Go Long

(album: Have One On Me - 2010)

Last night again, you were in my dream
Several expendable limbs were at stake
You were a prince, spinning rims
All sentiments Indian-given and half-baked

I was brought in on a palanquin
Made of the many bodies of beautiful women
Brought to this place, to be examined
Swaying on an elephant, a princess of India

We both want the very same thing
We are praying, I am the one to save you
But you don't even own your own violence
Run away from home, your beard is still blue

With the loneliness of you mighty men
With your jaws, and fists, and guitars, and pens
And your sugarlip
But I've never been to the fire pits with you mighty men

Who made you this way? Who made you this way?
Who is going to bear your beautiful children?
Do you think you can just stop, when you're ready for a change?
Who will take care of you when you're old and dying?

You burn in the Mekong to prove your worth
Go long, go long right over the edge of the earth
You have been wronged, tore up since birth
You have done harm, others have done worse

Will you tuck your shirt? Will you leave it loose?
You are badly hurt, you're a silly goose
You are caked in mud, and in blood, and worse
Chew your bitter cud, grope your little nurse

Do you know why my ankles are bound in gauze?
Sickly dressage, a princess of Kentucky
In the middle of the woods, which were the probable cause
We danced in the lodge like two panting monkeys

I will give you a call for one last hurrah
And if this tale is tall, forgive my scrambling
But you keep palming along the wall
Moving at a blind crawl but always rambling

Wolf-spider, crouch in your funnel nest
If I knew you, once, now I know you less
In the sinking sand, where we've come to rest
Have I had a hand in your loneliness?

When you leave me alone in this old palace of yours
It starts to get to me, I take to walking
What a woman does is open doors
And it is not a question of locking or unlocking

Well, I have never seen such a terrible room
Gilded with the gold teeth of the women who loved you
Now though I die, magpie, this I bequeath
By any other name, a Jay is still blue

With the loneliness of you mighty men
With your mighty kiss that might never never end
While, so far away, in the seat of the West
Burns the fount of the heat of that loneliness

There's a man who only will speak in code
Backing slowly, slowly down the road
May he master everything that such men may know
About loving, and then letting go