in california

I don't belong to anyone. My heart is heavy as an oil drum, I don't want to be alone. My heart is yellow as an ear of corn and I have torn my soul apart from pulling artlessly with fool commands. Some nights I just never go to sleep at all, and I stand shaking in the doorway like a sentinel, all alone, bracing like the bow upon a ship, and fully abandoning any thought of anywhere but home; my home. Sometimes I can almost feel the power and I do love you. Is it only timing that has made it such a dark hour, only ever chiming out, "cuckoo, cuckoo"?

My heart, I wear you down I know. Gotta think straight, keep a clean plate, keep from wearing down. If I lose my heart, just where am I going to lay it? For it has half-ruined me, to be hanging around, here among the Daphne, blooming out the big brown. I am native to it, but I'm overgrown. I have choked my roots on the earth, as rich as roe, here down in California.

All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast

The leafless tree looked like a brain
The birds within were all the thoughts and desires within me
Hoppin' around from branch to branch, or snug in their nests listening in

An eagle came over the horizon and shook the branches with its sight
The softer thoughts; starlings, finches, and wrens
The softer thoughts, they all took flight

The eagle looked clear through the brain tree, emptying thoughts saved for me
Maybe I'll make this one my home, consolidate the nests of the tiny
Raise a family of might like me

Then something struck him, wings of bone
Sweet desires and soft thoughts were all gone
The eagle shrieked, "I'm alone"

Well i was time to flee the tree
The eagle snuck up on the wind one talon at a time
Being sky king of the sky, what did he have to fear

All thoughts are prey to some beast
Sweet desire and soft thoughts, return to me

bill callahan