The
Whiles.

Mary takes your hand
And leads you through the streets
Through the markets outside
The cathedral
Therein your heart and hands go dry
Could you ever be my lonesome reply

Through a church’s open doors
You can hear your desires
Echoed by the strains of a choir
The ribbons in her clothes
You’ve wished to untie
Could you ever be my lonesome reply

You can hear her hum a tune
As through her eyes you can see
Leaves turning crimson on a nearby tree
Seasons rust
And love and life die
Could you ever be my lonesome reply

The last train leaves
At a quarter to nine
She says we best soon leave
Lest we soon lose our minds
Therein lies both a truth and a lie
Could you ever be my lonesome reply

Could you ever tell a beautiful lie
Stab a cripple man
In the thigh
Run a needle
Through a blind man’s eye
Could you ever be my lonesome reply
Could you ever be my lonesome reply
Could you ever be my lonesome reply

Where we go when we’re lonely
Beyond where the west wind blows
Sometimes when alone
I sit upon a throne
Enchanted with a sense of suffering

But you hear the harp playing at my window
As the fingers of the air move across
Thread the words your eyes write
Through the needle of the night
Weave away while I sing to you

That I’m waiting for your love
I’ve been waiting for your love so long
I can’t remember when
I started

Let me sleep in your doorway
Let me change every bone that you don’t like
See what you can do
I won’t say I need you
But oh I need you

You’re a shadow that I dreamt I found
And I’m lost in the absence of your light
I’m lost upon the earth
I’m lost upon the night
Twenty summers burnt into my brow

I’m waiting for your love
I’ve been waiting for your love so long
I can’t remember when
I started

The northern sky is never ending
The firmament of heaven is well hid
You can look as long as you
Want or wish or choose
And it would all be so vain

So let us sing hallelujah
Let us watch the sky turn from grey to blue
I’m bending on my knees can you hear me begging please
Blow away this sense of suffering

I’m waiting for your love
I’ve been waiting for your love so long
I can’t remember when
I started

Still tiger sighs
With the violets in your eyes
The sky will never fall
And the ground will never rise
There’s a stillness around you
Raging like a hurricane around you
Oh the chaos clamoring around me
Crashes against your heart in vain

Take the last train and never hear my voice
Inside your ears
Oh I need you now and I
Oh I need you now and I
Oh I need you now and I’ve
Never needed you more

Brown haired girl with
The silence about your eyes
Could you tell me all the stories
About the pain in your disguise
It’s just a mask that you wear
Maybe a passing thing you guess
Oh I want to feel the fate
Of you opening your gate

Take the last train and never hear my voice
Inside your ears
Oh I need you now and I
Oh I need you now and I
Oh I need you now and I’ve
Never needed you more

Take the last train and never hear my voice
Inside your ears
Oh I need you now and I
Oh I need you now and I
Oh I need you now and I’ve
Never needed you more

Arise, arise, arise, arise
And taste
The sweetness of
The morning

Your eyes, your eyes, your eyes, your eyes
Can’t
Veil the sorrow
In your mind

Leave your burdens
In the darkness
And curse
The twilight no more

Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes
I wonder if
I’ll make it to
The morning

At night, at night
The stars
All tremble
Like the wind

Leave your burdens
In the darkness
And curse
The twilight no more

Am I? Am I? Am I? Am I?
So sad
Why am I
So sad?

