Simon Joyner - Open Window Blues lyrics

"There's no pilot light" the singer said, "but nights like these still burn." I laid Across newspapers ripped and spread And stabbed like signposts through my bed Until a symphony of laughter sped Up to sound like violins Lured me to the open window. I stared through buildings painted blue And bathed in bu*termilk. The moon Hovered like an empty room I could have spent a lifetime in. But even stronger was the cobblestone Chorus, like a siren's moan Crying "give the street your skin, kid." But my smokestack eyes withholding rain, oppose Another burning wheatfield full of crows. The magnifying gla** is lost or misplaced, So take this portrait from outer space. See how the monument swallows the speck of dust While the weathervane powders the roof with rust, Until the whole junkyard's riddled ruin And the story of the heart's communion Is like the leaf of dew that tried to drink the typhoon? A bullet backed out of a gun A ray of light pierces the sun. Rewind the film and see the frightened run Straight into the den of the crouching lion, Holding hands and smiling. Once You're there you pray for lightning. Lazarus, you are free now to die again. And ca**ocks flowing from head to toe, conceal The bruises and the burns from where we kneel. A match scratching a wall devours The darkness for a moment and tires Or so many past flickering futures And has the decency to disappear, While thieves and aimless gypsy bands Keep and polish the queen's silver hands Saying "the life we cannot touch, we choose to feel." "War is the horror Peace anesthetized," The oracle's iron lungs decried. "The slings and stones we keep asleep inside." Meanwhile headless corpses take no sides, Spastic banners carve up the skies, And the translator's gifted tongue decides Just where the difference between two opposites lies. Is it in the pocket mirror where every tear is rehearsed Or in the soaring bird's eye view of the scorched earth? I thought if I could curl into a ball and roll Out of my skin I'd discover a soul Instead of a scaffold around an impulse. I looked for a target but found a scarecrow Which swallowed anything I fet it whole Until I had nothing left but vestigal Memories, redolent and rainsoaked. And that's when I finally reached the egg Where I couldn't think or feel or beg To be reformed or reborn. Instead I pecked, lurched, cracked, clawed, and bled And emerged blind and raw to feed once more On a mystery unfulfilled Where every answer waves within a sea of riddles. And the cicadas forever throb on the fringes of the lens While I dance upon this shifting pile of skeletons.