NEVER GET SO ATTACHED TO A POEM.

An ongoing side project, attempting to sort through and string together common themes, words and ideas in Joanna Newsom's work for my own peace of mind. Albums Divers Have One On Me Ys The Milk-Eyed Mender Songs Themes & Tags

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Songs

#

'81

A

Anecdotes

A Pin-Light Bent

Autumn

B

Baby Birch

Bridges and Balloons

C

Ca’ the Yowes to the Knowes

Cassiopeia

Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie

Colleen

Cosmia

D

Divers

Does Not Suffice

E

Easy

Emily

En Gallop

Erin

Esme

F

Flying A Kite

G

Go Long

Good Intentions Paving Company

Goose Eggs

H

Have One On Me

I

In California

Inflammatory Writ

J

Jackrabbits

K

Kingfisher

L

Leaving the City

M

Monkey & Bear

N

No Provenance

O

Occident

On A Good Day

Only Skin

P

Peach, Plum, Pear

R

Ribbon Bows

S

Sadie

Same Old Man

Sapokanikan

Sawdust & Diamonds

Soft As Chalk

Sprout and The Bean

Swansea

T

The Book of Right-On

The Things I Say

This Side of The Blue

Three Little Babes

Time, As a Symptom

W

Waltz of the 101st Lightborne

What We Have Known

Y

Yarn And Glue

You And Me, Bess

You Will Not Take My Heart Alive

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Anecdotes

Sending the first scouts over, back from the place beyond the dawn: Horse, bear your broken soldier, eyes frozen wide at what went on. And Time, in our camp, is moving as you’d anticipate it to. But what is this sample proving? Anecdotes cannot say what Time may do. I kid with Rufous Nightjar, when our men are all asleep: "It ain’t about how rare you are, but how hard you are to see. Take, you and me—" “When are you from?” said he, in our blind of winter leaves, as we sighted out their fliers in the grayscale of the night and fumbled on the bare ground to bury round landmines, while the dew lay down and dried. We signal Private Poorwill, when morning starts to loom: “Pull up from your dive!” till we hear the telltale Boom, too soon— hotdogging loon, caught there like a shard of mirror in the moon! Now they’ve stopped giving orders, but I follow anyway, laying in our state of torpor, waiting out the day while the dew burns away. Rushing, tearing, speeding home: bound to a wheel that is not my own, where round every bend I long to see temporal infidelity. All along the road, the lights stream by. I want to go where the dew won't dry. I want to go where the light won’t bend— far as the eye may reach—nor end. But inasmuch as that light is loaned, and, insofar as we’ve borrowed bones, must every debt now be repaid in star-spotted, sickle-winged night raids, while we sing to the garden, and we sing to the stars, and we sing in the meantime, wherever you are? In the folds and the branches, somewhere, out there, I was only just born into open air. Now hush, little babe. You don’t want to be down in the trenches, remembering with me, where you will not mark my leaving, and you will not hear my parting song. Nor is there cause for grieving. Nor is there cause for carrying on. —and daughter, when you are able, come down and join! The kettle's on, and your family's round the table. Will you come down, before the sun is gone?

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Sapokanikan

The cause is Ozymandian. The map of Sapokanikan is sanded and beveled, the land lone and leveled by some unrecorded and powerful hand which plays along the monument, and drums, upon a plastic bag, The Brave Men and Women, So Dear to God and Famous For All of the Ages rag. (Sing: Do you love me? Will you remember? The snow falls above me. The Renderer, renders. The Event is in the hand of God.) Beneath a Patch of Grass, her bones the old Dutch master hid, while, elsewhere, Tobias and the Angel disguised what the scholars surmised was a mother and kid (interred with other daughters, in dirt, in other potter's fields). Above them, parades mark the passing of days through parks where pale colonnades arch in marble and steel, where all of the Twenty Thousand attending your foot fall (and the Cause that they died for) are lost in the idling birdcalls, and the records they left are cryptic at best, lost in obsolescence: the text will not yield (nor X-ray reveal, with any fluorescence) where the Hand of the Master begins and ends. I fell. I tried to do well, but I won't be. Will you tell the one that I loved to remember, and hold me? I call and call for the doctor, but the snow swallows me whole, with old Florry Walker. The event lives only in print. *** He said, "It's alright, and it's all over now," and boarded the plane, his belt unfastened, (The boy was known to show unusual daring— and called a 'boy', this alderman confounding Tammany Hall, in whose employ King Tamanend himself preceded John’s fall!) So we all raise a standard to which the wise and honest soul may repair; to which a hunter, a hundred years from now, may look, and despair, and see with wonder the tributes we have left to rust in the park: swearing that our hair stood on end, to see John Purroy Mitchel depart for the Western Front, where work might count. All exeunt! All go out! Await the hunter, to decipher the stone (and what lies under, now). The city is gone. Look, and despair. Look, and despair.