Arise, arise, arise, arise
And taste
The sweetness of
The morning

Bend the bough
And break the sky
Hear the Jew’s harp’s distant cry
Echo as the street lights glow
Beneath the sky

Shadows obscure all sense of shape
Annie will you mend this
Desolate ache
Forgive me like the night
Forgives the dawn

Walk on water now
Walk on fire
Crumble in the heat now
Stumble in desire
I’m but a ghost when
I am here with you

She said to cradle the night with an open palm
Is to let your rage
Now fade to calm
Stick with me until
The sun sets now

And though I’d draw the blood
Of a well worn king
I’d rather stay next to her and sing
A song that leads you to dance
At my front door

Walk on water now
Walk on fire
Crumble in the heat now
Stumble in desire
I’m but a ghost when
I am here with you

Will the meek inherit or sink
Like a stone
Will I still sense sorrow when I’m alone
Stick with me until the sun sets now

White wedded words flow upon your shore
The river runs slow and Babylon’s whore
Is singing in a tongue
That I can’t hear

Walk on water now
Walk on fire
Crumble in the heat now
Stumble in desire
I’m but a ghost when
I am here with you

Will you rest in my arms
When my eyes are bound by dark
Does my conscious rise in vain
Like a muted meadow lark

Come on will you try
Come on will you try
Come on will you try
And find the dawn

The language of your heart
Is a haunting revelry
I wish to hear its sound
Wake inside of me

Come on will you try
Come on will you try
Come on will you try
And find the dawn

Will you take my withered hand
When my age has grown wild
Take my arm and take me to
The windows covered in frost
And when sadness grows across my brow
Like vines in a cold stone wall
Will you break a crack in the grains
And let the light come through

Come on will you try
Come on will you try
Come on will you try
And find the dawn

Take the parts of me you like the least
Smother till they foam like a choking beast
The dew rests on the leaves and I
Seek the renewed life of spring
And all the misguided promises it brings

Don’t let me down
Don’t let me down

My spirit foments the veiled regrets
Pulse vibrates, an all-in bet
Shovel our chips in the center
This might be too much
Spinning around the carousel of self-doubt

Now I want let down
Don’t let me down
Don’t let me down

Don’t let me down
Don’t let me down
Don’t let me down
Don’t let me down
Don’t let me down
Don’t let me down

Please lay waste to the landscape in my heart
I promise not to fall apart
Let my fingers cling to the grips that hang
Out from the dark rings in your eyes
Oh, tell me lies
Oh, tell me that
You won’t let me down

Driving alone at four in the morning
Through the darkened streets of new year's eve
The wind blows the snow ghostly over the frozen street
The stars are hid in heaven's sleeve

There's a last trace
Of the last snow of the year
And though you may be at my side
It feels like you're not here

And this year you'll try and
Be a better person, I nod as though I'll do the same
Oh how much I wish that you were still a stranger
You'd wave goodbye I'd ask for your name

There's a last trace
Of the last snow of the year
And though you may be at my side
It feels like you're not here

Driving alone at four in the morning
Through the darkened streets of new year's eve

There's a last trace
Of the last snow of the year
And though you may be at my side
It feels like you're not here

Stranded on a city sidewalk
No one in front of me and no one left behind
The clouds are starting to unwind

We've welded shut the gates of hell they've
Chopped the vines we'd climb up to the sky
So here we live and here we die

Falling stars they flicker in your eyes

Pirouette for a passing stranger
A crimson rose clenched between your glistening teeth
And on your head an advent wreath

There's a blind man begging in the gutter
Spare an eye what need you now of two
For a luckless wandering Jew

Falling stars they flicker in your eyes
I see them all the time

Fumbling for your wedding ring
Eyes that bless but don't confess
And veil your silent sweet regress

Annie with your green eyes now turned down
Wearing the night like a wedding gown
Black ravens circling around you now
Round your bed and around your brow

Are you in a compromise
Looking into the devil's eyes you say you see
Three shadows swinging from a tree
Is this how you want to live your life
Alone

Annie with your green eyes darkening
A sorrowful beauty like a homeless king
The waters of time rush over and through
And dull the sweetness once in you

Are you in a compromise
Looking into the devil's eyes you say you see
Three shadows swinging from a tree
Is this how you want to live your life
Alone

Christmas lights are strung up over our heads
Throwing down a pallid yellow light on your long black hair
And strangers dancing around us
Our friends blending in with the crowd
What was your name again, this music's so loud

