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1-01 From The Flames view lyrics
The flesh is sizzling,
Limb muscles twitching,
Deep tissues pulling where the boiling blood anoints.
The bones are cracking,
The cracks leak marrow,
Bubbling as the firebarbs pry the joints.
Bowing spars, taut sinews.
The homes you had, forever lose.
The chest cage quivers,
The skeleton clicks and shivers,
Pulse racing forth and back as the hidden heart directs.
The fire flares and throbs,
Hopping up the spinal knobs.
Neck twists, skull hissing from a dozen bright defects.
Bursting through the splits and warps,
A new life from a burning corpse.
Feverish desire,
A deafening choir.
Some infant genius that knows what it knows.
A secret dream coiled deep,
Released in this tormented heap,
Calmer now, retiring while the pulsing heart glows.
Sliding sleeves, limb bones charred,
Cooled with breeze and growing hard.
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1-02 Ram view lyrics
Rock back on my belly, smoke swirling.
Limbs dig, planted stiff,
Neck straining, feeling a weight shift.
A pressure above my eyes. Lift.
My hips won’t hinge.
Knees knocking, legs wobble and bend.
Broken and alone, no way to mend.
Stretch full height.
Back binding. A wild sight:
Black hooves at the ends of arms thin and white.
Draw my gaze in.
Chest covered with fur, not skin.
A white muzzle where my face has been.
Cusps on the crown.
Hoof bumping up, back, around and down.
Ram. I speak the word I’ve found,
But only a grunt sounds.
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1-03 Where Am I Bound view lyrics
A gust of wind blows and my smoky vision clears.
Around me sere grass.
Below, a valley seamed with a whispering stream.
Into my nostrils pass
Rich odors, images rise behind my eyes.
Soaked moss and resins, sprigs with buds about to burst.
Small creatures, middens piled.
Nests of golden strings, carried on tireless wings.
Among them, free and wild,
Woven fine—this wool of mine.
I search for memories of this land, but there are none.
Upstream, I face it.
A front leg I extend, and on the next depend.
Flex and place it
Down, lock it straight, shifting weight.
Where am I bound? My legs seem to know.
My spirit is a ram's.
Uncertain threats below. Higher I must go.
A quivering in my hams.
Ahead, moss emerald green lines a narrow ravine.
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1-04 Cock And Spring view lyrics
Poise tripped, lunging into a cock and spring assault.
Huffing, heart-flooded, headlong over a flashing flush I vault.
Yes, I hear you chattering.
No, I will not halt.
Cresting rises, seams leaping, my hooves bunch and spread.
Moss, straw, snow lobe, no—a rock ravine instead.
The seen closing behind,
The unseen opening ahead.
At the edge of the world, over the grass I fly.
Knowing this gait is right, without knowing why.
A feather-thin fate glowing
In a golden eye.
The doubts chatter louder, into my ears and through.
Where are you headed so fast? Don’t you have a clue?
This mounting dread, what does it mean?
Don’t you wish you knew?
Your heart is dreaming. Keep in stride, try.
Trust this heading, let your hope climb high.
From this first stony stream
Into a burning sky.
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1-05 The Pool view lyrics
I rise on the rim and turn.
Between the valley’s flaxen thighs,
The day casts longing looks.
Ripples traveling the river,
Lake a glowing jewel.
Wicker of willow gold,
Eyes closed, alder balsam cool.
Birch spice. Potentilla rose.
Draw back from the lookout.
In the center of the green:
A blue pool, rock-ringed.
Up to the liquid mirror I step.
A white face gliding—
In the gold eyes, ransom hiding.
Instinct clamors. Listen and think.
Placing my mouth to drink.
The placid pool awakes.
Rings untruss in widening circles from the nucleus.
My image wavers on the rippling.
A fateful drip from an oblong rock.
Something set in motion can’t be stopped.
Along the pool’s bottom:
Bright scallops set free.
Casting their nets at me.
The scallops flicker.
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1-06 A Stalking Shadow view lyrics
Leaden gray cloud tapers
From behind the western hills.
Beneath the serrate vapors
A stalking shadow spills.
The rack advances.
Lances fronting a broad caul.
Once bright jags and gullies
Sink into its pall.
Below, two dark prongs of shadow
Glide along the ground.
Across the stream and up the incline,
Toward my lookout bound.
The gloom approaches.
The color sinks out of the air.
A jeering caw, in the sky above me:
See them there.
At the apex of each taper,
A magpie flies command.
In their claws, shreds of vapor,
Dragging the rack across the land.
The fork touches the green.
On either side, its cold caress.
Over my hooves, darkness shivers,
Up my legs, on my chest.
Twilight’s dominion
Closes over my eyes.
Fears of darkness pinion my limbs.
In my brain rise
Shapes of nightmare—
Through the tunneled earth they slink.
I shake my head to clear it,
But the vague impressions grow distinct.
In a murky netherworld,
Pointed faces raise.
Emerging from dark openings,
Stealing through the haze
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1-07 Entreaty view lyrics
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you or me
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead,"
"I never died," says he.
"I never died," says he.
"In Salt Lake, Joe," says I to him,
Him standing by my bed,
"They framed you on a murder charge,"
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead,"
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."
"The copper bosses killed you, Joe,
They shot you, Joe," says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man,"
Says Joe, "I didn't die,"
Says Joe, "I didn't die."
