Альбом Iron & Wine

Love was a promise made of smoke
In a frozen copse of trees
A bone cold and older than our bodies
Slowly floating in the sea
Every morning there were planes
The shiny blades of pagan angels in our father's sky
Every evening I would watch her hold the pillow
Tight against her hollows, her unholy child
I was still a beggar shaking out my stolen coat
Among the angry cemetery leaves
When they caught the king beneath the borrowed car
Righteous, drunk, and fumbling for the royal keys

Love was our father's flag and sewn like a shank
In a cake on our leather boots
A beautiful feather floating down
To where the birds had shit our empty chapel pews
Every morning we found one more machine
To mock our ever waning patience at the well
Every evening she'd descend the mountain stealing socks
And singing something good where all their horses fell
Like a snake within the wilted garden wall
I'd hint to her every possibility
While with his gun, the pagan angel rose to say
"My love is one made to break every bended knee"

Said the plain clothes cop to the beauty queen
"I've seen nothing but a spoke in the wheel"
So she gave up her crown to a kid with a crutch
And they both felt cheated after closing the deal
When the white tooth man I ran with then
Got all cut up from pissing out in the weeds
And a fight upstate with a broken blade
And a wife whose finger never wanted a ring

Said the plain clothes cop to the Indian chief
"I've made nothing but an honest mistake"
And the postman cried while reading your mail
And we all got trampled in the Christmas parade
When the white tooth man who sold me the gun
A map of Canaan, and a government bond
Said, "I love this town but it ain't the same"
His ski mask ripped as he was putting it on

Said the plain clothes cop to the holy ghost
"I've heard nothing yet that wasn't the wind"
And we all got sick on a strip club meal
While the state house pardoned all the witches again
So the white tooth man with his kids in the car
And a wad of money that was already spent
Said "I love my dog but she just ran away
And she'll keep running like the world never ends"

In the failing light of the afternoon
Lucy in the shade of the dogwood blooms
Yesterday, the solace of a poison fish
Tomorrow I'll be kissing on her blood red lips

And no one is the saviour they would like to be
The love song of the buzzard in the dogwood tree
With a train of horses laughing through the traffic light
And the cradle's unimaginative sense of time

Springtime and the promise of an open fist
A tattoo of a flower on a broken wrist
Lucy tells me jokingly to wipe her brow
"With a pocket map to heaven" and the sun goes down

Almost home
When I missed the bottom stair
You were braiding your gray hair
It had grown so long
Since I'd been gone

And the perfect girls
By the pool, they would protest
The cross around their necks
But our sons were overseas
And we all know about the hive and the honeybees

Almost home
With an olive branch and a dove
You were beating on a Persian rug
With your bible and your wedding band
Both hidden on the TV stand

When a cruel wind blew
Every city father fell
Off the county carousel
While the dogs were eating snow
All our sons had sunk in a trunk
Of Noah's clothes

Almost home
And got lost on our new street
While your grieving girls all died in their sleep
So the dogs all went unfed
A great dream of bones all piled on the bed

And the cops couldn't care
When that crackhead built a boat
And said, "Please, before I go
May our only honored bond
Be the kinship of the kids in the riot squad"

There is a house by the sea
Two jealous sisters there waiting for me
And one is laid on the floor
One is changing the locks on her door
But I've been buying the time on my knees
And I've been selling them blankets to bleed on

Around the house by the sea
The scent of roses and raspberry leaves
And there is smoke in my clothes
Too much time with just smoke in my nose
But I've been making the meaning they lack
And I've been burning that book they come back to

There is a house by the sea
And an ocean between it and me
And like the shape of a wave
The jealous sisters will sing on my grave
I've been living to run where they've led
And I've been dying to rise from their bed

But I've been sparing my neck from their chain
And they've been changing the sound of my name
And I've been swimming to them in my sleep
But I've been dreaming our love and our freedom

Cain got a milk-eyed mule from the auction
Abel got a telephone
And even the last of their blue-eyed babies know
That the burning man is the color of the end of day
And how every tongue that gets bit always has another word to say

Cain bought a blade from some witch at the window
Abel bought a bag of weed
And even the last of their brown-eyed babies see
That the cartoon king has a tattoo of a bleeding heart
There ain't a penthouse Christian wants the pain of the scab, but they all want the scar
How every mouth sings of what it's without, so we all sing of love
And how it ain't one dog who's good at fucking and denying who he's thinking of

Cain heard a cat tumble limp off the rooftop
Abel heard his papa pray
That even the last of the black-eyed babies say
That every saint has a chair you can borrow and a church to sell
And that the wind blows cold across the back of the master and the kitchen help
There's a big pile of innocent bones still holding up the garden wall
And it was always the broken hand we learned to lean on after all
How God knows if Christ came back he would find us in a poker game
After finding out the drinks were all free but they won't let you out the door again

Wolves by the road
And a bike wheel spinning on a pawn shop wall
She'll wring out her colored hair
Like a butterfly beaten in a summer rainfall
And then roll on the kitchen floor
Of some fucker with a pocketful of foreign change
The song of the shepherd's dog
A ditch in the dark in the ear of the lamb
Who's going to try to run away
Whoever got that brave?