Edinburgh we're riding in a ferris wheel
I'll tell you my middle name if your kiss I can steal
You've got a stare that cuffs my wrists behind my back
And escorts me to police cars waiting in a pack

She came into my room and lay on my bed
I can't recall a single thing she said
And a pillow opened its jaws and swallowed her hair
It just gets better from there

We best head inside these mosquitoes bite
They'll leave us alone you say if only we darken the light
Oh come on babe throw a line don't watch me drown
I see seven windmills turning round your Arabian eyes

She came into my room and lay on my bed
I can't recall a single thing she said
And a pillow opened its jaws and swallowed her hair
It just gets better from there

You've got a stare that turns my bones into dust
Go on your way now I know you must do as you must

So put your finger to the lips of your ghost's desire
Throw a blanket on the flames of eternal fire
And the dust from which you came and your numbered hair
It won't get better from there

All the Spanish Steps lead to the ghost of Abraham
Skeletons and ash all invisible surround us
Oh but what a cost that you pay for everything you love
Silently your mystery is still haunting me

All the streets of Rome are filled with footprints left in the sand
The armies once fought upon the place where you now stand
Oh but what a cost that you pay for everything you love
Silently your mystery is still haunting me

Last night I dreamed two ambulances did collide
The crowd then loot the treasure scattered on the roadside
Oh but what a loss I can sense that you are growing numb
Suddenly your ghost doesn't even recognize me

Apollo is laughing and daphne lie still
The midnight train is breaking my will
And it’s been hours since you have gone to sleep

I should head to bed but I don't feel tired
My mind is long numb but my bones are all wired
Time just stops and starts like a city parade

There's an old iron cross
That hangs from your neck
And a rootless tree that grows in the grass
Ah where can I find you tonight

Sometimes I'm buried deep neath my memory
I think I hear voices but it’s just me
The night is laced with ghosts your face is laced with time

There's an old iron cross
That hangs from your neck
And a rootless tree that grows in the grass
Ah where can I find you tonight

There's an old iron cross
That hangs from your neck
And a rootless tree that grows in the grass
Ah where can I find you tonight

When you were young you kissed the sun
Open-mouthed at noon
And now you only show yourself to the moon

I hear the windows rattle
As you shut the apartment door
And ask me why I'm lying on the floor

The clouds gather round, I feel alone
The clouds blow away, I feel alone
It's nothing to do with you

You say you're so frustrated,
You'll never understand why
I can't just be happy by your side

Your heart is like a rioter
It throws Molotov cocktails,
Over barricades and into my eyes

The clouds gather round, I feel alone
The clouds blow away, I feel alone
It's nothing to do with you

Last night I swear I saw you
Wandering through my backyard
You buried your clothes and threw a gun in the trees

And today you say our kisses
Are like two-dollar bills
A novelty that's hardly worth a thing

Oh I'm ringing like a silver can
Shot by a BB gun
If I could do it all again
I'm not sure I would

Oh I'm reading too much Hemingway
Nursing my fantasies of dying
In a ring in Spain
My blood would mix with sand and rain

It seems so long ago now
We'd somersault through our dreams
It seems so long ago
Now we dance in our memories

Oh the rosary you gave to me
Is something I will always keep
I wrap it round my wrist at night
I fumble with it when I can't sleep

I hope you're doing well
Up there in Montreal
I know there's nothing I
Nothing I can do for you now

It seems so long ago now
We'd somersault through our dreams
It seems so long ago
Now we dance in our memories

You hold a wreath over my head
Whisper in my ear
Remember who you are
And always keep me near

It seems so long ago now
We'd somersault through our dreams
It seems so long ago
Now we dance in our memories

Brown eyes, I want you now brown eyes
’Neath your laugh and over the gypsy moon
Your lips like prison guards and your tongue like a tomb
With a shadow across your waist and a crack on your brow

