Dog Days

Oh man the mountains called my number and won
I'm just a life-size lottery ticket in the hand of the One
That stress-out freak-out's gone since we packed p the car
Now I'm standing in a circle, all your sad faces crowning the yard
Hair blowing out the window, got my foot on the dash
Left my sister at a cheap gas station with no phone or no cash

With the miles rolling under my wheels
I'm not running from my troubles I'm running from me
All this newness gonna mess up my mind
Yeah i'm conscious of the future but I'm pressing rewind
Why can't I live in my own time?

Rip off the bandage, baby we gotta get used to it
Honky-tonk bars and whiskey in this land of the music
Halfway home's the same each side of the state line
Inching closer to a mile high city and a sky they say is alpine
Got no friends but a house the color of a tulip
And you're my culture and my crush and you keep away any of my loneliness

But that era had to come to an end
Yeah it's pressed inside our minds but can't be present again
Oh the canyons really make you smile
Like the weight of being grown up just slid from your scale
But problems aren't solved by a hiking trail

No more sunny days, no more sunny days
I got a heart that won’t behave, I got a mind gonna make me insane
No more sunny days, no more sunny days
You got a black cloud over your head, you're looking spent gotta get you to bed

Age ended the apartment gone
I moved out but I can’t move on
Money talks and hunger pains
It’s so lame, it’s so lame, it’s so lame

Nothing’s fixed by going downtown
You’re screaming screens always get me down
Skipped church for the gay parade
I’m the same, you’re the same, we’re the same

I wanna get into your circle
No more sunny days, no more sunny days
I got a heart that won’t behave, I got a mind gonna make me insane
No more sunny days, no more sunny days
You got a black cloud over your head, you're looking spent gotta get you to bed

Trade my anger for all of your peace
Judge not lest you judge me
Gentleness is the final muse
I’m so used, I’m so used, I’m so used

Told me once I was your wild card
Something dramatic always up my arm
Headlines beat behind my eyes
In my mind, In my mind, in my mind

I wanna get into your circle
I want an invite to your house show
So I’m gonna get into your circle

When you leave for work I think you won’t come back
Why can’t I dream of healing not the heart attack
This neighborhood’s so peaceful, all-American
So quiet it’s almost evil, but there I go again

Oh no
Oh no

I can’t find the combination to unlock what I do
Is it my fate to pour your coffee as you pour over the news?
I can’t see the end, the outcome of this year
Just give me good eyes, blue skies
Cut me sharp and clear

It helps having you having me in this land of mirrors and weed
Walk the line, you walk through fire
Separate the truth from desire
It helps having you having me in this land of mirrors and weed
Walk the line, you walk through fire
Separate the truth from desire

Burnt out blues and localism frame the evening
Are you saints or sinners? You know your looks are deceiving
Got no friends, no family just my backwards hat
And all these days feel empty but there’s no going back

It helps having you having me in this land of mirrors and weed
Walk the line, you walk through fire
Separate the truth from desire

I don’t wanna end up the same as other poets
Neurotic and halfway insane
Although we see the world in the same way
Emotional extremes, the panic of the everyday
I don’t want your minimum wage
No I need these hours alone to foster my self-righteous rage

Another coffee shop prophet naming unseen things
Another b-grade writer drawing circles on a blank sheet

I fight the code against the grain
Tequila and communion, art is going down the drain
You always keep your hands so clean
Your loving and your stance, you’re balancing the in-between

We don’t have a lot of things in common
A bullet and a bible
The world is hard, the sky is falling down

Down
Down

Is this the dream that you showed me, phosphorescent light?
Will we be standing in a driveway holding hands for the final time?

Time
Time

Everyday it’s a little bit easier to believe you
Every hour it's a little bit harder to see the change in me
In this year am I gonna be better than I am right now?
In this year just tell me it's all gonna be alright

Everyday it’s a little bit easier to believe you
Every hour it's a little bit harder to see the change in me
In this year am I gonna be better than I am right now?
In this year just tell me, oh say it’s gonna be alright

Just tell me, oh say it’s gonna be alright

At night the quiet is too loud
Like white noise from a big crowd
The TV’s on, it’s hard to read
We’re multi-tasking through a century
And every man must play his part
Take off the mask when the theater’s dark

