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_________________________________________________________
two kinds of glow
shine on a wet hide
i know i can reach
i can reach
but there she goes
grabbing from her tip toes
and staggering
staggering
know it now
my chest will be full
my hands will go fast
the light will recede
the light comes back
i thought i'd speak
i thought i'd climb the last wall shouting
to believe
to believe
crawl just to move
and know you're an animal at most
a poem at least
a poem at least
know it now
my chest will be full
my hands will go fast
the light will recede
the light comes back
i saw them cry their leaves to the cold
and surrender into white old skin
i know i'll find
i know i'll find
a way to the glow again
two kinds of glow
shine on a wet hide
i know i can reach
i can reach
but there she goes
grabbing from her tip toes
and staggering
staggering
know it now
my chest will be full
my hands will go fast
the light will recede
the light comes back
i saw them cry their leaves to the cold
and surrender into white old skin
i know i'll find
i know i'll find
a way to the glow again
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The Second Barn
I am not who I thought I'd be
by now the shine won't cease to leave
full up of wine and flicker screens
I am not who I thought I'd be
She holds a thing she wrote with steele
says grace seems simple far afield
the softest bales full up of fleas
I am not who I thought I'd be
I am not who I thought I'd by now be
rotten straw and garter snakes
gray gray wood never will it hold another harvest or shine
could've been a friend to you
we broke barns and we'd climb up to the open shingles to shine
--I'll never ever ever do that, you're naive
I'll never ever ever do that, you're naive
You have never been tired in your life
widow in the overhang
bouncing in rain and she made it to the morning now just to shine
could've been a friend to you
hold that lie never to come around again never to shine
--
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Light
I cannot be more for you than the light
that I have seen as I have worked the wide
turning over dirt while the shovel in the moon shines
northlands run with dogs and trash
tall pines keep the sunlight for their backs
we burned the weeds they stank and still grew back
oh there's a shine when the hillside breaks
and I can watch your chest expand
oh and the frost is just a joke often told
that I can almost I can almost understand
I cannot be more light than I have known
I can't out-sing the ghosts on the radio
and miles of pines there are miles of pines to go
honey I forgot the flowers for weeks
we were gonna be farmers we were gonna work to eat
look at us now and how the money ah the money
oh there's a shine when the hillside breaks
and I can watch your chest expand
oh and the frost is just a joke often told
that I can almost I can almost understand
so let harrows lie
we could shape this night
shape this night with our hands
and harvest it not
we'll be sirens in wide
sirens in wide dry lands
I cannot be more light than I have known
I can't out-sing the ghosts on the radio
and miles of pines there are miles of pines to go
so leave harrows lie
we could shape this night
shape this night with our hands
and harvest it not
we'll be sirens in wide
sirens in wide dry lands
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4. |
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____________________________________________________________
evergreen cemetery
wheat fields
softly in the night you were never going to be that way
chasing it
dead grass sticking to your face
evergreen
stopping in the mud there are bodies under here you'd say
that wanted things
it's just a story would you tell it anyway
I knew you so well
did you know
there was a
leaf rain coming that would stop between the sky and ground
and running through
you could drink it just by opening your mouth
but before
you couldn't stand the sadness or the thirst of an overcast
and even worse
when it was good you knew it always came back
I know you so well
did you know
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________________________________________________________
see I hide in my way
never came home from the tree glow
like water the willows will hold
and on good earth ride
and will not open palms
and will not advertise
so see I hide in my way
yet I climb toward the wood thrush
and I quarrel with too much
maybe scores that they sung
maybe moving my blood
was just luck
all that you wrote was a nothing poem
just a breaking of bottles for wine
we'll hide
see I hide in my way
and I shy from the windows
sew collars to my clothes
and outside becomes an idea
save the mountains for weekends
the soil to feed you
see me I hide in my way
but I think I could beat this
I could hold it and heave it
pinning steps up on trees
for each fiction you read and believe in
all that you wrote was a nothing poem
was a breaking of bottles for wine
we'll hide
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Among the White Birches
Birches lo, the groves
The smoked white birches grow as the getting goes
I don’t want to come or go
Said the runner to the road
And he turned toward the white birch grove
The dew capped weeds were tongues on his toes
If you turn back
Don’t be like that
Fiction of a floating tree
That sprung a creek where its roots oughta be
Runner stand up
Let the cold night come
Let the ground keep you fed