There you stand in my doorway
So deep in all my memories
There must be a crack somewhere in my veins
This wine doesn't work the way it should

Taking your own life
Taking your own life
My heart is trembling the stars are still
You have a stare that breaks my will in two

Come on, what else do you have to do on a Sunday morning?
Oh I know that I'm not wrong I know

She's a frog with frozen eyes
Teeth in the shade of a beach umbrella
Twelve archers line her apartment balcony
She tells them not to fire their arrows at me

Taking your own life
Taking your own life
My heart is trembling the stars are still
You have a stare that breaks my will in two

Come on, what else do you have to do on a Sunday morning?
Oh I know that I'm not wrong I know

Caroline, all through the summer
I learned to trace the shape of your body
Now I feel paralyzed

Caroline, last night I said too much when I
Said your eyes are the Christmas star
And I am a wandering king

It's so easy to stare at the ceiling fan all day
It's so easy to stare at the ceiling fan all day

I'm not ready
I'm not ready to go home
’Cause I feel so betrayed by you
I feel so betrayed by you
So betrayed by you

We chased our youth through Italian churches
And prayed upon the graves of the martyrs while you
Slow danced with a ghost

It's so easy to stare at the ceiling fan all day
It's so easy to stare at the ceiling fan all day

I'm not ready
I'm not ready to go home
’Cause I feel so betrayed by you
I feel so betrayed by you
So betrayed by you

We walk the streets of Rome
Past the ancient Colosseum
On a night that has made a ghost of me

Corinthian columns seem to make obscene gestures
At the moon
Now I know we're leaving too soon

I know that I can't spend my life
Counting stars that burned out many centuries ago
Don't be long, when you're leaving Italy
Don't be long, when you're leaving me

At home I live my life like an actor reading lines
That he wrote many years ago
The truth comes in shapes that are sometimes hard to take
That don't fit into the life you make

I know that I can't spend my life
Counting stars that burned out many centuries ago
Don't be long, when you're leaving Italy
Don't be long, when you're leaving me

I don’t know which way you expect me to go
Alone every night oh by now you know

And you can’t help it now you’ve got nothing to lose
You can’t help it you’ve got nothing to lose

I wait for you all of my life

And you can’t help it now you’ve got nothing to lose
You can’t help it you’ve got nothing to lose

Waiting for a change to come
Waiting for a change
I hope it comes soon I don’t know how much of this
I can take from you

Days go by so slowly

You can’t help it now you’ve got nothing to lose

My heart is knocking on the doorway of your cheek
Your eyes once tight shut now are starting to leak
Pull me out of the dark where I’ve been a helpless deportee
Bind my infinite dreams with your reality

Roll with the rain rest with the dust
Close your eyes you start to rust
Wounded and wandering a desolate highway
I hear your name the stars fall into array

The world ends abruptly when you rest your hand on my arm
Time will destroy your will but time can’t touch your charm
The stars corrode the sky but I can still trace in your veins
A road that leads to the promise of a dream or at least
What remains

Roll with the rain rest with the dust
Close your eyes you start to rust
Wounded and wandering a desolate highway
I hear your name the stars fall into array

In a room almost dark
Under her breath she destroys you
Half-sunken eyes put holes in your parachute

Blood rises with the mercury
There’s a ghost in the hallway
Dragging her chain and looking at me

Break me to the sound of your radio
I was a searcher now the world
Is full of things I wish I didn’t know

The moon barely hides the things that you’re
Waiting to see
So you work yourself up into a
Comatose reverie

Blood rises with the mercury
There’s a ghost in the hallway
Dragging her chain and looking at me

Break me to the sound of your radio
I was a searcher now the world
Is full of things I wish I didn’t know

Slam the screen door on your restless heart
So hard it cracks and breaks your desires apart

Sometimes you have to set what you love ablaze
Just to shed some light on this dark maze