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Leaving the City

Hay, and a clean stall, and ivy on the garden wall, and a sign saying Sold, and an old coat for the bad cold. I believe in you. Do you believe in me? What do you want to do? Are we leaving the city? On the black road, through the gold fields, while the fields are plowed, toward what we are allowed... The bridle bends in idle hands and slows our canter to a trot. We mean to stop, in increments, but can’t commit. We post and sit, in impotence: the harder you hit, the deeper the dent. We seek our name. We seek our fame, and our credentials (paned in glass, trained to master incidentals). Bleach our collar, leech our dollar from our cents: the longer you live, the higher the rent. Beneath the pale sky, beside the red barn, below the white cloud, is all we are allowed. Here, the light will seep, and the scythe will reap, and spirit will rend, in counting toward the end. In December of that year, the word came down that she was here. The days grew shorter. I was sure, if she came 'round, I’d hold my ground. I'd endure. But they'd alluded to a change that came to pass, and Spring, deranged, weeping grass and sleepless, broke herself upon my windowglass. And I could barely breathe, for seeing all the splintered light that leaked her fissures, fleeing, launched in flight: unstaunched daylight, brightly bleeding, bleached the night with dawn, deleting, in that high sun, after our good run, when the spirit bends beneath knowing it must end. And that is all I want here: to draw my gaunt spirit to bow beneath what I am allowed.

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Goose Eggs

What we built, at the kiln that won’t be stilled, did not set well: The old veil of desire, like vessels that we fired, fell thin as eggshells. And every season, somebody burns, downtown, taking turns— taking a bus, to take a train and just plain vamoose. Now the wind blows coals over the hills. Honey, I’ve been paying my bills, but honey it’s been a long time since I’ve come to any use. And it hurt me bad, when I heard the news that you’d got that call, and could not refuse. (A goose, alone, I suppose, can know the loneliness of geese, who never find their peace, whether north, or south, or west, or east; and I could never find my way to being the kind of friend you seemed to need in me, till the needing had ceased.) Recently, a bottle of rye, and a friend, and me, on our five loose legs, had a ramble, and spoke of the scrambling of broken hopes, and goose eggs, and of a stranger, long ago. (Not you, honey! You, I know.) We just spoke of broken hopes and old strangers. Now the wind blows coals over the sea. Tell you what, honey: you and me better run and see if we can't contain them, first. But you had somewhere that you had to go, and you caught that flight out of Covalo. Now, overhead, you’re gunning in those Vs, where you had better find your peace, whether north, or south, or west, or east. And I had better find my way to being the kind of friend you seemed to need in me, at last (at least). What’s redacted will repeat, and you cannot learn that you burn when you touch the heat, so we touch the heat, and we cut facsimiles of love and death (just separate holes in sheets where you cannot breathe, and you cannot see). And I cannot now, for the life of me, believe our talk— our flock had cause to leave, but do we? do we?

