems like you’d be torn apart
be ripped up and rendered.
But don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid!
Don’t believe them when they say
that you have to fight for what is right
or what you think is right
because if you manage to give totally up
you’re sprawled out in splendor.
Just try to fight that, raise your arms,
feel your muscles slosh around
your whirlpool center.
If you can manage to give totally up,
to be known as “Great Befriender”
or “Sender”
your loss, your endless loss,
will treat you to treasure.
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12. |
Do Not Be Afraid
00:51
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(LEFT SIDE)
Do not be afraid.
Your arms are wrapped around
in claps your hands resound
your feet, they map the ground
you have night vision
your whole body
when it’s jostled
will spend time
rolling over
will spend time
in the mountains
(RIGHT SIDE)
You can not get away.
There’s nothing to do.
The fear will be blinding.
It’s not meant to be
this uphill way.
Empty windows
empty doors
around corners
a feast in the dark!
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13. |
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It’s not meant to be a strife.
It’s not meant to be a struggle uphill.
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14. |
Cold Mountain
03:30
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Open handed, I tried to live
among all people with ideas aloft.
Open handed, I read the books.
I learned the histories. I sang the songs.
Until the mountain bellowed
that my friends are flawed,
to not forget sorrow
and all the other gods,
that my mouth is dirty
and my ears are clogged,
and of course that I’m flawed also
and then it stopped.
Open handedness had me in its grasp,
running around frantically,
anxiously showing off.
“Hope, unhand me!” I finally yelped.
“Let me dwell on bad news. Let me wallow in it.”
and so came long nights
and hunkering down
and there stood cold mountain
with its trickling sound.
When I reached the summit
I made no camp
but I unrolled my sleeping bag in the stream
and I let the cold water there pour in my ears.
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15. |
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INSPIRED BY THIS POEM BY HAN SHAN (COLD MOUNTAIN):
I see people chanting sutras
relying on the words of others
mouths at work without their minds
mouths and minds at odds
the mind in truth contains no tangles
it creates no walls or chains
just examine your own self
don’t look for a stand-in
he who masters his own mouth
knows there’s no inside or out
(translated by Red Pine)
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16. |
Heart Lake At Night
01:23
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I see the light from your flashlight
light the bags in the back of your car
at the edge of the lake.
I hear the sound of your voice
saying words to itself in the dark
from across the water.
I feel wet rock on my palm
and there’s a thorn near my ankle
and there is wind.
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17. |
You Turn Me On
03:33
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Back of the woods with the fire blowing
behind the barn burning slowly
set the fire, set the timber
burn it down to ash and cinder.
Turn me on dead man.
You turn me on.
Back of the house, down the steps
under the cellar door we crept
prop the doors, prop the windows
set a match to scarecrow tinder.
Turn me on dead man.
You turn me on.
Out of my head, out of my tree,
out of my skull-trip, out of me.
Burn down the house, burn down the barn
burning down the entire farm
cross the fields’ fallow garden
watch the scarecrow, forever autumn.
Turn me on dead man.
You turn me on.
Will we done, we’ll keep our bargain
you and I forever autumn.
Turn me on dead man.
You turn me on.
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18. |
A Sentimental Song
02:32
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When was the last time you drew a picture?
When was the last time you touched a leaf?
When was the last time you tasted raindrops,
on your tongue
on your big long tongue
When was the last time you bought a hotdog?
When was the last time you swam in a pond?
When was the last time you climbed a lampost
like a monkey
with a prehensile tail
When was the last time you wrote a limerick?
When was the last time you told a lie?
Why is there a picture of a penis
on your fridge door?
It makes me feel awkward
when ever I’m in your kitchen
When was the last time you ate a doughnut?
When was the last time you whistled a tune?
When was the last time you tortured a spider
and pulled off its legs
and ate it
to impress your friends
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19. |
Mystery Language
01:57
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I can take off my head
and so can my dad
in the grocery store
it falls onto the floor
we laugh about it sometimes
just take it up to the
counter pay for it by the
pound I got the money in my
pocket I found the money
on the ground
bdellium, onyx, gold
is there pick it
up and put it down
just like a head
cause I don’t need it
I am filled by your mystery
language I open my throat
and my ears clear
I can hear the blood and the
ocean take off your shirt
lift up your skirt
take off my head
put it in your bed
speak to me in your
tongues of fire
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20. |
Waterfalls
02:04
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In my most hopeless days
lost in pitch black caves
there’s waterfalls
and dripping stone walls.
It’s so perfect and amazing
so you may only naively believe
there’s waterfalls
and all perspectives.
When you see the light
or go for walks at night
there’s waterfalls
but you can stay dry.
In the universe
or in the death and birth
I always wonder
at each, my mother.
Right before I die
or start to tell a lie
there is a spark
drowned out.
In my heart’s hiding place
there is a moonlit lake
and there are waterfalls
on the way down there.
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21. |
This Is The Same Ocean
00:46
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This is the same ocean where blue whales dive.
This is the same ocean that fell on white mountains.
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22. |
In The Rain
03:08
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With the rain comes the roar of machinery (kissing)
with the rain comes the look out from my eye (human)
that I am standing in it
and each drop on my skin
the way it touches me awake into the night.
The rain in the night acts like a midwife.
The rain in the night lets out a cry.
It says “Good morning human.
With each drop on your skin
unexpectedly the flood and you are tied.”