Making knots out your knees as the getting go the way of the wind
Let the bees nest
In the nape of your neck
Let the bears hold their noses high
As you grow so tall and so deep into life
Birches lo, the groves
The smoked white birches grow as the getting goes
Singing Oh my
Oh my
Roots could run with rain
The earth with all my weight
I’m sure
Dreamer I’ll be
As the runner and me
Peel that thin white bark
Pin it as skin to our legs and our arms
Digging our feet
In the deep green weeds
We stand among the birch
Our days so dense as we holler I grew out of the dirt
Singing Oh my
Oh my
Roots could bring the flood
The earth could hold me up
I’m sure
Singing oh I
Oh I,
Would give my feet as firewood
To live a life that still seems good
Among the birch
Call me immigrant
To the runner said the wind
I just move to pass the time
And my footsteps fall so thin and so light
If you turn back
Another runner in the pack
Know that trees don't grow on air
Don't let the getting get you going when the getting was never even there
Singing Oh my
Oh my
Roots could run with rain
The earth could hold my weight
I’m sure
Singing oh I
Oh I,
Would give my feet as firewood
To live a life that still seems good
Among the birch
Birches lo, the groves
The smoked white birches grow as the getting goes
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8. |
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Battery Steele Land Preserve
elise if you knew your hands were a winter wind or less
elise would you pull your knees to your chest
bury my dog in the frozen pond
the bulrush as a rosary
six old hands and a hallowed song
he'll continue in the drying weeds
we saw so we climbed
got high sometimes
battery believe in me
tunnel run the brush and bramble hill
the same as we ever did
bottles in the clearing we laid and looked up
with wine our jokes and the wind
howl went the pond and lean the trees
and something came and pissed on our packs
but the shelter of a thicket held holding us
we slept shining in the winter black
we saw so we climbed
got high sometimes
battery believe in me
elise if you knew your hands were a winter wind or less
elise would you pull your knees to your chest
send it now to sweep clean the wind over me
take his tufts of hair my thoughtlessness
scurry down at dawn at the edge of the pond
he laid unburied in death
we saw so we climbed
got high sometimes
battery believe in me
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____________________________________________________________
Burrow
let her dress take the wind
curl her lips and her pages
the dogwoods let go their leaves
never gonna go back never gonna be free
below the rows of words
she digs her toes into the dirt
and each partition of earthworm
sees the sadness in her work
call it a burrow
a way home
the poet keats about to die
swears there's something left in him
unmade poems spit and wind
never gonna get out never gonna have time
the margins held him from the scream
held his heart and rhymes between
and take her in the digger's words
are all he is and teem for her
call it a burrow
a way home
i was more when i left here
more when i left here
never came back home
i've been digging holes
i keep digging holes
call it a burrow
a way home
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10. |
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___________________________________________________________
Singing oh I
Oh I
Would give my feet as firewood
To live a life that still seems good
Among the birch
Birches lo, the groves
The smoked white birches grow as the getting goes
___________________________________________________________
I will run to the marshes
I will sink my feet into the ground until the Grass tickles my chin
I’ll let the sun turn my hair red
I will let the leaches have their fill and call Them all my brethren
I’ll grab the roots high above me
And with all my strength and all my blood I’ll Pull myself up into the tree
And when this day ends as it may
I won’t go crashing through no gates
And when this day ends as it may
I won’t go peeling skin off snakes
And when this day ends
I will leave this place unchanged
I’ll trade my bones for the white birds
And my flesh will move like willows
And my heart will be a flutter in my shirt
I will lose what I don’t require
But not for freedom’s sake my dear
And not to be a spark about the fire
As I lap up spring rain from the mud
I’ll be good as I ever good as I ever
Thought I was
And when this day ends as it may
I won’t go crashing through no gates
And when this day ends as it may
I won’t go peeling skin off snakes
And when this day ends
I will leave this place unchanged
I will write the song of my best hopes
I will take all of my words
And pan them in the river for gold
When I return hands pruned and empty
I will hear the birds a singing
And finally understand what they mean
As I lap up spring rain from the mud
I’ll be good as I ever good as I ever
Thought I was
And when this day ends as it may
I won’t go crashing through no gates
And when this day ends as it may
I won’t go peeling skin off snakes
And when this day ends
I will leave this place unchanged
And I will be for a moment in the mud
Good as I ever good as I ever thought I was
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12. |
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Aligning
there are a thousand islands sprawled
over a great lake and in the fall
