By the end of October, my heart had cracked open

And under my feet, the earth was gone

I have always bent toward madness

Like a butterfly being dizzied by the sun

Watching my feet, I approach the distance

To the edge where the light pours in

God, he left me standing there

Not knowing how it ends

Townes Van Zandt sings like an angel

His voice sounds like the rain

They took away his memories

Running electricity through his brain

I listen to his sad songs

Whenever I can't cry

The dead leaves, they are falling down

I hear the train go by

Someday I might get on it

With the summer in my eyes

I'll go to where the orange trees grow

And I will feel alive

The beauty of a broken heart

Is that it knows the sun

It skips just like a record does

Scratched and worn and loved

Townes said, his songs, they weren't sad

He thought of them as hopeless

Like being caught inside a fog

Overtaken by the ocean

When I hear him sing

I always think of the Pacific

Of a golden shoreline far away

Where everything is different

They say God sees a broken heart

Like the stars shine in the sky

Busted stuff, all opened up

Shimmering gold and red and white.

Have you heard about the light above the water
You can see it in the north country all the way south down to Florida
I used to draw it when I was younger
Orange flowers, yellow sun
The sky blue like the water

I'm in the mountains now
But by the sea, my soul still grows
Like the ocean, it holds all the weight of the world
It is there that I never grow old

I remember the flowers, yellow and orange
Bursts of sun in my mother's garden
I squinted my eyes, the sky was so bright
In my blue dress, I watched how she picked them

Under the green umbrella, we held giant sunflowers
In the summertime, in my bare feet
My grandfather's hands, the sun shining down
I watched how he picked out the seeds

My mother told me stories
Of holes opening up in the sand
She could see other worlds that were different than ours
It seems like I dreamed them, she said

I'm in the mountains now
But a light shines on the sea
Photographs hold all the bursts from the sun
Shining on my childhood just like a dream.

From high atop the ivory cliffs

She leapt into the sea

She cut the gold chain from her waist

In falling, she was free

The madness found her early

For she held up the sky

Wise men spoke of other worlds

The ocean in their eyes

They had ecstatic visions

When the moon was full and high

Gold chain wrapped around their waists

To bind them to the sky

The roots of the earth had grown shallow

There was no color left in the sky

Safe passageway to the ocean

Was lost when the rivers ran dry

A fog settled over the valleys

Where the hermits were dug in

Euphoric with insomnia

They began writing feverishly again

The wise men called down the lightning

Their eyes turned opal white

The scars on their skin just like branches

That captured the moment of sight

When their sight, they had lost, altogether

They pulled on the chain from the sky

Each time that a vision's delivered

The ocean returns to their eyes

As she tumbled toward the sea

The colors did surround her

She could see an opening

Before she hit the water

Wise men spoke of other worlds

Between the sea and the sky

Her soul returned to her body

The ocean returned to her eyes.

She watches the lights of the fishing boats

At night on the beach at the end of the world

She knows the ghosts that haunt this town

They step from the waves

When the moon's shining down

Her friends are all skeletons

Her heroes, all ghosts

She imagines the lights on a faraway coast

The sky swirls around her, electrically charged

Two points of light connect in the dark

She looks back in time when she closes her eyes

Dark stars are born outside of the light

Time barrels toward her

The blue planet spins

Time barrels toward her

An old wind blows in

Crows pick the wrack line for shiny things

At the edge of the light

The blue planet spins

Torn out from space

And hurled toward the shore

Piled at her feet at the end of the world

Momentum is building from forces unseen

One circle closes, another begins

The future collects at the edge of the light

She opens her window

To let in the night

She presses her forehead against the glass

Something's out there looking back

She opens her hand to pull it back in

At the edge of the light

The blue planet spins.

In the breakers town where I come from

The old ones tell a story

Of a dragon caught inside a storm

Whose fight carved out the mountains

It's here that there are other worlds

That open at the edges

The dragon circling underneath

Thrashing through the ages

My finger runs along the edge

Of where the light gets in

Where the mountains meet the sea

The veil is always thin

I've seen the light of other worlds

Breaking through the clouds

I've seen the light of other worlds

Flicker and go out

Down inside the trenches

The dragon comes awake

A new world, it is being born

The mountains break away

As I enter through the door

It seals up tight behind me

On the other side of things

Only the light will find me

The vulture stands beside me

The earth has opened up

On the other side of things

The dragon eats the sun

Once, the world was water

Once, the world was black

Consciousness was just a breath

Light was just a crack

In his breath, he holds the sun

The water-breathing dragon

Where the mountains meet the sea

Another door has opened.