The water pouring through the world revealing
sogginess and mold and mountain ice
bad traffic in grey rain
my wild mansion brain
all being kissed awake, allowed no place to hide
from the roaring flood, the surge of food and beverage
(through me)
trying to lie down in the ditch and spend the night
the feeling on your face
just before the dawn, the rain
and then the dawn, and then the going into life
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23. |
In Moonlight
04:42
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Walking down the road in the middle of the night
singing this song to myself:
“I will find you”.
The wind goes through my clothing
saying “I will find you.”
Not even knowing what I’m looking for
by walking in the dark,
my life is saying one thing:
“I will find you.”
Then all of a sudden there was a light.
I saw my shadow on the ground.
I thought a car was coming.
I turned around and there was no car.
It was me revealed in moonlight.
What I find will be found easily and only when I’m not looking for it,
without looking for the morning in the sunset
and like this, my will to live hides implied in my heart beating,
without looking for fulfillment but just accepting it.
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24. |
Thanksgiving
02:52
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I give thanks again that long nights, though they’re lonely,
they’re lit by stars, they end with suns that climb
and the moon will back me up on this. Just look up.
“But the moon won’t take you out to wine and dine.”
I know, but there her hand is on my shoulder.
“But every evening we still hear you whine and whine.”
I know, I know, but, like a sibling, I neglect her
but we have no choice. I’m hers and she is mine
and she is yours and you are hers and we’re each other’s.
“Oh shut up, Phil. You’re just shouting empty rhymes.”
I know. The world is alone.
This light’s on loan until we have grown
old enough to pay it back with our gruesome rotting
and our lives are just long saggings of the spine
so here I sit, hunched over my candle in the dark night,
thanks giving, here I hug my sorrow tight.
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25. |
instrumental
01:30
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26. |
Uncertainty
01:33
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Go out of your house before you go to the bedroom.
Go out the door and into the night.
Walk past the parked car. Walk past the neighbors’.
Walk past the darkened corner
where, seeing nothing,
the wild air says “good night”.
Alone and never showing,
at the edge of the street light light
with one foot in the cold air
the death and delight of not knowing
where your certainty comes from.
Half of your body is hidden from sight.
Your eyes have finished adjusting
and still you’re surrounded by
an ocean of black.
There are sounds now from all sides.
Go back to your house and go to the bedroom.
Go to bed having smelled the night.
This is how uncertainty holds us.
On the street in the wind,
in a blanket in the snow,
saying “Don’t get used to it.”
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27. |
Limp Climbing
01:34
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I say “cling to rocks”
and I mean “hold my hand”.
Be climbing.
I say “fall asleep”
and I mean “sun come up”.
Sun climbing.
I say “find a way”
and I mean “fall asleep”.
Be gliding.
I say “trip and fall”
and I mean “limp and grand”.
Do not be afraid
of a pillow of snow.
I know it’s not as warm out there
but your skin will get warm.
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28. |
Grave Robbers
01:35
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Change your way of limping
around the world
because you know what will come soon:
a real broken leg
and you know this will come true
you can’t get away.
Daylight, dawn and evening
around the world
and you know what we’ll come to.
Do I have to say?
Everybody will eat you.
Every body robs graves
and our ghosts stay forever confined
in wherever we haunt
and hopelessly want to
but can’t get away
and our bones do blow away
in pink light.
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29. |
Lost Wisdom
06:44
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I got close enough to the river that I couldn’t hear the trucks
but not close enough to stop the roaring of my mind:
“These rocks don’t care if I live or die.”
“Everyone I know will finally turn away.”
“I will confuse and disinterest all posterity.”
Lost wisdom is a quiet echo.
Lost wisdom by the edge of the stream at dusk
is a quiet echo on loud wind.
With one hand in the water wanting cold and clear,
fog obliterates the morning and I don’t know where I am.
The heart is pounding and you are always on my mind.
Lost wisdom is a quiet echo.
Lost wisdom: a boulder under the house.
I used to know you. Now I don’t.
The screaming wind said my name I think, significant and dark.
My lost face in the mirror at the gas station.
Who are you above my face that I wake up with alone?
Lost wisdom: approaching shape in the low light.
You thought you knew me. You thought our house was home.
I thought I knew myself. I thought my heart was calm.
Thunder, lightning, tidal wave, the wind blew down the door.
Lost wisdom: the river goes through the room.
I saw your picture out of nowhere and forgot what I was doing.
Everything vanished in your eclipse, broad and lost.
A constellation of moments comes to life in the void.
Lost wisdom: face down under the moss.
Enraptured by the beautiful face in the billowing flames,
I opened the front and back door and let the wind blow through
and I stood in the house and tried to hold the breeze.
Lost wisdom: waking up in a pile of ash.
Secret knowledge comes to me in the dusk.
You showed me the river and I saw me.
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30. |
(wind lyrics)
05:14
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31. |
Small House
01:32
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Ever since I have been so involved
in loving the feeling of keeping a small house warm and clean
I’m not always aware
that there are stars above stars
just above that ceiling
or that the rain gushing
throws the trash into the street
or that the wind in the dark parking lots
at this moment
holds a leaf to the fence.
I sort of remember the world
but my small house is glowing.
A car playing music
drives by the window
while I’m washing dishes in the vast night.
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Mount Eerie Anacortes, Washington
on Lummi, Samish, Klallam, Tulalip and W̱SÁNEĆ land
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