Only Skin. F Am and there was a booming above you G F Am that night, black airplanes flew over the sea F Am and they were lowing and shifting like beached whales G F shelled snails Am as you strained and you squinted to see G F Am the retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry G Em7 D you froze in your sand shoal C Bb prayed for your poor soul F C Bb Dm sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl Em7 D C Bb and when the bread broke, fell in bricks of wet smoke F C Bb Dm my sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke F Am then there was a silence you took to mean something: G F mean, run, sing Am G for alive you will evermore be F Am and the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulkin' G F has gone east G Am while you're left to explain them to me G F Am released from their hairless and blind cavalry G Em7 D C Bb with your hands in your pockets, stubbily running F C Bb Dm to where I'm unfresh, undressed and yawning Em7 D C Bb well, what is this craziness? this crazy talking? F C Bb Dm you caught some small death when you were sleepwalking A Em D A it was a dark dream, darlin', it's over F C Bb Dm the firebreather is beneath the clover A Em D A beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever F C Bb Dm a toothless hound-dog choking on a feather F#m A Bm D but I took my fishingpole (fearing your fever) F#m A Bm D down to the swimminghole, where there grows a bitter herb F#m A Bm Bbadd6 that blooms but one day a year by the riverside - I'd bring it here: F C apply it gently Bb Dm to the love you've lent me F Am while the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed G F Am G and the string sobbed, as it cut through the hustling breeze F Am and I watched how the water was kneading so neatly G F gone treacly Am nearly slowed to a stop in this heat G F Am G - frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath Am C Em G press on me: we are restless things Am C Em G webs of seaweed are swaddling Am C you call upon the dusk Em G of the musk of a squid Am C Em G shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib Dm F Am C rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes Dm F C Am7 I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it! Dm F Am C smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened Dm F C Am7 smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking C G C G/B and when the fire moves away Am G F fire moves away, son C G C G/B why would you say Am G F I was the last one? Fm7 Am C Em G scrape your knee; it is only skin Am C Em G makes the sound of violins Am C Em G when I cut your hair, and leave the birds all of the trimmings Am C Em G I'm the happiest woman among all women! Db and the shallow Fm water Dbm7 Fm stretches as far as I can see Db Eb/Db knee-deep, trudging along Db Fm a seagull weeps; "so long" Db Fm humming a threshing song Fm until the night is over hold on! hold on! Db hold your horses back from the fickle dawn Fm I have got some business out at the edge of town Db candy weighing both of my pockets down Fm 'til I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them Db (and knowing how the common-folk condemn Fm what it is I do, to you, to keep you warm Db being a woman, being a woman) Bbm but always up the mountainside you're clambering Db groping blindly, hungry for anything Bbm picking through your pocket linings - well, what is this? Db Eb scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus? Fm I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain Db little sister, he will be back again Fm I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain Db spiders ghosts hang soaked and dangeling Bbm silently from all the blooming cherry trees Db in tiny nooses, safe from everyone Bbm - nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done Db Eb be a woman, be a woman! Fm though we felt the spray of the waves Bbm Ab Gmdim we decided to stay 'til the tide rose too far Fm Bbm we weren't afraid, 'cause we know what you are Am Bmb Cmadd6 and you know that we know what you are awful atoll Eb Dbm7add11 - o, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow bawl, bellow: Fm Cmadd6 Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow toddle and roll; Eb teeth an impalpable bit of leather Dbm7add11 while yarrow, heather and hollyhock Fm Eb Fm awkwardly molt along the shore Db are you mine? Fm Db my heart? mine anymore? F Db stay with me for a while F that's an awfully real gun Db I know life will lay you down F as the lightning has lately done Am failing this, failing this, C G follow me, my sweetest friend F G/F Am to see what you anointed in pointing your gun there C lay it down! nice and slow! G F there is nowhere to go, save up Am G F up where the light, undiluted, is weaving in a drunk dream Am G F at the sight of my baby, out back Am G F back on the patio watching the bats bring night in Am G while, elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white F Am G wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped Em7 D C Bb last week our picture window produced a half-word F C Bb Dm heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird Em7 D C Bb we stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake F C Bb Dm and pant and labour over every intake A Em D A I said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace F C Bb Dm then thought I ought to take her to a higher place A Em D A said: "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you F C Bb Dm and though you die, bird, you will have a fine view" F#m A then in my hot hand Bm D she slumped her sick weight F#m A we tramped through the poison oak Bm D heartbroke and inchoate F#m A the dogs were snapping Bm D so you cuffed their collars F#m A while I climbed the tree-house Bm D then how I hollered! F#m A Bm Bbadd6 cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two F C Bb Dm then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew away and F#m A back in the world that moves, often Bb Bbadd6 according to the hoarding of these clues Fm7 C dogs still run roughly around Bb Dm little tufts of finch-down) F Am and the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland G F Am G F but his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless Am while down in the lowlands the crops are all coming F we have everything Am life is thundering blissful towards death G F Am G in a stampede of his fumbling green gentleness Am C Em G you stopped by, I was all alive Am C Em G in my doorway, we shucked and jived Am C and when you wept, I was gone: Em G see, I got gone when I got wise Am C Em G but I can't with certainty say we survived Dm F then down, and down Am and down, and down C and down, and deeper Dm F stoke without sound C the blameless flames Am7 you endless sleeper Dm F Am C through fire below, and fire above, and fire within Dm F C Am7 sleeped through the things that couldn't have been if you hadn't have been C G C and when the fire moves away Am G F fire moves away, son G C G G/B why would you say Am G F I was the last one? Am C Em G all my bones they are gone, gone, gone Am C G Dm take my bones, I don't need none Am C Em G cold, cold cupboard, Lord, nothing to chew on! Am C G F suck all day on a cherry stone Am C Em G dig a little hole, not three inches round Am C G Dm spit your pit in the hole in the ground Am C Em G weep upon the spot for the starving of me! Am C G F till up grow a fine young cherry tree Am C Em G well when the bough breaks, what'll you make for me? Am C G Dm a little willow cabin to rest on your knee Am C Em G what'll I do with a trinket such as this? Am C G F think of your woman, who's gone to the west Am C Em G but I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed! Am C G Dm then I'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head Am C Em G come across the desert with no shoes on! Am C G F I love you truly, or I love no-one Fm7 Am fire moves away Fm7 fire moves away, son why would you say Fm7 I was the last one? Am G Last one.. clear the room! there's a fire, a fire, a fire Am G get going, and I'm going to be right behind you F Am G and if the love of a woman or two, dear, F Am couldn't move you to such heights, then all I can do G F Am is do, my darling, right by you
