In the open country… hear the wind moan - there’s nothing really better, than this good country air. There’s apples on the branches… it’s Eden everywhere. Cobra’s in the sunshine, bells ring in the dark. The church stains the frontier - a symbol which God’s forgot. So fire kiss me deadly, caress these edges to ash heaps. Give me, O Lord, just one sign if there is anyone up there they’ll now know our pain. No longer ignored now, come down into the Plains… and feel the open country. I'm in the open country where the angels crawl, crawl across the plains toward the fall -

Exhumed the scandalous cadaver this Black Dahlia, with her perfume and her powder. Well what does it matter? Now that it’s over? We’re all fishing in Chernobyl for a four-leafed clover. I says modern imagination, our frontiers eliminated and so we’re all pioneers now for an unknown destination. I’d move to the country, find me a little home but it’s all gone the way of Jesus Christ - that is to say it’s all gone, gone, gone away. Turned into a Shop ‘N Save, turned to metal and mirrors and satellite receivers. Now there’s forty-five hundred channels of shit on my T.V but none with a view into my open country. So goodbye blue Madonna you’ve turned from grey to green and I’m sick to death with helplessness and I’ve got to get away into the open country, open country.

There is a light under Clem’s Creek and in the dark of night you can see it shine. Shine like subtle sun between svelte glass bright as dawning day or distant star. I saw her reach into Clem’s Creek in search of what I cannot speak but when she grasped the light she was swept clean from me now she's buried just beneath Clem’s Creek.

there was a careless light which reached speculations of night crawl from the creek from the creek, from the creek let’s move to open country find us a little home where it’s all gone like Jesus Christ that is to say it’s all gone, gone, gone under Clem’s Creek under Clem's Creek under Clem's Creek

if you look closer, really closer, you may start to see what’s always been this vernal equinox reaching from my hand to yours

Darling it’s raining on the roses, all of our troubles wash away. Now the smallest touch can take what I thought was fate, now washes away. Hey... now it's all gone black, roses in the rain I thought we'd make it back, just not like that so why do you think I’m blue? after all that we’ve been through - Darling please don’t follow the wilting of bloodless hollows under the creek I spotted a severed lily white cloth hemmed from the finest garment gosh, is it on a body? washed in the same water as our roses in the rain Oh dear, our love left in the nighttime, with its tender loving hands it dissipates our light like greying moon oh no... oh no... now all we know will fall below now all we know will fall below now all we know will fall below now all we know will fall below like roses in the rain

as I sit with sparrows and sawdust I watch spiders build webbed homes and the wind comes like rapture a deadly message blows there’s no oranges in the canyon there’s no love in her arms ‘cause I know that she goes often to a place all her own and in barrooms and her bedroom the same comedy plays on television channels and between parted legs we touch but only for warmth we talk just to rid our heads of the places we inhabit when there’s another in our bed so I ask why do you wander? but you’re already gone on chariots with the huntsmen she carries with her a bag of yarn so go on into the nursery with yer schemes and metal cores I don’t need yer dirty medicine I don’t need you anymore…

Tell me again, how it used to when blues skies and apple pie where the constants in this life of mine - Tell me again babe, where did it go? Slept through a winter and woke still in snow - It used to seem you’d always be some better part of me but now I only see the rain fall down and drowning in the pool a reflection of someone I knew no it cannot be… the better part of me no it ain’t gone yet you’ll see it’s just hangin’ on - like a sparkle in a rolling stream it’s there before it slips between the constant state of forward motion - you can’t hold a memory, you can’t live forever ya see, but ya gotta hold on to the better of me cause it ain’t gone yet you see

Like some ill Adonis in Adidas and black leather I’m rolling through Arabia with Lawrence’s red letter My lips are sealed, my hands are tied, my eyes two marble spheres I’ve got pharmaceutical chemicals hidden in the wheels I got moto fever and just like the sons of old I know what your future holds Big T.V’s and magazines, and misanthropic policies Nixon, Regan, JFK they all know my name I’m like the Platters Great Pretender - I’m the postman and the letter sender I got moto fever Sideways saddled, sixstring, switchblade, laced in nitrate, bad blood & wine stains. Checkin’ in the mirror for the FBI praise the Lord I saw the light go out of yer eyes for forty days the sun ain’t rised Now I’m shaking like a rattlesnake tied to the wheels of my ride (uh uh) I got moto fever

Praise the lord I saw the light! Praise the lord I saw the light! Do you got that feelin’ crawlin’ up yer spine? As lonesome as a whisper of her bygone lullaby. Do you stumble? Or crumble? When you think of it now? How that holy love has gone up through the clouds. Are you achey? Possibly breaky? All the pieces of yer past fall around like broken glass Do you wonder if I wonder how you are? Well I really wanna wonder but I’ve wandered much too far from you Is her reflection fading from yer view? is it over the Plains, with a heart turnin’ blue is it in the window of a derelict lot? You see that same face which you seem to have forgot Are you achey? Possibly breaky? All the pieces of yer past fall around like broken glass Do you wonder if I wonder how you are? Well I really wanna wonder but I’ve wandered much too far from you

Listen up Johnny, I think it’s coming down That old train howling like thunder from the clouds You better move quick if you want to get a view, of that old body layin’ like Jesus come unscrewed The rope paints red into the skin As I feel my soul succumb to sin Lord have mercy on a man like me, I can hardly help it, I’m a bad bad seed The murder moan comes rumbling home through the valley of forgotten bones A hesitation whispers in her ear, there’s no time to save her it’s nearly near It's a horizontal - horizontal cross horizontal it's a horizontal cross

