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Hold Empty

by Sleeping Cranes

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1.
The antelope on the mountainside made me feel my age As we left the road behind us to wane Trying to pull down infinity from outer space And crawl inside and find a way to stay You're smiling like you wanna be somebody else But the mountain isn't nothing but itself You buried the start, I watched you come apart Skipping rocks fron the mountain sand on a lazy day Trying to leave home behind us to wane Crawling up across the tree line, looking for somewhere bright my head can stay Because I heard that we just get dimmer everyday You're searching like you wanna be somebody else But that carving water isn't nothing but itself We laid under the stars, we watched them fall apart You can't deposit all your time into the bottom of a bank And save it all up until you find out just what it is you need And nobody and nothing can be or will be perfect But that's alright, that's alright with me You're crying, you just wanna be somebody else But that Colorado sunset isn't nothing but itself I'm heading back to the start, trying to find my part We're fine just where we are, let's become a part
2.
We waited around for a little while but the gypsies never came So we plotted out the patterned stars, and designated numbers to our names Searching around for instructions, any vague idea of what to do You spent that idle time blaming me, I was busy blaming you I spent some nights with an artist girl, she wasn't proud enough to beg She had some scarring on her knuckles, and she asked me if I could stay Grasping out for validation, you told everyone I changed I took a hit and laughed you off me, though I knew I'd have done the same But I'll be the curtains that all you mirrors hide behind And I'll be the sleeping bag by the bed that you can't crawl inside Despite your tickling raspberries, you still look lonely to me So I'll be the curtains your mirrors hide behind You spent so many high school nights terrified of ending up alone But you found a new face with tan skin to shake you to your bones And though I promise that I'm through with you, babe, for you I will atone So the dark can finally digest the light peeking through the door Waking up on a Colorado couch from a long belated dream In it you grabbed me by the elbow and apologized to me And it got me to thinking that maybe that was all I need But what's the sense in sweating fevers waiting on something I'll never see So I'll be the curtains that all your mirrors hide behind And I'll be the wasps in the lemon grove you blame for the apples you can't find Out in your Alabama spring, you can do anything you goddamn please I'll still be the curtains all your mirrors hid behind.
3.
The sunlight scattered on the cold concrete As the water started churning in the clouds The cats were all a-grin with their finch feather fangs Under the crows nesting in the birdhouse Shaking rain from the fibers of my borrowed clothes Twisting tied arm days to end an age Watching fungus grow over bagged baby pines Spewing white onto my yellowed page Like a bat to the breadth of an acid soaked spine I held her hand down an empty interstate Offering "haha, Chicago" to a lonesome night Striking matches over ashes for a flame Coming down with a stranger on an air mattress All the bedsheets blooming in the dark Sprawled in a puddle of self lament Heaving ocean water up from my gut On my back pointing fingers at the passing crowd Waiting for someone to make me clean 'Cause today is a woman with a wedding ring And tomorrow's just a girl kicking morning off the hotel sheets
4.
Our Dowry 03:18
The gowans were all waving like some bed that we were making As the morning shoveled light onto our eyes The guiet had gotten steeper since the kept strayed from the keeper This telephone tag love never seemed to make us wise Love's a garment I prepare That I can Weave but just can't seem to wear The air swelled with requiems outside the gates of the kingdom Birthed from the seasons we'd spent fumbling with the keys Sparkling semantics to defend it as our tongues danced around the exits And we spoke for the sole sake of our bodies You were bused away in November And returned with some pale mill pond rebirth Cool grass used to tickle our feet, now we're just kicking dirt The kingdom's not our dowry And there ain't no love like outer space It won't be hiding in some attic shoebox All repaired from its idle days.
5.
Land Legs 03:11
Patrick swears the number twenty is green As I'm pushing smoke between my clicking teeth Grasping straws to watch a quarter note leap Or to taste all the vowels in some pretty girl's speech I'm pitching reason at a TV screen Peeling meaning off striated muscle memory In a muddy garden, uprooting the butterfly weed Penciled myself atop the list of people I need to please 'Cause if you don't love the skin slapped on your own bones Then what makes you think you can toss your heart To some new set of shaking hands? Siren sprinting from some sinking nicotine teeth A car stuffed with silver vapor THC The latex paint keeping order on strips of big concrete For million dollar minds and their blinking blackberries I think my land legs are back under me After a tearful baptism by a toilet seat Dreaming about having another sleepless week Lifting storm windows up for Kitty Genovese Zeroing the scales for here and Laramie With orange and purple ribbons stretching sky in the east Draining out the liquor with my bloodstream sieve Distill that open futures market of who I'm trying to be Leaving the girl inside her fabled antique dreams Shake my sadness into the asphalt of some west bound streets Pulling down the statues, planting burlap trees Trying to stretch my baby arms around all my eyes can meet 'Cause if you don't love the skin slapped on your own bones What makes you think you can toss your heart Into the bottom of the open air? And if you can't love the earthquake where you stand Just look, if it's all the way out in Denver Then it must be everywhere.
6.
You were made a man in a blood bank school house The four walls stained with vertical lines When they peeled the mud from your eyelids You just threw your hands back across your eyes They held concern inside their creek bed guts For the trajectory of your chosen life Like a tourist trapped girl's heart holds love Fucking Panama Beach boys in the summertime I think you know, I think you know That the scenery is set, but you've still got a choice How does it feel, how does it feel? To be the only horizontal boy? Tehy threw you down into the basement With the other clay they couldn't mold On the dirt floor crying for your freedom They left the key under the door And every morning you'd place a bouquet Under the photo of that vacant lot Because it's easier to love the time you've had Than to love the time you've got I watch you fight, I watch you fight Battling acceptance so they can't keep you tamed But until you lift, you lift your voice All you can be is another paying name You're just another name.
7.
Cake 03:54
On lawn chairs in a lightning storm Or shoulders on your hardwood floor It just doesn't feel like I'm at home anymore Punctuation and a cerebral course A debt I can't seem to afford You've got your pencils out, you're keeping score; who won? I guess all at once you can't be wise and in love A tape measures just what you're worth Like inferred thoughts and mini-skirts Once you'be mopped up all the afterbirth, it's clear That this tunnel vision destiny Paperback love and Hercules Are exactly what they claim to be; a dream I walked to the patio birdbath, and washed my hands clean So close your eyes, just sit and wait For your Dylan diction wedding cake A couch to have the bed you made replaced Clothesline sheets in an August wind As you pray that things won't begin again Just return to how they'd always been; your way I'm not sure if I ever loved you I just know I'm not the same.

about

All songs written by A.J. Ward
Produced by Greg Mikels, A.J. Ward, and Tony Colantino
Mixed and mastered by Greg Mikels at Ishgnu Studios in Springfield, IL
Artwork by Molly Bramley

credits

released August 18, 2009

A.J. Ward (guitar, vocals, harmonica, bass guitar)
Tony Colantino (mandolin, banjo, harmonica)
Jill Haxel (violin)
Matthew Jaynes (drums)
Greg Mikels (guitar)
Abby Vespa (vocals)
Aaron Horath (guitar)

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Sleeping Cranes St. Louis, Missouri

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