I just want something real tonight

I don’t want your screen or your satellite
I just want something so pure tonight
I don’t want the show but the sacrifice

We are the Adam and the Eve
I read that verse in my bible of dreams
And now my troubles come in twos
Pick up my pride, it's the poison fruit
I am the temple where the lenders meet
Upturn my spirit, set loose my sympathy

I just want something real tonight

I don’t want your screen or your satellite
I just want something so pure tonight
I don’t want the show but the sacrifice

You're the only real thing
I wanna see you
I wanna know your love
You're the only real thing
I wanna see you
I wanna feel your love

I just want something real tonight

I don’t want your screen or your satellite
I just want something so pure tonight
I don’t want the show but the sacrifice

A man sits down next to me, throws his backpack like a bomb
Slaughters all my silence like a war
I pretend that I’m not shaken, staring into blank space
See my life behind me like its folklore
There’s a happiness that follows a handshake or a full moon
The fullness of how small we really are
Like the time I went up in an arch, a metal arc over the world
Did I feel like God or a little girl?

One foot forward one foot back, this is the no-man’s-land of time
Why can’t I live it in the present?

Everyone’s connected, we don’t have to talk or think
White noise from the TV takes care of any loneliness

Forever is composed of nows and joy is not so delicate
If you know you’re really gonna die
Loneliness and solitude are fractions of some greater whole
Just trying not to waste your youth, your 20’s
But living isn’t checking all those pixels and those pages
That refresh button suicide of real life
When the whole world fits inside your pocket and language is reduced to fragment
Take that screen with you everywhere
It won’t be a whimper but a text-tone that will end us
The wave of future crashes but I won’t be flooded

I don’t have the answers to any of these problems
Will you try and help me before I try and solve them?

Throw your fist at the man
You’ve got everything you need with your prescription, your houseplant
Throw your fist at the phonies
Can’t believe you went pop with your commercials, your money
What does it take to be heard?
One hundred emails, my first born, your good word
Who pulls the strings behind the stage?
Some teenage critic who think he’s a wise sage

Oh, where does the good go?
Oh, what’s gonna happen tomorrow?
Oh, why are you hiding?
Oh, why am I fighting you this time?

I can’t keep saying what I think
Like the past won’t disappear just like a bad dream in bad ink
And everyone’s so avantgarde
One thousand worldview’s just tugging on my arm
Numb and dumb with burnout eyes
We drank the poison we ate up the lie
But every day starts good and pure
With coffee, a clean slate my sin is obscured

Oh, where does the good go?
Oh, what’s gonna happen tomorrow?
Oh, why are you crying?
Oh, why am I fighting you this time?

I can’t keep coming all undone
Technology, morality, my life’s a smoking gun
You have a right to be forgiven
Stop dredging up your crimes
You know what’s done is done, forgotten

Conversations about duty, oh I’ve failed you at best
My ideals haven’t fallen, won’t put my hands to the test
My sound and your fury, thought is a cell
My landlord cut the tree down, it grew then it fell
I heard I hadn’t worked a day in 23 years
Read my summers, wrote my stories, earned my wages in tears

I’m battered at the edges, a shadow on the street
I’m a bad joke about English, too sour to be sweet

A season born of anger, pissed off at the moon
He sees the world I can’t, he’s closer to You
I write my list, clean the house, drive to the Goodwill, text all of my old friends
You know it’s my time to kill

When did God become a bad word and truth a crystal ball?
See only what you wanna, see nothing at all
I insult, it’s my instinct, a creature of the fall
Just don’t cut me down now, let me grow to be tall

I was born on a day in the internet age
Now it’s backwards hat 90’s, a gaudy millennial daze
So I check the feed, make sure I’m still here
It’s my digital birthright, my modern rendition of real

A fine freak show disguised as awards
This all seems so pointless the pretty pop stars look so bored
All the world’s a stage, a big mirrored ball
All in all you're just another dumb link on my wall

So I jump in a fountain and punch at the moon
My hysterical kick from my flirting with danger, with doom

They can’t really take your soul away
Even if they try
They can’t really take your soul away this time
They can’t really take your soul away
You gotta keep it alright
They can’t really take your soul away this time

Point my finger at you everyday
Like I even walk straight
See my other half it’s on the screen, my dream
Point my finger at you everyday
Like I even walk straight
See my other half its on the screen, my dream