I wish I could dive head first into a pool of mud. Can you even imagine how amazing that would feel?
Following fire, half-deranged by desire Like a zombie I walk through the night. Every dark alleyway, every car breakaway Leads in my fantasy somewhere so bright.
Reason, morality- never my gifts;
I had the gift of belief.
I light a fire for you, filled with desire for you-
I know you see. I know you see.
Fire in the sky if you let him come by
I will pay you back for all that you’ve given me.
Pay you with blood, it’s the ruby of God,
I will open myself to you, please!
Following fire, melted down by desire
And the star that I follow is hope.
Making me pay like a knife every day-
I know you won’t, I know you won’t.
Lighting a candle for you every night
Cause I know you are drawn to the flame.
I see your spirit a butterfly flicker-
You won’t cause me pain, you won’t cause me pain.
Fire in the sky if you let him come by
I will pay you back for all that you’ve given me.
Pay you with blood, it’s the ruby of God
I will open myself to you, please!
Lighting a fire, half-deranged by desire
And the stars that are drawing me high.
Thinking of you, like a fire you can burn away
Hands on my throat, lay down or die.
Holding my finger right next to the candle wick-
Strong is the thing I must be,
Just until I can draw you to my flame.
You won’t hurt me. You won’t hurt me.
Step softly now
See their hooded eyes
Keep us close at hand
You may need our quick advice.
But everybody’s watching you
They got a lot to say
Just keep their words within a jar
We’ll open it one day.
After all
Life was never meant to be your home.
Life was never nothing but the road you chose to take.
Step softly now
Feel the hidden hand
Through the bushes it extends to you
The outline of a man.
Then he says “Hide! Duck!
Back up against the van where they can’t see you
Crawl over to the shadows where we’re waiting
For we may be the only ones who need you.”
After all
Life was never meant to be your home.
Life was never nothing but the road you chose to take.
And how do you feel now?
Standing on your own
Like a column made of fire
A feeling that you could be quite alone?
Move swiftly now
Don’t believe you have a friend
They just like to watch you trip and fall
They’ll push you down again.
So quickly run back
Into the alleyway where they can’t see you
Press up against a tree and we will be there
Perhaps we are the only ones who need you.
After all
Life was never meant to be your home.
Life was never nothing but the road you chose to take.
Following fire, half-deranged by desire
Like a zombie I walk through the night.
Every dark alleyway, every car breakaway
Leads in my fantasy somewhere so bright.
Reason, morality- never my gifts;
I had the gift of belief.
I light a fire for you, filled with desire for you-
I know you see. I know you see.
Fire in the sky if you let him come by
I will pay you back for all that you’ve given me.
Pay you with blood, it’s the ruby of God,
I will open myself to you, please!
Following fire, melted down by desire
And the star that I follow is hope.
Making me pay like a knife every day-
I know you won’t, I know you won’t.
Lighting a candle for you every night
Cause I know you are drawn to the flame.
I see your spirit a butterfly flicker-
You won’t cause me pain, you won’t cause me pain.
Fire in the sky if you let him come by
I will pay you back for all that you’ve given me.
Pay you with blood, it’s the ruby of God
I will open myself to you, please!
Lighting a fire, half-deranged by desire
And the stars that are drawing me high.
Thinking of you, like a fire you can burn away
Hands on my throat, lay down or die.
Holding my finger right next to the candle wick-
Strong is the thing I must be,
Just until I can draw you to my flame.
You won’t hurt me. You won’t hurt me.
Following your footprints through the checkerboard of night Guided like a lantern by the moon’s uncertain light Oh I…. an animal that bleeds for you Oh I… a spirit of the air.
Once I crossed the checkerboard to find a golden ring
Hidden like a promise in the pocket of a king
To the line where only pines remain
All the men afraid to kill had dropped out of the game.
First a flame appeared upon the ocean
Then a message flashed upon the wall
Please don’t tell me nothing has been broken
That’s just to say it was never there at all.
Walking through the dark world where the moon still rules the sky Everything I wanted came & then left me behind Oh I… a spirit seeking blood from you Oh I… a spirit of the air.
Shadow of a sword appears within a silver creek
Could it be a knight and not another king I seek?
Someone who can bring the blood from everywhere
Spreading it like glory through my hair.
First a flame appears upon the ocean
Then a message flashed upon the wall
Please don’t tell me nothing has been broken
That’s just to say it was never there at all.
You were strong & wealthy & your made me feel alive
Everyone was made to kneel; I never had to hide
Oh I… an animal that lived with in your shoe
All the golden dreams I had they came from you.
First a silver light falls on the ocean
Silver men line up against the wall
Please don’t tell me nothing has been broken
That’s just to say it was never there at all.
Definitely, I would say this is the song that describes me most, except that I have never thought of myself as green, except for maybe one short year, when I was trying to get in touch with the spirit of music, and I figured it was somewhere in between the colors blue & green, so I gave away all my pink & white things to trade them in for blue & green ones.