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Waltz of the 101st Lightborne

I believed they had got what they came for; I believed our peril was done, on the eve of the last of the Great Wars, after three we had narrowly won. (But the fourth, it was carelessly done.) Saw his ship in its whistling ascension, as they launched from the Capitol seat— swear I saw our mistake when the clouds draped like a flag, across the backs of the fleet of the Hundred-First Lightborne Elite. As the day is long, so the well runs dry, and we came to see Time is taller than Space is wide. And we bade goodbye to the Great Divide: found unlimited simulacreage to colonize! But there was a time we were lashed to the prow of a ship you may board, but not steer, before You and I ceased to mean Now, and began to mean only Right Here (to mean Inches and Miles, but not Years); before Space had a taste of its limits, and a new sort of coordinate awoke, making Time just another poor tenant: bearing weight, taking fire, trading smokes, in the war between us and our ghosts. (But I saw the Bering Strait and the Golden Gate, in silent suspension of their golden age! And you can barely tell, if I guard it well, where I have been, and seen, pristine, unfelled.) And I had a dream that I walked in the garden of Chabot, and those telescope ruins. It was there that I called to my true love, who was pale as millennial moons, Honey, where did you come by that wound? When I woke, he was gone and the War had begun, in eternal return and repeat. Calling, Where in the hell are the rest of your fellow One Hundred-One Lightborne Elite? stormed in the New Highland Light Infantry. Make it stop, my love! We were wrong to try. Never saw what we could unravel, in traveling light, or how the trip debrides— like a stack of slides! All we saw was that Time is taller than Space is wide. That's why we got bound to a round desert island, 'neath the sky where our sailors have gone. Have they drowned, in those windy highlands? Highlands away, my John.

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The Things I Say

If I have the space of half a day, I'm ashamed of half the things I say. I'm ashamed to have turned out this way, and I desire to make amends. But it don't make no difference, now, and no-one's listening, anyhow, and lists of sins and solemn vows don't make you any friends. There's an old trick played, when the light and the wine conspire to make me think I'm fine. I'm not, but I have got half a mind to maybe get there, yet. When the sky goes pink in Paris, France, do you think of the girl who used to dance when you'd frame her moving within your hands, saying This I won't forget? What happened to the man you were, when you loved somebody before her? Did he die? Or does that man endure, somewhere far away? Our lives come easy and our lives come hard. We carry them like a pack of cards: some we don't use, but we don't discard, but keep for a rainy day.

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Divers

A diver is my love (and I am his, if I am not deceived), who takes one breath above, for every hour below the sea; who gave to me a jewel worth twice this woman's life (but would cost her less than laying at low tide, to see her true love phosphoresce). And in an infinite regress: Tell me, why is the pain of birth lighter borne than the pain of death? I ain't saying that I loved you first, but I loved you best. I know we must abide each by the rules that bind us here: the divers, and the sailors, and the women on the pier. But how do you choose your form? How do you choose your name? How do you choose your life? How do you choose the time you must exhale, and kick, and rise? And in an infinite capsize: Like a bull tearing down the coast, double hulls bearing double masts— I don't know if you loved me most, but you loved me last. Recall the word you gave: to count your way across the depths of this arid world, where you would yoke the waves, and lay a bed of shining pearls! I dream it every night: the ringing of the pail, the motes of sand dislodged, the shucking, quick and bright; the twinned and cast-off shells reveal a single heart of white. And in an infinite backslide: Ancient border, sink past the West, like a sword at the bearer's fall. I can't claim that I knew you best, but did you know me at all? A woman is alive! A woman is alive; you do not take her for a sign in nacre on a stone, alone, unfaceted and fine. And never will I wed. I'll hunt the pearl of death to the bottom of my life, and ever hold my breath, till I may be the diver's wife. See how the infinite divides: and the divers are not to blame for the rift, spanning distant shores. You don't know my name, but I know yours.

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Same Old Man

It's the same old lady, putting out the wash, standing in the rain, in her mackintosh— same old lady standing in the rain! The thought of New York was going insane. Hey little leaf, lying on the ground— now you're turning slightly brown! Why don't you get up on the tree, turn the color green the way you ought to be? My mind is failing, and my body grows weak. My lips won't form the words I speak. I'm floating away on a barrel of pain. New York City won't see me again. It's the same old man, sitting by the mill, mill-wheel turning of its own free will. I'm certainly glad to be at home. New York City continues on, alone.

