The Wrote & The Writ

(album: A Larum - 2008)

They're taking pictures of the man from God
I hope his cassock's clean
The burden of being a holy fella's
Your halo'd better gleam, better gleam

What of all those wayward priests?
The ones who like to drink
Do you suppose they'd swap their blood for wine
Like you swapped yours for ink, for ink

You wrote me oh-so-many letters
And all of them seemed true
Promises look good on paper
Especially from you, from you

The weight of all those willing words
I carried all alone
You wouldn't put your pen to bed
When we hadn't found our own, our own

Your sentences rose high at night
And circled round my head
The circle's since been broken
Like the priest before me is breaking bread

I'm being asked to drink the blood of Christ
And soon I'll eat his flesh
I'm alone again before the altar
Shedding all my old regrets

The last of which I'll tell you now
As it flies down the sink
I never knew a part of you
You didn't set in ink, in ink

The letters that you left behind
No longer shall I read
Your blood's between the pages
And I can't stand to see you bleed

And I'll soon forget what was never there
Your words are ash and dust
All that's left is the song I've sung
The breath I've taken and the one I must

If you're born with a love for the wrote and the writ
People of letters, your warning stands clear:
Pay heed to your heart and not to your with
Don't say in a letter what you can't in my ear