Wolves in the middle of town
And the chapel bell ringing through the windblown trees
She'll wave to the butcher's boy
With the parking lot music everybody believes
And then dive like a dying bird
At any dude with a dollar at the penny arcade
The song of the shepherd's dog
The waiter and the check or the rooster
On a rooftop waiting for day
And you know what he's going to say

Wolves at the end of the bed
And a postcard hidden in her winter clothes
She'll weep in the back of a truck
To the traitors only trying to find her bullet hole
And then run down a canopy road
To some mother and a baby with a cross to bear
The song of the shepherd's dog
A little brown flea in the bottle of oil
For your wool, wild hair
You'll never get him out of there

In our days
We will live
Like our ghosts will live

Pitching glass at the cornfield crows
And folding clothes
Like stubborn boys across the road
We'll keep everything

Grandma's gun and the black bear claw
That took her dog
When sister always says, "Amen"
We won't hear anything

And ten car trains
We take that word
That fledgling bird
And the fallen house
Across the way
It'll keep everything

The babies' breath, our bravery wasted and our shame

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

In our days
We will say
What our ghosts will say

We gave the world
What it saw fit
And what we get

Like stubborn boys
With big green eyes
We'll see everything

And the tender shade
Of the autumn leaves
And the buzzards wing

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Our tender bellies are wound around in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

A boy with a coin he found in the weeds
With bullets and pages of trade magazines
Close to a car that flipped on the turn
When God left the ground to circle the world

A girl with a bird she found in the snow
Then flew up her gown and that's how she knows
That God made her eyes for crying at birth
Then left the ground to circle the Earth

A boy with a coin he crammed in his jeans
Then, making a wish, he tossed in the sea
And walked to a town that all of us burned
When God left the ground to circle the world

Dreaming again of a train track ending at the edge of the sea
(Big black cloud was low and rolling our way)
Dog at the barbed wire barking at my buzz cut friends and me
(Sound of a switchblade shining in the summer rain)
No one on the corner had a quarter for the telephone
Everybody bitching, "There's nothing on the radio"

Dreaming again of a city full of fathers in their army clothes
(Chattering boys and a chicken at the chopping block)
All of us lost at the crosswalk waiting for the other to go
(Didn't find a friend but, boy, I really bought a lot)
Someone bet a dollar that my daddy wasn't coming home
Everybody bitching, "There's nothing on the radio"

Dreaming again that it's freezing and my mother's in her flowerbed
(Long dead rows of daffodils and marigolds)
Changing her face like a shadow on the gravel, this is what she said
(Blood on my chin still chewing on a red rose)
"No one lives forever and the devil never sleeps alone"
Everybody bitching, "There's nothing on the radio"

Here's a prayer for the body buried by the interstate
Mother of a soldier, a tree in a forest up in flames
Black valley, peace beneath the city
Where the women hear the washboard rhythm in their bosom when they say,
"Give me good legs and a Japanese car and show me a road”

Sing a song for the bodies buried by the riverbank
A well dressed boy and a pig with a bullet in the brain
Black valley, peace beneath the city
Where the white girls wander the strip mall, singing all day,
“Give me a juggernaut heart and a Japanese car and someone to free"

Say something for the body buried like a keepsake
Mother of a million mouths with the very same name
Black valley, peace beneath the city
Where the women tell the weather but never ever tell you what they pray
They pray, "Give me a yellow brick road and a Japanese car and benevolent change"

I was a quick wet boy, diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes wide on my plastic toys
Then when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere

Have I found you
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping or lost you, american mouth
Big pill looming

Now I'm a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats curl through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold
And clean blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you
Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding or lost you, american mouth
Big pill stuck going down

Mr. Henry and the muscle man, yeah, with shoes on a night there was no road to stand
Like a letter in a stolen purse, she was bored of her weight, she was bored of her words
The daughter of a soldier told the fallen priest "That's a cold, cold place in the arms of a thief"
And reaching out to touch the steering wheel she said, "Leave me alone but just don't leave me here, alright?"
Aye, alr-i-ght

Mr. Henry and another guy gave her gold on a night that it fell from the sky
And like a body when the buzzard came, she was bored of her look, she was bored of her name
The daughter of a lawyer told the fallen priest "That's a cold, cold place in the arms of a thief"
And tapping at the air with her heel she said, "Leave me alone but just don't leave me here, alright?"
Aye, alr-i-ght

Mr. Henry was a dying man with a vice and a tongue that she didn't understand
Like the water when the sea got rough, she was bored with the breeze, she was bored of her luck
The winner and the loser told the fallen priest "That's a cold, cold place in the arms of a thief"
And holding everything he made her steal she said, "Leave me alone but just don't leave me here, alright?"
Aye, alr-i-ght

There's a woman hater with a broken record player
And a dusty compass off to map the country's new behavior
Strange words and we all roll back into the river
Brave boys in the empty coats of men

There's a kitchen timer, distractions and reminders
Rolly-pollies slowly crawling 'cross your family china
Strange words and we all roll back into the river
And dead dogs only want to live again

There's a serpent charmer, pair of shoes and wander
Speeding ticket you got leading that last lamb to slaughter
Strange words and we all roll back into the river
Good girls come and kick you in the shin

There's a hopeful hunter with a helpless sense of wonder
And a million claw marks on the rock he hid his money under
Strange words and we all roll back into the river
And made men only want to live again