A starling sings inside my head

The road ahead, it winds

I think of you each time I see

Blue-colored dragonflies

All the world is ours tonight

I've tied your heart to mine

The stare, she sings inside my head

Her song turns into twine

I know it's you who leads me

You're there inside the song

I've sailed the wild seas of grief

Into the setting sun

Again, I see your smile

When I tug upon the twine

That ties our hearts together

That hangs down from the sky

You come to me as blackbirds

As blue dasher dragonflies

You come to me as beams of sun

Across the hollow sky

Parts of me, I know I've lost

They grew cold as they died

Trailing twine behind her

The storied starling flies

I gather up the pieces

That hold these parts of you

They travel now as dragonflies

That shine a brilliant blue

I know it's you who leads me

You're there when I look up

If my heart could be my head

I'd never think you lost

Time is made of layers

It's there, you are alive

I feel the sun upon my skin

I watch the dragonflies.

Red moss rose and fishing boats
Line the Nha Trang Bay
Rising from the jungle's fog
Half a world away

The Cao Dai eye, with dragon's fire
Protects the temple gates
Looking out on Vietnam
The war where the sun never sets

From Cambodia, headed east
As the crow flies, eleven miles
The rice patties there get bombed to hell
When the sky goes up in fire

I don't waste my time with God
He'd kill me if I'd die
I believe only in air support
Wild-eyed angels from the sky

Buddhist temples and banana groves
Rise from the lowland heat
I hear the beasts in the jungle roar
In the place where no one sleeps

All souls run together in the Mekong Delta
The sky, she holds back the rain
The dragon returns, breathing fire
Where only the dead see the end

We walk through hell, holding onto our souls
As the sun begins to rise
Air support is getting close
Descending like gods from the sky

Our empire has a thirst for blood
And an appetite for gold
It's not enough to die out here
They also want your soul

I found a way to heaven
Cutting hell with the opium white
On top of the Black Virgin Mountain
I've seen the all-seeing eye

I sleep under a foreign moon
And sweat under a strange, sad sun
I know I won't be leaving here
Should I make it home

This place, it takes your soul away
And every time I sleep
I feel the hands upon my throat
That stole my soul from me

I see the clouds glowing opium white
In the mountains, so far away
The sun, it sets on Nui Ba Den
Half a world away.

There is so much in the air out there

There is so much in my heart

When thoughts have gained themselves their wings

When worlds are far apart

I left my home to wander

And now that I've returned

I see it all so differently

Of nothing, I am certain

So many trees, I've sat beneath

That reach for just one sun

The songbird chases just one thing

To that place, she returns

In the south

I've watched the moss

Sway in the live oak trees

Their branches bend like the horizon ends

Curling in the heat

In the west

I've stood beneath

The towering redwood trees

A thousand years have watched them grow

They keep a thousand dreams

In the north

The crows have gathered

In the white birch stand

It's time I make my way back east

To where the world began

I come upon the gold birch tree

Where once I carved my name

It felt like time would soon unwind

To see it there again

Wherever I may wander

I find these golden trees

A point in time has rushed me by

I look back towards the east

I find familiar carvings

In places I've not been

I tip my hat to them, and smile

Life comes around again.

A fire burns behind my eyes

My heart's down in the well

I wait for the morning sun

To look for where it fell

Blood drains from my body

I feel it leaving me

It rushes through the sand and loam

And washes to the sea

Perhaps I meant to drop it

To let go willingly

Though the fire lights my eyes

My hands grow tired and weak

Perhaps I meant to drop it

To keep it out of reach

Far away from other hands

Whose touch would make it weak

The sun, she stands beside me

Her eyes burn brilliantly

I struggle to regain the light

I dropped so willingly

I thought that it was mine to keep

What beats inside my chest

But what I knew as flesh and blood

Was made of light instead

Something searches for me

It knows when I'm alone

I feel the static sweep my skin

The sun is set, and gone

Now I'm going underground

To find my beating heart

The sun has set behind me

The path ahead is dark

Something searches for me

It knows when I'm alone

Waiting for the morning light

Waiting for the sun

Now I offer up my heart

To the beating sun

My heart is set on fire

How brilliantly it burns.

When I was young

The road went on

As far as I could see

The hills unwound in daffodils

The clouds took on my dreams

When I was young

And I was brave

The beast sat by my feet

Hot breath rising from his tongue

The cold air crossed with heat

When I looked down

The winding road

I saw myself alone

As far as my two eyes could see

The road stretched on and on

Now the wolves are closing in

Their yellow eyes on me

I trip over the rocks and roots

My courage falls away

I keep alone to stay ahead

For I have open wounds

I can see the yellow eyes

Of the stalking wolf

Panting, pacing, head bowed down

I know what follows me

His breath, it rises like the fog

The beast, he turns on me.