At least today
Everything is alright
Everything is alright
Everything is alright

Go inside, your tears will freeze in the cold
Midas in reverse—now stay away from my gold

Sometimes you have to set what you love ablaze
Just to shed some light on this dark maze

At least today
Everything is alright
Everything is alright
Everything is alright

Go and tell your friend in the cowboy hat
You can’t take someone seriously
With their head under something like that

I’m covered in blood and dust
And I don’t know how I got here
I see your silhouette disappear in the mirror
And suddenly it all becomes so clear

At least today
Everything is alright
Everything is alright
Everything is alright

She cries, “I’ve had it with this town
I’m surely gonna drown
The next time a wave of loneliness
Or despair swallows me”

The days go slow, the years go fast
All the friends I swore would last
Go ghostly and fade into my memory
Into my memory

So if you run away
If you run away
If you run away
Then I’ll run away with you

Wake with a headache on my mind
I know I’m just a cog
Who does the same thing
Who does the same thing
Waiting for anything

So if you run away
If you run away
If you run away
Then I’ll run away with you

So if you run away
If you run away
If you run away
Then I’ll run away with you

Oh, I’m standing on a stairway
A stairway made of sand

Oh yeah

You can run away
You can run away
You can run away
Yeah

She walks beside you in the park of roses
And says your coat almost fits
You lean up against the ghost of her breath
It’s the most you’re ever gonna get

Here we go once again
Here we go once again
She calls you a good friend
Says she never wants that to end

When she says, “I wish I wasn’t so lonely”
What did she expect me to think?
I’ve learned to laugh at jokes that I don’t get
Smile when my heart sinks

Here we go once again
Here we go once again
She calls you a good friend
Says she never wants that to end

“You make me happy”—oh, you know that’s just a lie

“Please don’t fall in love with me”
You say it to me so indiscriminately
I don’t know what you’d have me do
You know I’m already in love with you

Here we go once again
Here we go once again
She calls you a good friend
Says she never wants that to end

Give me all your love I’ll take it without rest
Leave no doubt who you love the best
Take your baseball bat to the headlights in my eyes
Scratch your name with a blade on my arm
Smash my dreams and pull the alarm
I’m a helpless pale ghost when I feel your breath

I shudder when I think of all the things that I would do
Just to feel close to you
I shudder when I think of all the crimes I’m up to do
Just to feel close to you

Waves crash on your far away shore
Devils scratch at your bedroom door
I imitate every cliche for a shot at your laugh

I wanna live in the corner of your smile
Walk the shore for a seashell mile
Let your tide rip through the sandcastles in my heart

I shudder when I think of all the things that I would do
Just to feel close to you
I shudder when I think of all the crimes I’m up to do
Just to feel close to you

I shudder when you’re near
I shudder when you’re not here
Every door feels closed
It’s a no to every question posed

I’m haunted by memories
Of things that never happened to me
Perhaps a premonition or inherited pain

I shudder when I think of all the things that I would do
Just to feel close to you
I shudder when I think of all the crimes I’m up to do
Just to feel close to you

Every day you carve the clay
From my heart’s stone
The statue in me which I can’t
Make out on my own
My muffled heart beats muted
I don’t know where to dig
You fire up the engine in
Your drilling rig
I’ll immortalize my vows
Tattoo them across my face
If you need me
You know any time any place

I’m onto you
And the things that you do
I’m onto you
And the life you blaze through
You’re whistling as you stroll by a dragon’s lair
As you rule your kingdom from your red velvet chair

Smoke is rising from her fiery leaves
Gives away where she lives
Hiding in the trees
Scavenge on my hands and knees
Through the valleys of her being
Suddenly stumble on
The shadow of her fleeing

I’m onto you
And the things that you do
I’m onto you
And the life you blaze through
You’re whistling as you stroll by a dragon’s lair
As you rule your kingdom from your red velvet chair

