JESSE MARCHANT (LP, 2014)
Words Underlined
Past the strain, fever crushed
I woke to human sound
An empty street
Loneliness, a fire going out
I feel estranged
From all the world around
The feeling's grown
I fear I'm letting go
Down the street
At once where worlds collide
And light you alone
In an effort strained
I stopped to find the line
Best ends the poem
Where were you
When all of this was fucked
And on it's side?
Those words I underlined
In your part, you a wreck
You were one foot back
Counting and weighing the odds
You were wrong for it love
There was something there
Now erased to black
With the wrongful acts
Of your warm lit half
You can't rely on me
To straighten you away
Now the weight
Of all that's fallen down
Is mine alone
I see the way
You watched your walk
Of blindness find a home
Well I know that change
To let become as right
What is known
I seen that letting go
And in the parting wreck
You a wounded lamb
You couldn't win in the odds
All your mournful love
Into some thin air
Well I was way in the isles
In a wanderlust
In the sunlit air
I saw a light on you
But it faded away
All Your Promise
You leaned too far back
Ended on your ass, alone
Counting days to the fair
You can go with
A friend that you lost
Then you'd feel the heat
Sitting near the fire
Now when you're flying over water
Tell me do you ever feel
That you were denied
Of your reason, all your promise
Hold me, for just once
Without any address
Of failed form
Life's thorn in my chest
Even if it's real
Even when I'm lost
I am on your side
I belong to you
You belong to your faults
To your reasons and to the times
Drowning in your ocean of love
Tied to you, a stake in your flood
Still all your brightness of form
Shone under light it gets pale
I would have stayed in your arms
If you could ever get there
The Whip
Breaking apart
From a life too late
I saw the line
Of the coward's trace
It was time
I took to running
And I learned that quick
Packing your life
Onto a traveling stick
Ain't a trial
I came around in the fall
In the rain
Like every child
Who is lost in their way
Standing alone in the line
Everybody likes to feel
They're holding the whip
Here everybody likes
A goal they can drink to, a rise
Yeah everybody's got
Their lines and their ways
And I never wanted
To be part of a chase
Or to heat a wan denial
I see droves of lion faces
Down every row I walk through
Chasing the light
Figuring out how
The world we place here
Into these black hole hearts
Were fitted you and I
Ending the race I am the last one
Even now
I felt the sun
And the warm of the rays
And in the dark
In the canyon wind, alive
There you were standing
With your back to the waves
I picked you up
And then I lost you and babe
I never got it back
You were a light
You didn't have to change
I was the one
Always had you straying behind
Falling around
In the righteous waste
That I filled you up with
It had to have pained you blind
Is there no way
To put it right for you
Even now
Every Eye Open
Thought you had opened
Your heart to me
Every light shone, I was mistaken
Don't these friends fall out
Ain't they leaves on the ground
Laid into place for you
I remember the nights
When you and I were high
And reclaimed a youth
Your skin in the sun
Your hair in the wind
Every eye open pulls you in
But you are less than what you are
I seen the one you lost
The way you skip across the sand
Lying dead in the ocean
I waited on the pull of your hand
Does it bring you up
To stake your line
In anyone who'll gather around
To live on the grounds
Of your half-whole life
A lie you stake into your life too
The patching of holes
And the light
From the secrets
That shines through
All the waste from the inside
Well I've been living in lies too
Yeah, I've been holding 'em down
And the secret sin
That I've loved you
For more than a little while
Reminders, Defeats
See it now it is passing you
Plain in the firelight
Nothing new, just happening again
Stiffened and paralyzed
In the sheets
Don't give me a line
I know the change when it comes
Pick all your prizes, get it right
Own the streak
It ain't nothing
And I don't need anyone
To have to explain to that
Everyone's got to carry their own
You got fucked on your way
Well I ain't to blame
For whatever ain't done to you right
And whatever's done to you wrong
You pull your life on a chain
Well it all will have passed
And it all will have done
With you what it may
You can tell both of your parents
That they got it wrong
Pushing you aside
All that anger they left you
Now with their pain
Did you end up with all the rise
From the city that you wanted
You were onto it fast
When I had to face
That somehow I'd never know
Any form of it right
Just it running a waste
That I couldn't take
Well they're onto you now
And you've idled in swamp
I'm done drowning
In the ways that I can't escape
Somehow I feel it like a sting
Somehow I feel it wrong
In the Sand/Amelia
How long in the sand
In a lightning fall
Calming the wreck
To a break of form
Hatch of honest light
Of the sea, of you in rounds
I feel a pull
Into walls that come out
While I know it is wrong
I carry on like that
It was once of a fire
It is now of the ash
And at fault to let you in
Though the feeling is warm
It is mild and unruly
While I love what is lost
All I feel is the time
Catching dreams in the swamp
Can't get the feet of them dry
Snow Chicago
Waking to a snowed Chicago
Thoughts of you that fall away
Looking out across at the people
In the office cells along Lake
Last night in a dream
You were lying
Waiting in the room on me
When I arrived
Something gotten
Into you strange and wild
Your looks hadn't changed
But you acted in a way
That I don't understand
I just wanna feel at ease
And that for once I do belong
In all the many forms
And I been some
I've been shit out loosing in 'em all
By the wind blow
In a walk of it blind
I know I let that strain on you
Get out of line
Like your winning got away
With you and your time
Like we fall out of plan
And get washed out of hands
I'll never understand
The Road is Dark & Snowed
Pack up and plan for the change
Idiot heart to obey
It leads you where
The road is dark and snowed
And all it met you in a storm
Your late ignite into honest form
It felt to you right
But led you lost in the long
All this that's rattled you away
I know excites you in a way
But it sets you blind at fault
I'd seen this side of you before
It came to light in you, and more
I can recall the ways you'd hide
To know it
So this is right you, in a way
But all that stands around you
Ain't a stain
You can wane off into nihil
I know this is
Running you a rain
You know I would
Accept you either way
But it gets me down
Way it's come unravelled
It all isn't right
Adrift
Tied to what is late, ain't you now
Adrift, I know all i was is gone
Still life underwater, cheap shot
Blown out too far away
To become right
In moonlight on a wandering field
I drank alone and watched
It come unreeled
A life to belong to and keep
In straight line
Blown now too far away
To be done right
I wish you'd hide the way you feel
Gun blasts get fired away
Straight lines defined in the waves
Stranded and effaced in the black
Old lives bleeding naked
And last forms of other lines
Of the chase
Ghosts of denial and fame
Gone now
Well they will find you again
Gone now
Well they will find you again
Coming at you
When you're finding your way
Coming at you
When you're fine and eat away
Tied to what is late, ain't you now
Stay on Your Knees
It's coming out at the seams
All your life
What was leading your way
Firm denial in hand
Blending lines
Not to give you away
Your parts don't align
Coming around
I could see it this time
Not much like you to plead
Spent a life on your knees
In a faith carries no light
One way out
And I can see it is time
It's reached a fall
I know you would have
Reasoned it all
Covered you
In a cleanest of warmth
Love was real
But the meaning was wrong
I never know
When to feed it
Or leave it alone
Pen the lines
Lead us along
Like your part time
Freedom on loan
Spend the night
Then leave us alone
Lines on Shore
Keep your lines on the shore
Carry on in the life you know
Where you're more like your own
When the lights fade
In the noon of now and then
Hanging on by a thread
Things get let go of
And moments eclipse
That full moon
Don't it light to you alone
In the weather that sails you
The farther and farther to slip
Time don't it weigh on your heart
End of plan
Well I was long before it
In the sand
Stolen far and away
In the black night of all of this folly
Caroline