Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Uncategorized Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

A Ring

Golden robes sing and flow
Crowds pour in enjoy the show
Two hands reach out for everything

Sing and dance, sometimes touch
Sparkling to want something so much
Swirling round and faster to a ring

Feathers fall upon your shoulder
I can see you ten years older
Golden eyes reflectng everything

Sudden shake awake and cry
Oh please don’t let this moment die!
I just wanna hold on everything
Fold it up and fasten to a ring.

Standing there six feet off
So official as I watch you talk
Cold eyes that take in everything

Serious, never touch
Beautiful to hold inside so much
Swirling down and backwards to a ring

Feathers fall upon your shoulder
I can see you ten years older
Saddened eyes reflecting everything

Roughened up, almost wise
Stone like against their cries
You have made your way into the ring.

Leaning there against the wall
Smoking over six feet tall.
Two eyes that notice everything

Quizzical, back and forth
Biting hard and then moving into mirth
You don’t know you’re standing in a ring.

Feathers fall upon your shoulder
To the world of ten years older
Blackened eyes absorbing everything

Shaken up awake and cry
Oh please don’t let this moment die!
I just want to hold on everything.
Fold it up and pack it to a ring.

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

Dreamcatcher

Dreamcatcher of the night
Look at what I’ve done.
I’m in a bad way now.

He told me no more fight
No more hide & run
Hold it inside somehow.

How?

Touch me on the arm again with all your little strings, your little strings,
oh god
I can feel them coming now with all their little wings, their little wings
And they tell me that someone is on my side.

I did it. Spit it out.
Pin me by the neck.
Didn’t obey his will.

Soft voices. Close my eyes.
I know what I get.
Reach for another pill.

Uphill.

Come onto my head again with all your little strings, your little strings,
oh god
I can feel them coming now with all their golden wings, their golden wings
And they tell me that someone is on my side.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Purple, Magic & Sorcerers Red, Soldiers, & Fire Uncategorized

The Lamp

Originally the chorus was “I feel you growing like a lamp behind me,” but then I got paranoid that lamp could have some alternate sexual meaning, as 90% of words seem to, so I changed it to Light, just to be safe. No one will read anything seedy into pure, disembodied Light.

Open the shade- I know what is coming
The stars, the sky, the moon- they are all watching
Kidneys hurt- too hard to stand
Hello floor- it’s me again.

Down on the floor- I see him beside
His golden eyes- they shine they guide.
He can’t touch; he can’t do nothing to save.
Those are the rules and he is just a slave.

Give it just a little more time- I’ll know you’ll save me.
Though you are not my man and I’m not your baby.
Give it just a little more time- I know you’ll find me.
I feel you growing like a lamp behind me.

He is silent, he is strong and standing in his square
A pane of glass between us and his body made of air
Sometimes I will slump down on that glass and I will breath him
Till I’m weak and I am crying from believing that I need him.

He says- Stand up on your legs. Oh, no, no, no- I am too weak
And if I don’t crumble like a slut who will be there for me?
Because half of all these days I can’t remember who I am
I just look around and grab onto the first hand that I can.

Give it just a little more time, I’ll know you’ll save me
Though you are not my man and I’m not your baby
Give you just a little more time, I know you’ll find me
I feel you drawing like a light behind me.

When God is your witness please say you will vouch for me
No no not to say that I was good, nor that I tried to be
But please tell him that my leaves reached up like arms towards his sky
Tell him that my roots would suck so hard they made the earth grow dry.

Give it just a little more time, I’ll know you’ll save me
Though you are not my man and I’m not your baby
Give you just a little more time I know you’ll find me
I feel you drawing like a light behind me.

Download MP3: The Lamp

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Uncategorized Videos

Anything Like Free (Video)

Well, I didn’t have anyone who could hold a phone for me to take a video, so I had to try another way.

I don’t know what to say about this song so I will just put the lyrics below.

Hope you are doing well.

Stars that watch me from above
Stars that watch from within dreams
Everything I knew of love
Turned much darker than it seemed.

Oh God those stars around my head I let him
Lead me to a bed just like a golden flame, golden flame.
Fumble with my hands, I need something to help me
Stand so I can hold myself to the blade.

I never wanted to be anything like free
I only wanted something kind
But when you took me by the wrist that is the time I changed my mind.

Things that happen in the dark
In the alley down below
Where you’re not supposed to be
Where the good men never go .

But I must find the kitchen sink I need to have another
Drink this is no time to cry, time to cry.
Angels in the air we’ll gather for another
Prayer and then we’ll say goodbye, say goodbye.

I never wanted to be anything like free
I only wanted something kind
But when you took me by the wrist that is the time I changed my mind.

I read the book line by line
Men like women but not all the time

Because women travel in the dark
Women have no friends at all
We just take our greasy hands
Lay them right against the wall.

I saw a man upon the hill he tapped his hat to me
I smiled and that was my mistake, my mistake.
Angels can you stay I’ll need someone to
Pray upon my bones when they break, when they break.

I never wanted to be anything like free
I only wanted something kind
But when you took me by the wrist that is the time I changed my mind.

I only ever wanted someone who could feel me
Someone I could follow from behind
But when you took me by the wrist that is the time I changed my mind.

Categories
Nashville Red, Soldiers, & Fire Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies Uncategorized

Made Love to My Father

 

I made love to my father and now I must pay... The True Story of a Confederate Soldier by Julien AkleiWell, it looks like this is my final song! I have finally recorded and posted all the songs I have written so far. Phew. Now I am free to move on to something new… maybe I will grow my fingernails out into out long, golden talons studded with rhinestones and tiny teddy bears. Ah, that sounds like paradise!

I think this is a decent song for my grand finale, because… well, I remember when I wrote it, the sky was so so blue and the song unfolded page by page in my mind like a storybook, filling me with a sense of eternity. Which is to say, I have positive associations with it.

Also, this song captures a world I frequently try to capture in my songs– a place I call “Checkerboard World.” Checkerboard World is more or less the same as this world, except that everything seems slightly more luminous, more crisp and defined. Plus there is a giant checkerboard that covers the earth and one in the sky as well. The checkered squares in the grass are large- maybe 10 feet wide on average- but in the sky they are even larger, maybe up to a mile wide! But the size of the checkerboard grid varies from place to place, sometimes expanding, sometimes condensing. It all depends on how much space the space contains.

But don’t confuse Checkerboard World with heaven. This is not the land of golden angels. There are still thugs in their dark alleys and scoops of chocolate ice cream that topple onto new white shirts. But there may be something about the clarity and spaciousness of the place that makes it easier for people to recover completely from the bad things that do happen. And in Checkerboard World there is no time, meaning there is plenty of opportunity to sit and cry for as long as you need to. Well, technically time does exists, but only as a way of subdividing eternity, which stretches out around people in all directions (like a checkerboard). Even death is nothing but an opportunity to evaporate up to the giant checkerboard in the sky so you can pour down again like rain.

Download MP3: Made Love to My Father