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1. |
Cataclysm
08:00
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I don’t know if I can fake it anymore / I’ve lied long enough for you / & if you think you know me / just because you’ve read the words / I wrote / well, here’s another song for you
Is every word is a cataclysm / & does it hurt to say / what fills your heart / with lonely rhythm / in the aftermath of Rebirth ?
I wanted to be your vessel / I wanted to fill your need / but the past is an unwieldy burden / & I fell out of line again
‘cuz every word was a cataclysm / & does it hurt to say / what fills your heart / with lonely rhythm / in the aftermath of Decay ?
If I dress it up in ribbons / if I groom and make it glisten / will that make it easier for you / will you finally stop & listen
to every word that's a cataclysm / & how it hurts to say / what fills
your heart / with lonely rhythm / in the aftermath of the Shame
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2. |
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All my life I have been waiting / for the rain / to come and sate me / for I am just / a child of the dust / you ate / that enslaved you / Forgive us thus / our unbound lust / that holds you in our brethren / for we knew not / what your wings would cost / the day we sought / to cut them
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3. |
Ode to Mother(land)
06:44
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Didn’t you once believe in art?
Didn’t you once have a beating heart?
when you told me the story
about a poet and her friends
who went to see a king
but he wouldn’t let them in
except for her fine eyes
She told him of the troubles
throughout their country
She told him of her worries
for all their people
She told him this in rhyme
and in the rhythms of her song
She told him this in rhyme
and with the poetry of her tongue
& that’s when he began to see
(( ))
Mother you once watched
a monk light himself on fire
in 1963 when you thought fire might
say more than a gun
or all the bombs
over Viet Nam
but his ashes contradicted him
he was burning himself for peace
It was that kind of world
So you took me away
to an ivory tower
In the hills where gold lay
I grew into a princess
and I never learned to speak
in my rightful language
I only learned to choke
on all the beautiful English
That burns my throat today
(( ))
Didn’t you once believe in art?
Didn’t you promise to fight with your words?
Well, fight with words we did
stumbling over our own tongues
Mother, you were the child
that I failed to love
And I’m sorry if I did
‘Cause now you praise the warfare and
the flags of our follies
& I am just an innocent
who knows nothing of History
I only know the stories
about the old poets who once
you dreamed of following
bringing the world to reason
As I still dream today
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4. |
Lullaby*
05:27
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Night after night
the bombs fall
sweeping girl
stops her broom (to listen)
to the gods
falling apart
& heaven throwing our prayers
back at us
Does a mother wake feeling
the walls shake
& when she hears her child cry
she says I will sing you a lullaby
But this was not the song I had in mind
this lullaby of the artillery fire
this lullaby of the artillery fire
((we were meant to be a gentle people))
((& you ask what is the greater evil?))
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5. |
Origin Tale
09:11
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Mountain mother / mourning all her rivers / that flow with the blood / of soldiers / the children who remain / pick up the pieces / they plant the seeds
Dragon father / you always were so restless / so you took half of the children / and you led them south to the seashore / where you taught them freedom
Mother she is crying / but her tears fall as drops of ink / so Mother she cries / a newspaper / and her sorrow is only documentary
newsreels tell me / what to feel / because I don’t know / what is real / t.v. communicates our rage / but a death count is all / that speaks our sadness
Sister searches high & low / for her Brother she once knew / in the north / and Brother he writes / long letters home / “is a flag not but a piece of cloth?”
tell me / what you saw that night / when the bomb’s fire mingled / with the starlight / thought I was witnessing the end / of my Time / but then I learned
that the guilty / survive // we survive
((we will suffer no more))
((we will not carry your war))
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6. |
<Break the Silence>
03:51
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< —break the silence— >
<tell them what went wrong
at the breaking of our
new dawn>
<we once were kin
breathed of the same skin —
<oh my sisters have they forgotten me ?>
<i was the Torus
you were the Ram’s nest>
<we kissed
& the whole thing shuddered to
Life>
<i took your wing
you caught my tailspin
but still I fell>
<Mother you tempted me said you cannot change your destiny—
oh but surely by now I have proven you wrong>
<Break the silence, Tell them what was
the real Reason that we Left>
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7. |
On an Open Field
03:01
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8. |
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sometimes i feel like a motherless child
sometimes i feel like i'm almost done
but such a long way from home
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9. |
Hell's Gate
06:45
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These hills of gold are all I have to offer you / my men, my men / & gold you may find here / & toil you will, my dears / but richer will be / the ones who vanish their greed / to find within the trees / the secrets my daughters keep / & the ages do bleed / & their patient eyes weep
long have they scratched my skin / and teased my bones / they dressed in / feathers and skins / they marked the stones / they climbed quiet as mice / to heights humans don't belong / to heights humans don't belong
& then came Fraser's men and the lady / whose search would never end / for the men lost at sea / to the dark northern degrees
My veins they named a portal to hell / my blood was turbulent / & for the canyons walls they scaled / I claimed the souls of some of them
& on my belly they did lay / a powder soft and grey / they set this afire / with a kiss / with a kiss, with a kiss / & the hole this love did create / grew into a cave / that the men could climb deep inside / to extract the substance I hide
these hills of gold are all I have / to offer you / my men, my men / & gold you may find here / & toil you will my dears / but only a few will know / the damage they hold
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10. |
Motherbear
06:13
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11. |
Two Rivers
07:21
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Two rivers meet where the water is warm
Two rivers meet where the water is warm
Blackberries stain my childish hands
Blackberries stain my childish hands
it must’ve been the Fall in Washington
Mother says it was in Washington
where we saw two rivers cross
one from the valley
one from up on the rocks
one streamed cold, one streamed hot
in a blackberry forest I saw
the two rivers join into one
Father killed a snake with his bare hands
Father killed a snake with his bare hands
Blackberries on my tongue under the sun
Blackberries on my tongue under the sun
it must’ve been the sun on the hill in Montana
the grass under my hands & my mother & my father
I remember when, I remember when
the blackberries stained my hands
& the water that I washed in then
was Cold on one hand was Hot on the other
was Cold on one hand was Hot on the other
you were angry, you were angry
but the memory is only blackberries
my father the fire, my mother the earth
my father the water, my mother the earth
my father the shadow, my mother the earth
((if I could sing this to the boy in Washington he might understand better the mountain))
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Dao Strom Portland, Oregon
/// songs. poems. song-poems.
poetry+art. spaces in-between. /// / // /
(sometimes sea)
(sometimes her)
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