The Birds In Your Chest

The asphalt and decay, in the cities that remain

Dance like mountains on horizons

And all the make believe

And four-horsed catastrophes

Rusty songs that sing

Like 9 volt batteries

Always burning the tips of tongues

In the darkened woods we shared

All the melodramatic fare

When we'd sleep in cars

Or in the darkened fields

Sliding through the mud

Under thunderclouds running down the roads

Past telephone poles

Falling in time

Parallel to our spines

When the leaves'd flutter

In the disappearing light

Crawling through the woods

On elbows through the dirt

Or huddled in diesel vans

Trying to understand the street signs ahead

That disappear too fast

Clock hands search around

For things that can't be found

Always spinning in denial

All the things we gauge

From the silence that depraves

The melodies that hit

While our attention shifts

To planes that move the sky above

And staccato violins play

All the songs we cannot name

Empty parking lots

And winding one way roads

Traced around by firs

And mossy power lines

Couldn't reveal the answers

To the torrential downpours

Or the questions that dance

On the tips of all our tongues

The birds in your chest

Try to reveal all the names

Of the subtle little things

We'd try to understand

And the planes overhead

That hum their own two cents

Tell us that we'll never know

Of what's and could's and if's

Planes move the blue sky

While violins play by and by

And our attention always shifts