With a face like raven, feet of lamb
The chest of horse and mouth of man
The beast has come to Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania USA
In his hands he holds the cannula
While the shrapnel-shredded, aching dawn
Is bleeding like a punctured arm
Through a canvass of cloud
There’s a bandage wound round the sun
And Talks Like Fire, the Indian youth
To victorious victims gives reproof
Saying “Wasn’t I the same as you?
Aren’t we all that much the same?”
And with eyes sunk moon-like in the wake
With silent strokes she’s rowed across the lake
Towards where the sky’s begun to break
On the horn of the beast
Like a river released at the thaw
When ya gonna learn? When ya gonna return?
The chief of specters dims the lights
His jeweler’s fingers work the dials
While faces wait in seats and aisles
For the illusion to begin
And announce the fourteenth eucharist
Of the holy piss and holy shit
No you don’t have to eat nor drink
You just pay at the door,
For the right to whore and be whored
When ya gonna learn? When ya gonna return?
When a man has come with man to dwell
To forgive those who cannot forgive themselves
Then the seas will split and the sands will melt
And the mountains be reformed
And the four bright horsemen from the East
Will bring health, and love, and food, and peace
And the bat will lay down with the beast
And the sons will atone
For their fathers’ crimes and their own
And on a dim and desperate beach
Talks Like Fire looks down to see
The bloodless body at his feet
And the pearl knife in her hand
And the ones who were like ghosts before
On this sheltered, shadow-crawling shore
Have gathered here to feast and gorge
Till their arteries glow
With the burning gold of the sun
I stumbled across this artist on youtube. A terrific banjo player, fiddler and singer, who does the old tunes the old ways. Give a listen and drink in that good clean mountain air. Daniel Harvester
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