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You Will Not Take My Heart Alive

And what do you remember most? The line of the sea, seceding the coast? Fine capillaries, glowing with cars? The comfort you drew from the light of the stars? And how long did you climb that night, with the ice in your lungs, on the rungs of the light? Beyond recall, you severed all strings to everyone, and everything. Oh, silent, constant driver of mine: wordlessly calling from the end of the line, where, even though each hour I ever loved must queue and dive, still, you will not take my heart, alive. In martial wind, and in clarion rain, we minced into battle, wincing in pain; not meant for walking, backs bound in twine: not angel or devil, but level, in time. And I rose, to take my shape at last, from the dreams that had dogged me, through every past, when, to my soul, the body would say You may do what you like, as long as you stay. Now the towns and forests, highways and plains, fall back in circles like an emptying drain. And I won't come round this way again, where the lonely wind abides, and you will not take my heart, alive. You will not take my heart.

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A Pin-Light Bent

My life comes and goes. My life comes and goes. Short flight, free rows: I lie down and doze. My life came and went. My life came and went. Short flight; free descent. Poor flight attendant. But the sky, over the ocean! And the ocean, skirting the city! And the city, bright as a garden (when the garden woke to meet me), from that height was a honeycomb made of light from those funny homes, intersected: each enclosed, anelectric and alone. In our lives is a common sense that relies on the common fence that divides, and attends, but provides scant defense from the Great Light that shines through a pin-hole, when the pin-light calls itself Selfhood, and the Selfhood inverts on a mirror in an Amora Obscura. But it's mine. Or, at least, it's lent. And my life, until the time is spent is a pin-light, bent. It's a pin-light, bent.

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Time, As a Symptom

Time passed hard, and the task was the hardest thing she'd ever do. But she forgot, the moment she saw you. So it would seem to be true: when cruel birth debases, we forget. When cruel death debases, we believe it erases all the rest that precedes. But stand brave, life-liver, bleeding out your days in the river of time. Stand brave: time moves both ways, in the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating joy of life; the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating joy of life. The moment of your greatest joy sustains: not axe nor hammer, tumor, tremor, can take it away, and it remains. It remains. And it pains me to say, I was wrong. Love is not a symptom of time. Time is just a symptom of love (and of the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating joy of life; the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating joy of life). Hardly seen, hardly felt— deep down where your fight is waiting, down 'till the light in your eyes is fading: joy of life. Where I know that you can yield, when it comes down to it; bow like the field when the wind combs through it: joy of life. And every little gust that chances through will dance in the dust of me and you, with joy-of-life. And in our perfect secret-keeping: One ear of corn, in silent, reaping joy of life. Joy! Again, around—a pause, a sound—a song: a way a lone a last a loved a long. A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend. (Areion, Rharian, go free and graze. Amen.) A shore, a tide, unmoored—a sight, abroad: A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god). No time. No flock. No chime, no clock. No end. White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: transcend! White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: transcend! White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: transcend! White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: trans

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Easy

Easy, easy. My man and me, we could rest and remain here, easily. We are tested and pained by what's beyond our bed. We are blessed and sustained by what is not said. No-one knows what is coming, or who will harvest what we have sewn, or how I've been dulling, and dumbing, in the service of the heart alone, or how I am worn to the bone by the river, and, in the river made of light, I'm your little life-giver. I will give my life. Haven't you seen what I've seen? Don't you know what you ought to do? I was born to love, and I intend to love you. Down in the valley, where the fields are green, Watch my luck turn, fro and to; pluck every last daisy clean, till only I may love you. I am easy, easy to keep. Honey, you please me even in your sleep. But my arms want to carry. My heart wants to hold. Tell me your worries. I want to be told. Sit, and see how the fog, from the port in the bay, lays like snow at the foot of the roanoke; hear the frog, going courting, till the day he croaks, saying, even then, There is light in the river. There is a river made of light. C'mon, little life-giver. Give your life. Who asked you? Who asked you if you want to be loved by me? Who died, and made you in charge of who loves who? All the livelong day, if I have my way, I will love you. But One can't carry the weight, or change the fate, of Two. I've been waiting for a break. How long's it gonna take? Let me love you. How about it? How about what I have to say? How about that livelong day? How am I gonna stay here without you? Easy, easy. You must not fear. You must meet me, to see me. I am barely here. But, like a Bloody Mary, seen in the mirror: speak my name and I appear.

