[Verse]
Bm D
Aug. 6th, carved in desks with old knives:
A
“Back when our common cause was alive
Bm
And--let’s say--the hyacinth fields were in bloom
D
Children watched as the soldiers marched by
A
All the birds fell like frogs from the sky
Bm
Prostrate in the streets every crescent moon
D
Lonesome offspring of which still resound
A
With the victimless sins of their authors passed down
Bm
And the remnants of loathsome, disjointed worlds
D
Along the short path round the lily pad pond
A
With off-white deerskin wedding dress on
Bm
German songs, homemade bonnets like old-order, amish girls jilted by squirrels
D
In the parks of Sioux Falls haunted by church bells
A
Like ghosts of applause and the earth deep down tire-stacked walls like
Bm D A
New Mexico, peaceful as moth-bitten pincushion dolls making up myths about wounds without cause...”
Bm
And sometimes when it’s quiet my heart feels like Guernica
D
[scenes from old air raid] on screens in blue dusk
A
Perfumed neighborhoods/graveyards the breath feels like flies in my lungs, voice like ambulance
Bm
Sirens whose light floods the ground
D
(“praying mantis spreads arms” said the lines of whose palm?)
A
Skyline shifting like clouds became “airplane descends”
Bm
[fade to scenes on the ground] human foreheads all smashed
D
Foreign cars upside down, insect mouths open wide
A
I stared down a huge insect, bright red-glowing eyes
Bm
[does it feel wrong to say a thought “metastasized”?], legs on both highway sides
[Break]
F#m A G
(Said insect was mechanized!)
F#m A G Em
F#m A G
(Said insect was mechanized!)