1. |
Field Recording, No. 1
01:11
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“Cherokee Lunch”
No one was as tall as
Hundred Dollar Bill--
Shirt made of gabardine
And britches of twill--
There at the Cherokee Lunch.
Skin a shade darker than
His khaki and hair,
His Perfect Repeater
From heaven-knows-where--
But as old at least as he.
A brother dead, I knew,
In the rodeo;
His ma from Wyoming,
An Arapahoe;
His pa one of Ratliff’s bunch--
He never liked Christmas,
Nor Jesus, nor church.
Well, he sat by the fire--
Mesquite and some birch
Booger brought down from Cody--
And sang out of tune songs and
Told imperfect rhymes.
Swore he’d never seen the sea,
But sang of it samewise and
Of forgotten times,
And some Larry McMurtry:
Spite all that it likes in green’ry,
How Texas is only scene’ry.
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2. |
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Crimson with shame, you waved goodbye, the killdeer and native grasses at your back--the kind of thing you can’t account for, as reflexive as an old pumpjack. The Reverend Charismatic Predator, the Baptist bookstore for his habitat. Cigaret cough and a pocket square--when I know nothing, I remember that. It was the last time we were children, mouths full of baby teeth and epithets, dispensations we would break with. Fully once, I wish I had it back.
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3. |
Champion of the Breed
02:18
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Well, I guess you know the rest. That kind of thing cuts like a razor--it don’t hurt at first, but you know it will later. They say he left his robe of flesh, been in the presence of the savior since one second later. And put like that, it doesn’t sound so bad--I know he ain’t a patient man. Whether angels sang or sighed, then, I can’t tell, and that’s a fact. He’s just an empty haircut--he took a hammer to that coffin; she took a chisel to his headstone, “Champion of the breed.” Here, the dilettante of record says he don’t pay for his women, but it ain’t never free. And put like that, who could blame her ass. They say he died a natural death, lacking any natural predator. And I guess you know the rest.
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4. |
'93 Oilers
04:14
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Same bitter ground that grew all that sweet acacia and Wandering Jew. And hardy things with slow roots, that hardly go peaceful when they finally do. Calling mercy down, seldom speechless in that respect. Meaning all the time curses, in an old vernacular dialect. But I would not twice return to the well when I’d once found it dry, reckoning blind from my shadow cast in his ambulance lights. Early I knew beauty and pain came in red and blue: The super blood wolf moon; a languid suite of piano tunes; the ‘93 Oilers; and other stray dogs, who by memory know all the small places the road goes under the railroad.
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Very Old Morris San Antonio, Texas
lyric and other videos: www.youtube.com/channel/UCuSsjmntc14VXNJDWW6vuKA/videos | no social media to speak of,
apologies.
I'm from San Antonio, Texas. I like to write sad songs about the place and the people I come from. I haven't eaten at Bill Miller's in 15 years, except for one slice of pecan pie a week ago.
... more
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