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Have One on Me

From the courtyard, I floated in and watched it go down. Heard the cup drop; thought, "Well, that's why they keep them around." The blackguard sat hard, down, with no head on him now, and I felt so bad, cause I didn't know how to feel bad enough to make him proud. By the time you read this, I will be so far away. Daddy longlegs, how in the world am I to be expected to stay? In the night — in the night, you may hear me call Pa, stay your hand and steel your resolve. Stay where you are, so long and tall. Here's Lola — ta da! — to do her famous Spider Dance for you! Lighten up your pockets! Shake her skirts and scatter, there, a shrieking, six-legged millionaire with a blight in his sockets. Miss Montez, the Countess of Lansfeld, appealed to the King of Bavaria, saying, "Pretty papa, if you are my friend — mister daddy longlegs, they are at it again! — Can I see you?" Poor Lola! A tarantula's mounting Countess Lansfeld's handsome brassiere, while they all cheer. And the old king fell from grace, while Lola fled, To save face and her career You caught a fly, floating by, Wait for him to drown in the dust; drown in the dust of other flies, whereby the machine is run, and the deed is done. Heaven has no word for the way you and your friends have treated poor Louis. May god save your poor soul, Lola. (But there is nothing I adore, apart from that whore's black heart.) Well, doesn't that just beat all! Miss Gilbert, called to Castlemaine by the silver dollar and the gold glitter! Well, I've seen lots, but never, in a million years, would think to see you, here. Though the long road begins and ends with you, I cannot seem to make amends with you, Louis. When we go out, they're bound to see you with me. At night, I walk in the park, with a whip, between the lines of the whispering Jesuits, who are poisoning you against me. There's a big black spider hanging over my door. Can't go anywhere, anymore. Tell me, are you with me? I called to you, several times, while the change took place and then arrived, all night, and I died. But all these songs, when you and I are long gone, will carry on. Mud in your eye. You asked my hand, hired a band. "In your heart is all that you need; ask and you will receive," it is said. I threw my bouquet, and I knocked 'em dead. Bottle of white, bottle of red. Helpless as a child, when you held me in your arms, and I knew that no other could ever love me as you loved. But help me! I'm leaving! I remember everything, down to the sound of you shaving — the scrape of your razor, the dully-abrading black hair that remained when you clutched at me, that night I came upstairs, half-dead, and, in your kindness, you put me straightaway in the cupboard, with a bottle of champagne, and then, later, on a train. It was dark out, I was half-dead. I saw a star fall into the sky, like a chunk of thrown coal, as if god himself spat like a cornered rat. I really want you to do this for me, will you have one on me? It was dark; I was drunk and half-dead, and we slept, knocking heads, sitting up in the star-smoking air, knocking heads like buoys. Don't you worry for me! Have one on me! Meanwhile, I will raise my own glass to how you made me fast and expendable, and I will drink to your excellent health, and your cruelty. Will you have one on me? — helpless as a child, when you held me in your arms, and I knew that no other could ever love me — From the courtyard, I floated in and watched it go down. Heard the cup drop; thought, "Well, that's why they keep them around." The blackguard sat hard, down, with no head on him now, and I felt so bad, cause I didn't know how to feel bad enough to make him proud. Well daddy longlegs, are you? Daddy longlegs, are you? Daddy longlegs, are you proud?

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'81

I found a little plot of land, in the garden of Eden. It was dirt, and dirt is all the same. I tilled it with my two hands, and I called it my very own; there was no-one to dispute my claim. Well, you'd be shocked at the state of things — the whole place had just cleared right out. It was hotter than hell, so I laid me by a spring, for a spell, as naked as a trout. The wandering eye that I have caught is as hot as a wandering sun. But I will want for nothing more, in my garden: start again, in my hardening to every heart but one. Meet me in the garden of Eden. Bring a friend. We are gonna have ourselves a time. We are gonna have a garden party. It's on me! No, sirree, it's my dime. We broke our hearts, in the war between St. George and the dragon, but both, in equal part, are welcome to come along. I'm inviting everyone. Farewell to loves that I have known, Even muddiest waters run. Tell me, what is meant by sin, or none, in a garden seceded from the union in the year of A.D. 1? The unending amends you've made are enough for one life. Be done. I believe in innocence, little darling. Start again. I believe in everyone. I believe, regardless. I believe in everyone.