Something's coming on the wind

It rattles the screen door

I'm going under, going in

The floorboards bend like water

Where I'm going, there's no land

There is only water

I dreamt someday the flood would come

There'd be no way to stop it

The watchman finds me when I sleep

He waits until I fall

A black dog sits down by my feet

So patient in the dark

Something knows I'm down here

It's there when I look up

Heaven, earth, and underland

Where southern stars are crossed

Honey pours onto my feet

Into the potter's soil

Soon my feet will turn to fins

There'll be no land at all

All the new ones being born

Where the water runs

Believe the past is only myth

That land here, never was

All the new ones being born

Where the water flows

Dream of trunks and rocks and roots

Of tangled mangrove shores

They dreamt someday that land would come

To rise up from the water

Their silver fins would turn to roots

There'd be no way to stop it

In the stars, the watchman sits

Weaving dreams and remedies

A black dog sits down by his feet

Beneath the Southern Cross.

Pictures bloom inside my head

Red spiraling trumpet vines

All the stories of the earth

Dreams dug deep in time

Black and white, and technicolor

Such dreams are hardly mine

Like a tree that's dug in deep

The roots exposed with time

I wander through the catacombs

Gold crypts of noble blood

I pour the royal jelly

Into the potter's earth

I heard once of an entrance

To another world

Searching for an exit

They dug into the dirt

City kids uncover it

Kicking cans and rocks

Lifting up the cardboard

On old, abandoned blocks

Each time it is uncovered

You can feel the wind pick up

The images left on the earth

The whirlwind pulls back up

I am the collector

I dig down to clay

I taste salt water

I look far away

From blacklands, grows the thistle

I walk the potter's field

Our forefathers are buried there

The moon shines on Snake Hill

The drowsy tops of milkweed

Tip over in the rain

We spill a glass for all who've passed

And pour a drink again

They sailed the sea from Scotland

In a man made silver fleet

Subterranean passageways

Their bones, the seabed keeps

So often I feel homesick

For things that are not mine

Black and white, and technicolor

Such dreams are hardly mine

Rosy moths and caterpillars

Climb through my memories

Pink blossoms of garden phlox

Slump over in the breeze

I have found an entrance

Through a picture frame

On the far side of the looking glass

Through time, I dig, again

For I am the collector

A shovel in my hand

I hold the things that are not mine

So they might live again.

I feel it in the ground

In my bones

Where the earth's torn open

It's coming from the dirt

From my bones

Growing up from the garden

I'm digging out the dirt

How it hurts

When the skin's torn open

I'm swimming in the flood

How it comes

When I hold my breath in

Now everything's undone

And I run

To escape what's coming

I dig myself a hole

In the earth

And the gate blows open

I'm down under the earth

It's so cold

And the storm is coming

I feel it when it's close

And it knows

Every hole I hide in

I feel it in the ground

In my bones

And my skin is molting

I've fallen to my belly

And I'm crawling

Back to the garden

I feel it in my body

In my bones

Where the earth's been broken

My blood is getting cold

And I'm crawling

Back to the garden.

I kneel in her wake

Salt water, I weep

The body of the ocean

Laid out at my feet

I do not find home

Like the ocean, I run

My blood is salt water

The deluge, the flood

I am the dove

That Noah released

My land, it is gone

My hope is the sea

I planted the flowers

She wears in her crown

She held up the sky

Before it came down

Strangers surround her

Old faces are gone

The only ones left

Are the moon and the sun

My story is sky

I cannot go back

Like the dove, I keep flying

Searching for land

The riderless horse

Has to returned to the sea

I kneel in her wake

Salt water, I weep.

I catch the darkness as it drips

Like black ink from my fingertips

A feather from the white dove's wing

Has fallen down to earth

I draw the poison from my skin

The venom from the spider's sting

I can see the Milky Way

Earth bathed in milky light

Black and white, they mix again

On earth, I am the medium

I move the quill, and channeling

The words pour from my hands

They are thick like honey now

Black as pitch, they're oozing out

From my pores and from my palms

Upwells the oily gold

A feather from the white dove's wing

Has fallen down to earth again

I dip the quill into the ink

My hands take down the words

I have to draw them out, I know

In my veins, the black ink flows

It rises up from every pore

And collects in my lungs

I hold my breath as I tap in

In the black, I'm sinking in

On my tongue, they're quickening

Words waiting to be born

Once, the words would not come out

The river, sealed tight at its mouth

The upwell of the oily gold

Had clogged up every pore

The river now, it rushes me

I channel it, I let it bleed

A quill plucked from the white dove's wing

Has fallen down to earth.