Her glaciers creep and cut their way
Through the landscape of my heart
Eroded paths in my insides I
Don’t know where to start
I gave the keys I gave the wheel
If I had a kingdom I’d give it to you
I’d give my ears my hands my feet
If you said you needed more than two
I know I’m a fool I know
I have too much skin in this game
I love you and hate you both cause
You’re a wild creature no one will tame
One day maybe I’ll break through and
Feel something like your moon
Until that day I’ll take what you’re giving
And cry and sigh and swoon

Why is it so hard to make friends now
Can’t suspend disbelief behind a wrinkled brow
My loneliness is tolerable
If only it were operable
It’s true
Romantic love has got me through but
Now I’m older my heart colder
I need you

We’ll feel it tomorrow in our bones
Let’s feel it tomorrow
For tomorrow let’s just drive around this town
With Petty on the radio

Does nature ask to drudgery resign?
Stop seeing the dreams in the day
And a part of you is blind
The stuff of college dorms I know
Drunk words exchanged underneath a cheap print of Van Gogh
And yes I have no reason to hold back
Let my heart crack let me crank
Paint it black

We’ll feel it tomorrow in our bones
Let’s feel it tomorrow
For tomorrow let’s just drive around this town
With Petty on the radio

I forgot how much you need a friend
As the years go so fast and then the days
Have no end
Always singing it’s so hard to find
A friend

We’ll feel it tomorrow in our bones
Let’s feel it tomorrow
We’ll feel it tomorrow in our bones
Let’s feel it tomorrow
For tomorrow let’s just drive around this town
With Petty on the radio

I said all right all right yea yea yea yea

My cries are muffled by autumn leaves
I empty my heart like a magician clearing his sleeves
I drain my blood down a winding stairway
She says I want to love you babe but you’re always standing in my way

I know there’s something better
There’s always something better

I know it’s not heaven
No no it’s not heaven
When I lay in your arms
But when you play all your charms
It’s hell to be without you

A suitcase on a platform by your bed
Leave dead the memories of me now haunting your head
Abandon my gnashing and wailing ghost
Staring in the minds of the brokenhearted host

I know there’s something better
There’s always something better

I know it’s not heaven
No no it’s not heaven
When I lay in your arms
But when you play all your charms
It’s hell to be without you

Love teaches nothing but how to lose
Takes away some suffering but you lose the will to choose
She’s half-crazy oh I know pull the plank from my eye
I sing in desperation read a regret in her sigh

I know it’s not heaven
No no it’s not heaven
When I lay in your arms
But when you play all your charms
It’s hell to be without you

Spoken word: “I’m gonna kill you”

We look up to the endless sky
Shuffle clouds and bury the moon
The trees slow dancing with the power lines
Cradled by the night’s cocoon
Spiders outline a shadow of her bed
Demons pantomime my wailing head
The crickets singing hallelujah
I’m bludgeoned by the stars

I’m imprisoned in a tower in your eyes
Escape down your hair like a ladder of vines

In my eyes a barren winter tree
The streets corrode like memories of misery
Oh life’s a game of cards that we play
With a deck of 2s and 3s

I’m imprisoned in a tower in your eyes
Escape down your hair like a ladder of vines

My fumbling heart my crumbling hands
My patron saint is crippled my ghost can’t stand
I cry into my pillow and I swoon
What did I bury with the moon?

Sara yes I get it I can see
You could never love someone who looks even vaguely like me
Then she says that we can laugh about our scars
Sara says the things that I can’t hear
Is it always gonna feel this way
Is it always gonna feel this way
Sara your indifference makes me cry

Here we go again with the memory of an eyes closed kiss
Here we go with all the things I can’t mention that I miss
Here we go again roll a blanket underneath the stars
I can still hear locusts in your undressed eyes

Guess it’s always gonna feel this way
Guess it’s always gonna feel this way
Sara your indifference kills my heart

So it’s always gonna feel this way
So it’s always gonna feel this way
Sara your indifference kills my heart