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Good Intentions Paving Company

Twenty miles left to the show. Hello, my old country. Hello. Stars are just beginning to appear, and I have never, in my life, before been here. And it's my heart, not me, who cannot drive, at which conclusion you arrived, watching me sit here, bolt upright, and cry for no good reason at the Eastering sky. And the tilt of this strange nation, and the will to remain for the duration (waving the flag, feeling it drag). Like a bump on a bump on a log, baby; like I'm in a fistfight with the fog, baby; step, ball-change, and a-pirouette! And I regret how I said to you, Honey, just open your heart, when I've got trouble even opening a honey jar. And that, right there, is where we are. I've been 'fessing, double-fast, addressing questions nobody asked. I'll get this joy off of my chest, at last, and I will love you till the noise has long since passed. I did not mean to shout, Just drive, Just get us out, dead or alive. The road's too long to mention — Lord, it's something to see! — laid down by the Good Intentions Paving Company, all the way to the thing we've been playing at, darling. I can see that you're wearing your staying-hat, darling. For the time being, all is well. Won't you love me a spell? This is blindness, beyond all conceiving, while behind us, the road is leaving, and leaving, and falling back like a rope gone slack. Well, I saw straightaway that the lay was steep, but I fell for you, honey, easy as falling asleep. And that, right there, is the course I keep. And no amount of talking is going to soften the fall, but, like after the rain, step out of the overhang. That's all. It had a nice ring to it, when the old opry house rang, so, with a solemn auld lang syne, sealed, delivered, I sang. And there is hesitation, and it always remains (concerning you, me, and the rest of the gang), but, in our quiet hour, I feel I see everything, and am in love with the hook upon which everyone hangs. And I know you meant to show the extent to which you gave a goddang — you ranged real hot and real cold, but I'm sold, I am at home on that range. And I do hate to fold, right here, at the top of my game, when I've been trying with my whole heart and soul to stay right here, in the right lane. But it can make you feel over, and old (Lord, you know it's a shame), when I only want for you to pull over, and hold me, till I can't remember my own name.

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No Provenance

Allelu, allelu: I have died happy, and lived to tell the tale to you. I have slept for forty years, and woke to find me gone. I woke safe and warm in your arms. Not informed of the natural law, squatting, lordly, on a stool, in a stall, we spun gold clear out of straw. And, when our bales of bullion were stored, you burned me like a barn. I burned safe and warm in your arms. I'm afraid of the Big Return. There's a certain conversation lost, and that loss incurred with nobody remaining, to register who had passed this way, in the night, in the middle of the night (negating their grace and their sight), till only I remember, or mark, how we had our talk: We took our ride, so that there was no-one home, and the lights of Rome flickered and died. And, what's more, I believe that you knew it, too; I think you saw their flares, and kept me safely unawares, in your arms. The grass was tall, and strung with burrs, I essayed that high sashay which, in my mind, was my way; you hung behind, in yours. Anyhow, she did not neigh. I do not know what drew our eyes to hers; that little black mare did not stir, till I lay down in your arms. Poor old dirty little dog-size horse! — swaying and wheezing, as a matter of course; swaying and wheezing, as a matter of pride. That poor old nag, not four palms wide, had waited a long time, coated in salt, buckled like a ship run foul of the fence. In the middle of the night, she'd sprung up, no provenance, bearing the whites of her eyes. And you, with your 'arrangement' with Fate, nodded sadly at her lame assault on that steady old gate, her faultlessly etiolated fishbelly-face; the muzzle of a ghost. And, pretty Johnny Appleseed, via satellite feed, tell us, who was it that you then loved the most? Pretty Johnny Appleseed, leave a trail that leads straight back down to the farm. Lay me down safe and warm in your arms.