And standing there as big as life
And smiling with his eyes
Says Joe, "What they forgot to kill
Went on to organize,
Went on to organize."
"Joe Hill ain't dead," he says to me,
"Joe Hill ain't never died.
Where working men are out on strike
Joe Hill is at their side,
Joe Hill is at their side."
From San Diego up to Maine,
In every mine and mill -
Where working men defend their rights
It's there you'll find Joe Hill.
It's there you'll find Joe Hill.
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you or me
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead",
"I never died," says he.
"I never died," says he.
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1-08 Listen view lyrics
Listen—
The very quiet is alive and pumping.
Pulsing pouts in the cooling umbra thumping.
Muffled throbs, measured beats
Of an unseen rigadoon,
A nimble padding on my reason,
Palpable and importune.
Pierce, pierce, eyes, pierce the thickening shade and see
The dread pad-padding approaching me.
Hurried steps, pad-pad-pad,
Louder they drum.
Where, pad-pad,
Is the fearful padding coming from?
Pad-pad-pad, something black in my bloodstream,
Pulsing with a mad
Pad-padding through my head,
A villainous ictus, pad-pad.
Essence of fear, herald of pain—
Striking through my nostrils into my brain.
Impelled by, pad-pad-pad,
A terrible desire.
What fearsome, pad-pad,
Things might their hungerings inspire?
Pad-pad-pad, musk and earth,
Odors I know and dread.
Turn now and, pad-pad,
Give the sheep instincts their head.
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1-09 Back, Back view lyrics
At the heather’s edge—
A head-shaped rock rises.
Black legs shift
Onto the green.
At his rear,
Six more appear,
Step by step
Advancing.
Their faces loom across the pool.
Wolves: black, tan, silver gray and dark.
In a gloating arc.
The Lead’s jaws part.
Smell—hunger’s hook.
His sulphur eye—
I have to look.
Swallowed and destroyed
In the pupil’s void.
Back, back. Backward I pace.
Death looks out from the Lead’s face.
Back, back from the pool I stride.
His snout swings from side to side.
Here they come, trotting around the rim.
Back, back. A deadly hush.
The pack tensing for the rush.
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1-10 I Must Cross view lyrics
The Lead lunges.
I shy, bucking up.
Over the top—
A gray tableland.
I must cross.
Swing down headlong, frantic for speed.
Hoarding the momentum. Faster, flee!
Out on the flat, flat.
Make the legs pull, pull, pull.
Racing hard to run me down,
Following fast over the open ground.
High rock—faster! Must reach soon.
Dry grass, silence, azalea budlets unbloomed.
On the quilted mat, mat, mat.
On the shocked shag, shag, shag.
Closer, closer—how can it be?
Lead’s face large, eyes sizzling at me.
They are gaining,
Strung out in a line.
You are mine, the paws chant.
You are mine.
Break off heading, feint and veer,
Switching and swerving to cut clear.
But still they near, near,
Eating up the spread, spread, spread.
Panic, panic, I’ll never last.
Bulwark too far, losing ground too fast.
Keep up speed and wheel left.
My only chance, a bending cleft.
The pack pivots like a blade, blade.
Swinging around the Lead, Lead, Lead.
Mud, splash, sliding, wolf at my haunch.
The bend comes, gray death ready to launch
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1-11 Up The Slab view lyrics
A gangway of lichen runs angling up the rock.
Here, a hoofhold, a ready pock.
Edge up to a kerf in the plate.
Reach for a stirrup, slowly shifting weight.
Lead staring,
Licking his bloody chops.
A dull pain. A creeping warmth.
Red on my chest.
Wind sniffs the flesh
Where the fur is torn.
Heart, leave off your quaking. Be still.
Tense, don’t jar me. Sidestep a narrow sill.
Higher, fore on a fragile flake—
A hard move. No room for a mistake.
Onto a loose stub, crawl.
Steady, stretch across the blank wall.
Fore extending,
Hoof reaching. Ascending
Onto a small ledge.
Wise and Scout posted.
The others loping
Down the ride.
Keep on moving. What does the pack intend?
Projecting my course? They vanish around the bend.
Onto a jutting shingle, toes grate.
Steady pressure on the downslab—concentrate.
Keep out of reach. The slab breaks
Into a series of setback flakes.
Up toward, up onto the crest.
Between this high point and the next—
A spineback bridge.
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1-12 Bridge Of Spines view lyrics
The way leads down.
Scanning for signs—
Nothing in the breeze,
On the inclines, or
In the dim valley below—
I step out
Onto the splintered strip.
If a spine breaks loose—
If I slip—
Through the vee
In an expanding fork.
Under a foining pike.
Picking over the hip of
A canted spike.
Suddenly, from behind a spur,
The dark file comes curving
Into the murky trough.
The Ruff breaks off,
Ascending a rocky slope at my rear.
The Scout and Wise continue,
Shooting past below.
The others slow and stop,
Huddling at the bottom of the drop.
In those upturned faces—
I’m not just any prey.
They found me, and
With me they’re going to stay.
White against the dark rock.
Hooves lifting, shoulders shifting.
Turn my thoughts, fears disprove.
The Lead’s ears tic, following every move.
Balancing over the void.
Fores trembling. Tipsy.
Verging a fall.
They see it all.