I even wore a stretchy blue teddy bear sweater on my head as a hat. I was very poor and it was on clearance for $1, so I just hoped no would would notice the little sleeves. I also tried to eat as much black licorice as possible & scent everything with anise & fennel, which seemed to me (along with lilac) to be the most musical scents, due to their twisted nature.
Music is a twisty sort of thing that connects what is real to what isn’t. Like an affirmation in reverse, music is a channel through which bad things can exit reality. You should never sing about anything good, because you might spin it out of existence.
Music expands our reality in a horizontal direction. It can’t connect us to upper or lower realms, but rather opens the door to realities that are parallel to our own. I think of these as the etheric worlds- where beings similar to the ones in storybooks live. Beings who are eternal, amoral and tied in to the same physical reality as us. Especially those semi-transparent humanoid beings who are around 4 feet high.
But none of this relates to this song, which was written more recently and not during that blue & green time. It was a song I heard while sleeping, which turned out to be the time of a lunar eclipse, which makes sense, given its silvery feeling. I don’t think of the moon as being only silver though, but also green since it turns everything into goo, just like the primordial green ooze that the world came out of.
Sometimes I feel like I am drowning in primordial ooze and struggling to come up for a breath of crisp air.
*
The moon a crescent in the sky
The world a carpet down below
He came to place me on the ferris wheel
His face a shadow in the show.
Green. Green.
Pull back the curtain and you’ll find
An empty room that know one knows
Shake your head and climb the ferris wheel
This is the world that you will come to know.
Green. Green.
I thought the flowers they would one day, one day
I thought the leaves and trees would one day call me home.
You take my hand just like a leaf
You show my foot just where to go
You help me climb upon the ferris wheel
You point down at the world below.
Green. Green.
Mostly, I think it is a really bad idea to include photographs of husbands. Not to mention that James values his invisibility. And yet… for the sake of context, I feel he needs to make a yearly appearance. After all, most of my adult years my identity has been that of a wife (to him + a previous husband) & not so much an individual.
But of course, I am trying to defy nature by changing that which is just one reason why including any photographs of James is a bad idea.
“Take Me Home Country Roads,” though somewhat accurate (the dark & dusky part), also leaves people with the mistaken impression that this is a home sweet home goody goody golden biscuit sort of place, which- except for the biscuit part- it isn’t. It is the least goody goody square place I have ever seen.
West Virginia is a weird combination of things that are too earthy to be human, and things that are too spiritual to be human with not much to flesh out the middle parts. Being neither earthy, nor particularly spiritual myself, I don’t relate to many elements of life here. Still, I recognize it as a nurturing environment- like a womb- where a person can focus on growing into themselves, rather than running around chasing after shiny things.
Plus, I like its purple & gray mists. It is one of those rare places where, in the battle between nature and man, nature is winning. Living here forces you to seek a life beyond human games and human prizes. It is a true land of opportunity where you can grow in any direction you wish and there is not much to stop you. Unless, of course, you need an organized grid of human structures and expectations to help you function. Then you are screwed. This is a world where you have to bring your own yellow.
Can you see how this place is nice but also different from an office space?
Life
may not be real
Pikey what a thing to say
you know that you weren’t raised that way
And yet
sometimes I fear
God has left me so alone
a million miles from any home
To walk a road that has no end
The golden hay lies beyond the bend.
But why would we break?
Why would we cry?
In the end it’s only pain
we’ve known it in so many ways
I know
she felt it too
Remember her, that little bird
so soft we never heard a word
A hint of pink behind the door
and in the end a pile of feathers on the floor
Pikey, you know it won’t be long
Take my hand, I can feel their eyes
descending from the bluest skies
My gun
My iron bar
Life remember I was your friend
I knew that you had no end
Your fields were filled with golden hay
Three clouds they fly above then slowly drift away.
Trying to relate to the person I was when I wrote this song, a week or two ago. So much has happened since then. Do you ever feel like you know who you are, but then you realize it was never you, you were just possessed by someone else’s ghost? That is sort of what happened to me.
About a year ago, you see, I started feeling unbearably jealous around the clock. Not jealous of anything in particular, but just this endless jealous feeling would that never let up. I would just wake up feeling painfully jealous and then try to figure out who or what I was jealous of. I tried all of the classical remedies for jealousy- like carrying holly leaves in your pocket- but none of them made a dent. And the more jealous I became, the more suspicious, sly & paranoid I grew as well.
Eventually I just grew to accept that I was a supernaturally jealous person and there was nothing I could do about it.
Until a couple days ago, when I was looking at the dark green cloud covering my stomach, and realized that these actually weren’t my feelings of at all- I was just absorbing other people’s negative green feelings like a sponge. I think this is pretty common really, for people to be sponging up the negative emotions of others. Some people are more sponge-like than others though, and also specialize in sponging up different sorts of colors.
Although I am pretty far on the sponge end of the spectrum, I have met a couple people who are more spongy than me. When I am around them, I always feel better, knowing if I stand near them I will magically become poised and collected, while they will start babbling incoherently and then slip on a banana peel.
So always keep someone more spongy than yourself around, is my advice. Or if you are a man, just get married and there is an 80% chance your wife will do the trick.