we camp out there you and me we're going back today
rain clouds form the tent stays warm
we like it that way
bears they come by and turn our tables over
like they're gunslinging bad guys in barroom dramas
and they leave silently when the rain starts to fall
every year bears get near
and leave with nothing at all
and every year you come in like an autumn hurricane
falling down on me as right as the rain
then in the morning smoke sits on the lake
it's october cold but the geese have stayed
and they glide overhead
perfectly
you say that could be us if we could just get in sync
we call for a ride and head back to the land
take trains different ways when we get to the station
you ride into the city
i ride toward ohio
we say let's write we might for awhile
then every year you'll come in like an autumn hurricane
falling down on me as right as the rain
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One Too Many Mornings
by Bob Dylan
down the street the dogs are barking
and the day is getting dark
as night comes in a falling
the dogs will lose their bark
and the quiet night will shatter
from the sounds inside my mind
and i'm one too many mornings
and a thousand miles behind
out the corner of my doorstep
my eyes they start to fade
and i turn my head back to the room
where my love and i have laid
and i gaze back at the street
at the sidewalk and the sign
and i'm one too many mornings
and a thousand miles behind
it's a restless hungry feeling
that don't do no one no good
when everything i'm a saying
you could say it just as good
you're right from your side
and i'm right from mind
we're just one too many mornings
and a thousand miles behind
_______________________________________________________________________________
Joan
down a one way street through a trailer park
your eyes were closed so you could hear the stars
and we'd coast down the worn forgotten path
in the light of the sun on the moon in the dark
you wore canvass shoes thin from spinning the globe
and the dew fell soft soaked through the soles
so we stopped to rest on the steeple steps
and we sat and we waited for the morning toles
---joan don't you go
i was trying real hard to wake you, you know
joan, can't you tell
you're my dawn and i'm your morning bell
on the steeple steps we sat and we laughed
and the night was warm but the night don't last
so as barflies floated softly home
they stumbled and moaned we didn't care about that
cause a song fell between the dark and the light
and they were playing for us and they were playing alright
we were outside the angst of an empty church
in the street we were dancing with all our might
---
now it's a long way back and a long way home
and i'm a looking for joan and a place to be warm
so i'll be waiting for her on the steeple steps
and i'll be shouting out loud come the light of the morn
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blizzard came upon this house wood halls within white falls without and sits like a pillow on a drum
his words are few with passersby he talks of weather hi goodbyes and stares into their eyes until they're gone
and fossil trees let sound the geese a thousand miles from what they need too slow to south too hungry now to leave
calling out to be allowed underneath the gathered clouds nevermore to seek and nevermore recede
--sighs when a white sky calls him sun, his voice gotten so thin
ponds in december never fed no one, but on frozen reeds he stands,
to belong to the willing
and there his boy who hides from winter except to gather sticks to send her for months he is as seldom as the rain
he sees his dad atop the reeds breathing slow and balancing where he thought only spiderwebs remain
so towards he turns and through he moves she said look to the left of you and kissed his cheek and took off through the yard
like in the man atop the reeds a yellow light begins to blink and suddenly he sees there's so much dark
--
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Barn
You don’t have to be
plucking old machines barefoot
tapping splintered planks
and spitting through smoke rings
Must be a hundred feet
above this chair the sheet metal roof
the coughing bats
a’hanging like dead leaves
This barn she’s
about to fall your family history is
rotting in her stalls
you don’t have to be
--
Barn swallow in the hollow wind shake
these alabaster days
carve lines on your face
how many ways can you say okay
--
And fell the trees
laying living trunks amongst her beams
to keep her keeping you
to keep her off her knees
To Ellery
moving two towns east this barn
rolled down the street
summer 1963
Your granddaddy
sitting in this chair barefoot
wheezing through his teeth
and cranking old machines
--
Barn
swallow in the hollow wind shake
these alabaster days
carve lines on your face
how many ways can you say okay
how many ways can you wait, can you wait
--
Now wavering
the trees have died inside
and she leans against the storms
as her body whines and creaks
You don’t have to be
dug into this ground tapping
only to the sound of your own dying
you don’t have to be
Capo 2
Tuning: C – G# - C – E – C – E
Key: D
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I've been perched at high rise windows
Since I took concrete for the field
I've been staring out these windows
At the hungry city wheel
And I hear we’ve been wasting our time
Talking windfalls and flooding our minds
But we got hollows full of wild hope
Might look like fear in city light
So I been slapping cowskins now
