helicopters
helicopters circling the sky ambulances painting streets with orange and yellow lights the television broadcasts from the scene tells another technicolour tragedy … so why try to deny the good in life when it never makes headlines … heard them playing last week at the show they were singing songs that were better than the shit playing on the radio …
so why try to deny the good in life when it never makes headlines … helicopters circling the sky ambulances painting streets with orange and yellow and blue and red and violet and white
memory
you creep up to me like a long forgotten dream and i explore your existence in my memory we are all that is around us i am all i’ve ever seen and if you were ever really here you must be somewhere inside me … i search myself for a still frame of your smile and although i can’t touch it i know you were here for awhile … the very thought of you is haunting the memory of your kiss the way it can taste like leaves falling in the autumn
to a symphony of fireflies and crickets and when the sun hangs on the horizon resting in the tops of the golden trees i will wait for you to slip into the night when the boughs break … i can’t bear the weight of you in my dreams a being complete with no means to be and with every sigh of laughter i smell you on my breath the feel of your movements in every step … memory is the only afterlife i’m certain and i am a living legacy cause you are nestled in my brain next to the circuits that move my hands and my mouth and my legs … and when i touch myself i’m sure that you are touching me cause in my mind you are still moving and in me you breathe
just for the night
rock and roll disco or soul whatever’s on the dance floor i love the way the whole room sways when you walk through the door
and i can’t hide my love … i look at you on the edge of the room the starlight in your eyes i love the way it illuminates the tragedies inside … like every kiss you had was faulted and every lie they told was clean and as we’re standing in the middle of a mess we’ll know exactly what we need … so why don’t we crawl into the night leave all our fears and faults behind cause i want to love you right won’t care in the morning if it was just for the night … lies and love you never dreamed of failing out your fate take my hand i understand now we can blow this place and you can prove your love … and every kiss you’ll give is perfect and every truth i’ll tell is clean and as we’re lying in the middle of a mess we’ll know exactly what we mean … so why don’t we crawl into the night leave all our fears and faults behind cause i want to love you right won’t care in the morning if anyone else thinks it’s alright … i’ll give you what you need if you just come with me
meltdown
just another silver-lined morning the sun backlights the clouds and every crayola city blends in the great meltdown … a great chain of alarms call for another nine to five and the people turn on their tvs to check the temperature outside … it’s gonna be cold here indefinitely you best keep your eyes on the sidewalk and your hands in your sleeves keep humming the same song that keeps you warm and clean in your restless slumber the american dream … ooh in this monstrous place between what i say and what i really mean i fall in love with a melody that ravenous tune of what could be … well the street lamps line the sidewalks as if to light us the way and every beam reaches for the earth and points to our graves … and the church has its steeple reaching out with its bell and the hours toll through the city like pennies ringing in a wishing well … they keep feeding us dimes for our jukebox thoughts in a quarter of a century have you ever really talked keep humming the same song that keeps you warm and clean in your restless slumber the american dream … oh the glory of freedom yes the glory of freedom where i can stay out late and i can sing out loud and i can stay up late and paint the town and i can go to church and lose my faith and i can light a fire as long as it’s contained and i can go to work and come home and go to bed and i can get a wife and kids and die a happy man
lullabye
this road is worn in the soles of my shoes taken all my raw edges and rubbed them smooth and as i’m sitting here thinking
that there’s nothing to do i got so much freedom i can hardly move … so mother may i take this dress off you know what a thorn it’s been in my side and as i’m standing here reaching with my arms at my sides i’m thinking i’m so alone i could die … so long it’s time to send them softly on the furry winds with a sweet kiss goodbye so long my little butterfly just pull the night in your wings we’ll say goodbye … so mother may i take this brain off you know that it’s tearing me up inside and as i’m standing here sleeping with my eyes open wide i’m thinking i’m so alone i could die
alphabet soup
the clouds are forming spoons of letters in the alphabet soup sky and all the birds they flock together and punctuate your sigh like inverse stars peppering a great white lie … and all the aeroplanes before you cross in kamikaze lines leaving all the message trails behind them to break up in the lemon shine the day glo halo pyre … and now the sky is liquid lady melting and she’s pulling off her skirts and layering smoke signal cotton upon the ragged earth like whitewash words could cover dirt … so go ahead and tell yourself this is just a dream and keep sleepwalking along in your rem mind frame you say that you’ve got lucid fingers that weave the richest tapestries you’re in control of the whole world but only when you … sleep little girl and dream all the world into your fantasy your secret reality even the palest of lies cannot be disguised when you sleep
electrical sun
lying in a meadow on the moon watching the earth come up cresting the horizon of a lunar sea like a phoenix bird so why does it seem everything is more brilliant than me when it’s all just a flash of ash and flame … standing on the edge of a sun stretching my arms across the length of every speck of dust that makes up the universe so why does it seem everything is bigger than me when we’re all just a maze of simple lines drawn up in complicated ways … electrical sun illuminate us all … standing on the edge of your thought stretching my mind across to touch the universal spark that washes over us so why does it seem everything is separate from me when we’re all just white-capped waves sailing on an undivided sea … electrical sun illuminate us
tattoo
saturday walked in wearing a rain cloud on her skin but she showed us a smile as if to say it’s all been worth her while and i wish i could say that i felt the same … tuesday stopped by he was wearing a thorn in his side he said i know it’s a sight but it’s the one thing i’d never try to hide and i wish i had sworn that i had the same thing to report … but i’m wearing your tattoo
in spite of all the pain you put me through and so for what remains i guess it was worth a little pain … wednesday walked past she was treading on fire and broken glass she said i know it’s a pain but for where i’m going it’s the only way and i wish i could say that i knew a better way
white noise
origami dragon boy
origami dragon boy
how i’d love to unfold
all your pretty
white noise
while you can
remember the whistle in the summer sky the way california feels at midnight remember the sunrise orange blossom breeze and the way the stars shine in the arms of the joshua trees … every diamond light a promise of what our charcoal love might be like … kiss me while you can take one more taste of who i am
remember the bitterness that stays and kiss me again and walk away … remember the thistle in the cold cathedral sky and how bare the bells sound at midnight … every diamond light a promise of what our charcoal love might be like … kiss me while you can take one more taste of who i am remember the bitterness that stays and kiss me again and why don’t you walk away … don’t kiss me again just walk away
*all lyrics from wanderlust, copyright 2004
laura burhenn. all rights reserved.*