There's a serpent in my belly

She who swallows up the earth

Her body wrapped around me

On my tongue, I taste the dirt

She's coiled up inside me

From my lungs, she steals each breath

She slithers through the open space

That once made up my chest

I'm deep inside the earth now

And I have no way up

I've become the earthworm

My blood has turned to rust

My chest has been torn open

And with all that I have left

I will fill the empty space

Again with my own breath

I'm high up in the air now

The weight sinks in my gut

Earth's debris is tearing free

I heave to bring it up

All that I did swallow

In time, began to rot

Reaching down inside my throat

I have to pull it up

My chest has been torn open

And dirt has turned to mud

I take in the deepest breath

That ever was took up

I'm so high in the air now

So high, I cannot see

Earth nor snake, just empty space

The weight, a memory.

Our blood, it moves us forward

Hardwired with ancient light

We, the creatures made of breath

Descendants of the sky

We move through tarry plasma

The green galaxy, alive

Neural, networked fibers

Arc with untapped light

Our water contains rainbows

Our lungs, they take it up

Entering into every cell

Light transcribed to blood

Exhaling, we move color

Back into the sky

We, the creatures made of blood

Of air, of space, of time

Exhaustion finds us early

To travel, we stay light

The air can turn to lead here

The oceans, into ice

Beside us, walks a lone wolf

A black jaguar, close behind

We, the creatures opposed within

We follow the bloodline

On the ground, the weight is dragging

I take a deep breath in

I can taste each color

That my lungs are taking in

On the road, we're getting closer

We count our every step

Eyes heavy with amnesia

Our minds, they never rest

All roads, they come together

And that is where Fate waits

Her eyes, gray like the ocean

I recognize her face

Exhaling, I breath color

Back into the sky

She pulls it down, new life begins

That is the bloodline.

It comes on supernaturally

The fog that settles over me

My blood has drained out from my feet

I've left the earth again

The evening sun has settled in

The shadows move across my skin

My body crumbles into sand

Beyond the walls of dreams

The river brought me to the sea

I drank the water too quickly

Though God, you are unknown to me

You've seen the way I drown

Away from me, my mind has spun

That is when the hunger comes

All the world, I've eaten up

To try and get some ground

Tumbling through the atmosphere

I know the way that falling feels

A God unknown has strung me up

And now, he's cut me down

I come from where there's tidal waves

Where sun, it burns, and God, he waits

I will be the wildfire

When all the rain is gone

From beyond the walls of dreams

The monster of St. Augustine

Haunts the minds of every man

Who knows not what he dreams

The monster lays upon the sand

Betwixt the realms of God and man

His body crumbles into sand

The walls of dreams come down.

A seed blew in from far away

From the outer rings of space

Of fire and of air, she's made

Fast above the earth

The pressure drops inside her lungs

Points of light flake from the sun

Night flickers with midsomer heat

She is going up

At night, the fireflies, they rise

To do so makes them feel alive

Darkness holds such tiny hopes

That float up on the wind

At night, she looks up to the sky

To do so makes her feel alive

Her eyes fix on a point of light

Fast above the earth

They come to her when she's asleep

She cannot touch them in her dreams

With contact, she'd disintegrate

Into the crackling light

She settles, then, for tiny hopes

Rising from the forest floor

At night, she puts them in a box

She keeps the light inside

To the outer rings, she'll rise

When the light grows dim inside

We, the light of fireflies

Rising from the earth.

Every time she closed her eyes
She felt herself dissolving
In the dream, she sank so deep
That all would be forgotten

Land can slip, and moments drift
So far from any shore
She rested now, her heavy head
Upon the seabed floor

The holy dove, alone in her search
Flies into the wind
As her memories return of the waking world
She cannot find her wings

Never far from slipping
She felt herself drifting
Into dead oceans of gray
In deserts swept under the ocean
She trespassed the ancient graves

No priest could heal her
No doctor, relieve her
She painted the pictures she saw
She saw golden dragons and indigo oceans
Th colors ran down her pale arms

The pictures, they kept her together
She searched for them endlessly
There's an undertow in the waking world
That sweeps all the color away

She painted with words as a witness
To watch what is hollow take form
Her soul, it was born from the water
Her body swept up by the storm

In oceans of gray
She waits for these moments
When light drops down deep in the sea
The colors running down her arms
She paints everything that she sees

She goes to these places of darkness
To search for the things that will be
The holy dove sings in the darkness
Still searching endlessly.