Stretched tight across a drum
And I been bopping my knees up and down
Keeping time to no one
And I've been dancing in hallways
But I play it down when someone comes
So for each and every long day
I get ten, I get ten forgotten ones
And I hear we’ve been wasting our time
Talking windfalls and flooding our minds
But we got hollows full of wild hope
Might look like fear in city light
Oh I've been just a whale in the waves
I've been showing my head but I don’t stay
Oh I've been writing I been writing my days down
Been writing so much writing’s all I write about
And I hear we’ve been wasting our time
And I’m terrified of wasting my time
But we all got things beneath our bedframes babe
That find us in the day they find us in the day sometimes
So I will stare out of these windows
And I will see the city now
And as I turn the wheel and feed the flow
I will find the open spaces in the crowd
And I hear we’ve been wasting our time
And I’m terrified of wasting my time
But I got hollows full of wild hope
May it show in city light
May it show, may it shine
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18. |
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For Blackwater Woods (lyrics)
I seek the storm where frost hits the high reeds me leaping from shores
I sing for the sweat and if my knees can carry moon shine for me yet
I seek the storm you need shelter me not I don't aspire to warmth
we rise up she said see me sound in the half light this billowing chest
--
I hope I die seeing nothing but light
I hope to be long for this life
to get tired and tarnished and dry
--
I seek the storm kings may cast me to carry but I got poems in my arms
I'd follow you but your words are just ink and your binding just glue
I seek the storm see me sound in the half light these wide open chords
she asked how you stand it once the snow fell as big and important as planets
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--
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The Wide
paint my frame through the window grey walking soaked in yellow light
sketch my fall in the fresh laid snow when the deer come by
slide your brush their rippling spines and swoop their bending necks
gave me a mouth to make me known now I can't spare the breath
paint my frame as I lie there plain as the snow that hides the wheat
peaceful for a stones throw seldom can you hold onto those who speak
walk the yellow winter dawn
shudder shake and from my legs fall the snow
stepping over frozen logs
mushrooms in the middle like bone marrow
most of what I said is wrong
don't look so surprised now
hey in the wide in the wide in the wide we go
all in the wide but we're talking now we're talking like we know
chautauqua would you talk of ghosts
dig into the snow for shapen stones
or would you stick to what you know
dig into their words for piss and holes
the cross kind of left me cold
don't look so surprised now
hey in the wide in the wide in the wide we go
all in the wide but we're talking now we're talking like we know
I have washed my mind in color
and I have silenced thought with sound
and though I may have called you brother
it was never you I spoke about
so hold me close you winter weather
out of fires burning deep
we're not the first to face the open
but lies come quick to those who speak
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And the Tide Was Way Out
Where can you go you spit your stones
the dogs will bark you'll be alone
The sandpipers when tides are low
pump pump their hearts where can you go
She got sick her jaw hung low
and still put lipstick on her lips
And through her moans her carajos
she'd hold you tight her love was thick
--
He said to be a kind man
to want for nothing if not for grace
You got to see the dying
you got to feel your fingers shake
As you wait
--
Where can you go your liver's broke
it churns your gut and curls you toes
And when you're warm and when you're cold
it clogs your heart where can you go
And if you hide when you can find
a hollow tree that's tall and wide
While you scratch and as you sigh
the willows nap your days go by
--
--
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Salina
Salina I'm as nowhere as I can be
Could you add some somewhere to me
Ah Kansas I'm kneeling
Ah Kansas please
Cleveland I ain't never felt nothing so strong
Been believing the words to my songs
Ohio I'm leaving
Ohio I'm gone
Poughkeepsie hang up the telephone
I won't answer your phone calls no more
New York quit calling
New York leave me be
I'm changing the plans that I been setting on
I'm scared by the way that my life's getting gone
Carolina one day I'll someday I'll come home
Carolina one day I'll someday I'll come home
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All this time between releases is frustrating for me, so I've started the Sunday Sessions.
Here's how it works:
Every Sunday I'll release a new song/recording under the Sunday Sessions. The new release will be available for free download for one week and then replaced by a new one.
These will be home/live recordings and will probably never be available except for the one week I have them on my website. So if you like a song, download it!
Click on the song above to find out more about it. Thanks everyone for listening.
-Max
EDIT: I've had some requests to leave songs up and I think that's what I'll do for awhile. (Unless, maybe, I'm really not happy with the recording after a week.)
released December 3, 2011