Laced like a line, sweeter than wine burnin’ like diesel - snow white I’m tellin’ fairy tales but when it comes to payin’ nobody fronts the bill that narcotic sequence, them lines of code, writing gibberish,turning me cold as snow frigid blue and gone then you wake up wondering ahh whats going on? In laymen’s terms it’s called disease, disfiguration of apathy. Cut by the silver of yer blade forged from deceptive ice it melts away turns the day into the night the night into the day you lock the doors, and close the shutters but find it’s here to stay snow white I'm tellin’ fairy tales but when it comes to payin’ nobody fronts the bill Now every glaring ivory edge fills my eyes with pointlessness the only color now is white pure and evil, this permanent fixture just give me a number cause I really need to reach ya

I mailed you this letter I hope it arrives in Spain before the end of the night… I’m sure it’s real warm and the beaches adorned with bodies all immaculately born - well, It’s very cold here on Clark and East Hastings, with the puppets strungout and the nameless all singing “It’s December now, and its very quiet…” Do you remember when I mailed you that flower? I wonder how it fared from Montreal through Seattle… I digress, I suppose it’s best if I rest but I can’t seem to find my pillow I confess, so I’ll stay up writing till Christmas passes and the singing in my heart quietly crashes like one last wave on the beaches of Spain. I see that you’ve got yourself a new tattoo, funny enough I’ve been wanting one too Remember when we talked about what we would do if one of us ever broke through, although even if we didn’t I knew all I needed was you, why is it so quiet now? It was never this quiet when I was with you… Huh, so it seems that's the last of the ink, just when I was starting to think it'd be better if you know… when it’s time to go I’ll go to you, if you want me to when it’s time to go I’ll go to you, if you want me to

The table is set and I’m on my own again, how many good-byes until we say hello again? As I crumble with wine by the bedside, I’m starless and shining with eyes wide. The last flight to London departs with you, I’m left to the bottle, alone and so blue. O so pointless… is that the point of this? We follow into a hollow grasping at chance, as the distance seems more distant everyday, how can that even be possible? Last flight to London departs with you, I’m left to the bottle alone and so blue. I know it’s wicked, I know it’s wrong to go and keep loving what I know now is gone.

When the water came and took her I prayed it would take me too But it never blessed me ever It just left me holding a bouquet of greener memories of when you loved me ‘ on greener pastures, on better terms when there was laughter but you never heard these words, I loved you, think I still do think I’ll always remember greener pastures

Better days will find you in the end (you’ll see, you’ll see) All yer tears will dry and you’ll be cleansed (again, again) For every light must come to an end (an end, an end)

A goddess with her bag of yarn milks the calf for all its got says she’d rather have than to have not Then she turns toward another man she snaps just like a rubber band and lands between the roses and the thorns she once adorned, now betrays She says it could be tried or it could be true but how the hells one to get through to a boy like you who’s got nothing to lose I thought at first it was a joking thing, a funny poem in the kitchen sink, but then she shaved her legs and made for the door It was midnight on the farm, behind a red barn we danced. Measured in barbed wire - wrapped in electric light one night. Tell me truly - don’t you lie, just how small is a moment in one’s life? Could it be forever? Maybe just for one night could it live in black ink like that Romeo and Juliet line where art thou? where are we? where’d ya go? into a memory? are you still there painting the barn red? have you fallen down? are you Heavensent? - are you some Lorelei, in your river of lies still asking why - Why did you go to the water that ran below us? you threw my roses away what more is there to say? you were swept under the rain yet I still recall - Midnight on the farm, behind a red barn we danced measured in barbed wire, wrapped in electric light we loved then there was some movement behind that barn sudden movement, a shadow crawling alive everybody went real quiet like this, “Ssssh...!” it was as if life had ceased to exist then it did a cold light opened soft over the riverbank and briefly I thought of you reaching in cause there was a real beautiful light laying somewhere beneath that current and then ya did, I saw ya sink sink sink sink down, sink down into the bottom now it was midnight on the farm as a moment reached for a yawn and all stood still, I heard the hills arrange in seven rows a haiku of yellow and shivering shade there was some God in the rafters and the Plains reached for laughter but all was swept forever after that blackness had reached through and past her and I felt the light! and I saw the light! break through the night and all was obsidian, and silent and simple a moment opening! wider! wider! nights great mouth engulfed you entirely, memory! it was taking all of me up up! until there is nothing! no sweet forever! no precious bells! no thick silver! no conscious fever no sin, no sinking feeling no material seeking I was headed to the midnight screening with my head all undid the fever coming up I could feel it start start to erupt into a garden of light you pick the blossoms of a black night midnight was a creeping through the grass a poem was seeping it spelled M-I-D-N-I-G-H-T on the farm M-I-D-N-I-G-H-T on the farm just you and me Midnight on the farm, behind a red barn we danced come on now bring it up, bring it up, get higher how much longer? not much now, I can feel it! it starts just like that sound! rising up! now you must listen very closely to this next part it starts like this the sound, the fury, the idle cross water wash away our loss now comes the final part the last prayer of a godless heart take it now! it’s midnight on the farm everybody's arm in arm bells ring out beyond the evening stars fall upon the plains once burning hue painted now a sterling blue and all the awful poetry turns to dance so simply we gonna move to the country find us a little home where it’s all gone like Jesus Christ that is to say it’s all gone, gone, gone but not gone quite yet - come on baby slide it to the left take a pedal from the rose and place it on the bed we’re moving from the grey and idle streets to green of our open country taken by a tongue into the morning light six bells breaking the twilight six bells ringing in the night coming down, coming down, coming down oh let’s move to the country! find us a little home where it’s all gone like Jesus Christ but it’s not all gone - open country !