1. |
Dandelion
04:06
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A friend I once mistook for you
invited me out of the blue
for lunch or breakfast on the lawn
her attic window looked out on.
She said as she leafed through the mail
(her gallery had made a sale):
“Now look up at the window from
the spot I’d usually look down on.”
Deep green, olive, sky blue,
new-mown, matted with dew.
She said she liked the tremor of the dandelions.
Inside, wet canvas spanned the halls,
nail fissures in the plaster walls:
somebody’s long-discarded notes
or interrupted anecdotes,
in muted browns and grays,
intersecting blue rays,
and every one she gave the title Dandelion.
At home—houseplants upturned.
The cat looked on unconcerned.
And so I wrote a song and called it “Dandelion.”
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2. |
Broken Shoe
01:45
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Ermanno Olmi made a film
on the nineteenth-century Bergamasque
and a broken shoe.
That was 1978.
And when he brought the film to Cannes to view,
it took the prize.
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3. |
Already
04:30
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Under the stairs,
under the rug in the hallway
or the coat room.
Crooked armoire
full-up with somebody’s favorite
worthless china.
Over and under
some noisome and cumbersome duty.
Turn the world over,
from concrete to clover,
for something you already had.
Time before words
when a voice was just sound from the basement
or the breezeway.
Or hormonal storm:
a typing class crush who still haunts you,
and you never knew her.
Around and then back to
some winsome or noisome imposture.
Turn the world over,
from Perth to Andover,
for something you already had.
Over and under
some noisome and cumbersome duty.
Turn the world over,
from Lagos to Dover,
for something you already had.
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4. |
Flower Head
03:42
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Load the camera that Amy lent you
and make construction paper compositions
or slog through the Anabasis of Xenophon.
The yarn
spanning then to then,
or when to never,
never comes again.
Know something better
than some gone old day
in mind’s formaldehyde.
Late drive home and wandering the stations:
from a sound no one could put a face or name to
to years spent excavating Piazzolla.
But the yarn
spanning then to then,
or when to never,
never comes again.
Hold something bigger
than some lost old day
in time’s formaldehyde.
That summer's one belated reconnection,
slacking away the days on Rope and junk food
and intermittent bouts of Gorgeous Bomb Shells.
And the yarn
spanning then to then,
or when to never,
never comes again.
Live something better
than some long gone day
in heart’s formaldehyde.
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5. |
Brown To Green
03:43
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Watch through the ivy on the windowsill
a half-dozen children amble up a hill,
and not a sound disturbs the air until
they run down, run down, run down.
And when it’s early afternoon again,
look through the fading ivy and the rain
and wait for the condensation on the pane
to run down, run down, run down.
Remain in love with life’s enormities
and the quiet stages in between,
content to lose your way among the trees
that change from brown to green.
Beside a city street in early fall,
road workers loiter at a grocer’s stall.
The foreman wipes his brow and gives them all
the rundown, rundown, rundown.
Stay in love with life’s enormities
and the subtle changes in between
with time enough to come to know the trees
that change from brown to green.
And sounds of bound-
less being drown
out cycles of
an unobservant sun.
And sundown astounds
you until you’ve found
yourself alone—
but not the only one.
A din of clockworks from the upper floor:
lifetime of clocks, years left to gather more,
lifetime of clocks to oil and wind before
they run down, run down, run down.
Still in love with life’s enormities
and the quiet stages in between.
Still young enough to stop and watch the trees
that change from brown to green.
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6. |
Clock Flower
02:21
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(Instrumental)
The familiar chime sequence woven into this tune’s ending—first known as the Cambridge Quarters and later, having been adopted for Big Ben, as the Westminster Quarters—was composed in 1793 by, or in collaboration with, eighteen-year-old Oxford organ student and onetime child prodigy William Crotch for a clock being installed at Cambridge University’s Great St. Mary’s Church.
The simple melody remains to this day a standard among Western clockmakers and may be heard in all parts of the world.
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7. |
Eventual
03:21
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A hero (but not so sure)
looked up from his fear to see
the performance-enhancing lure
of Hecate’s pantry,
and indulged for thirty days,
one eye
on the winding hideout of the bull man.
And though he won the day,
he still shudders
at the cheap mortar of a gameplan:
“A million mornings long ago,
you must have thought you could conjure now.
Now that we’re in the know,
did you get your eureka?
“Wrong on either score:
no guesswork,
no dresswork stitched from intention.
We pace a shifting floor,
trick windows
and too many maybes to mention.”
Must’ve thought you could conjure now.
And Hecate’s pantry.
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8. |
Not Never Not Now
04:00
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Pull down the faces you put on,
no sooner ascertained than gone.
You won’t hesitate to sneer at those in the same game,
but you won’t say no,
never, not now.
Not never, not now.
No, not never.
Any feint’s a failure, even drawn
arrow-straight and on the mark dead-on.
Nobody readier to call a sham a sham,
but you won’t say no,
never, not now.
Not never, not now.
No, not never.
You must have thought
the stage was yours alone,
must have taken
witnesses for a mirror.
Little you knew of a periscope wrong way around
or how long ago the dazzled had found you out.
Menu of faces you put on,
no sooner utilized than gone,
old apparatus you never noticed you’d outgrown,
but you won’t say no,
never, not now.
Not never, not now.
No, not never.
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9. |
Seed Head
04:03
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First comes gold,
spring barely breathing.
Even light
falls like some post-
ponement’s reminder.
Florets, not flower:
multipartite.
Later white,
finer than sawdust.
Dew once cold
warms with the slow
fingers of dawnlight.
Achenes make it new
a millionfold.
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10. |
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Workers in dirty flannels
pouring out sidewalk panels.
And then it blows
and then it rains.
A cache of assorted trowels
and shovels and planks and towels.
And then it grows
and then the change.
But ars longa, vita brevis;
with weather and time—a crevice.
And then it blows
and then it rains.
Amid the debris that gathers,
one cypsela drops its anchors.
And then it grows
and then the change.
(Dandelion reprise)
She’d unearthed a perfect calabash,
rooting for treasures in the trash.
She looked right through me but she smiled,
and so I offered her a ride.
She said, “That work’s all been sold;
I got bored, maybe got old.
But if you make me something, call it Dandelion.”
She said, “If you make me something, call it Dandelion.”
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11. |
Rain
02:02
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Lie awake and then it’s dawn;
nothing to say for night but that it’s gone.
Ride the bus or ride the train,
too low to lie, too sorry to complain.
It’s too much like me to commit to barren stone
what belongs to someone else alone.
So maybe later I’ll sit down and write a song,
but for now it’s been raining too long.
Conversations stop and start:
little toys to taste and take apart.
And though we know heartaches are hard,
we somehow forget how tedious they are.
It’s too much like me to commit to precious stone
what belongs to her and her alone.
So maybe later I’ll sit down and write a song,
but for now it’s been raining too long.
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Brian Seabolt Ann Arbor, Michigan
Aging songwriter and DIYist having another go.
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