Reflect

words by Dearing and Groves, music by Groves

Eaten by the sand and waves

A marker overlooks the sea

A silent sentinel of sorts

Watches where the terror ceased

It doesn’t get much notice now

We’re all about our lives

And no one quite remembers how

Close the end passed by…

Symposium

Groves

A sermon to the walls

Manifesto to the chairs

Secret ideas to the ceiling

And I hope the floor has ears

I used to look forward to feeding time

But we haven’t been eye to eye in years

I’m swimming and brimming with pregnant thoughts

And I hope the floor has ears

Opinions for the stars

My solutions on the breeze

Sound deductions through the windows

I hope listening are the leaves

I’ve got some important things to say

And I used to be sure of the role I’d play

Knocking unlocking I’ve found the cure!

No one listens anyway

What else is there to do?

Processing, digesting

I have the Key

But there are no keys

Afraid, you won’t see

No hope to be heard

You’d run at a word

No chance to unveil my plan

And risk the prospect to better man

First breath beyond the bars

Benedictions at this birth

Possibilities unbridled

How attentive is the earth?

Nowhere is Home

words and music Dearing and Groves

Nowhere is home when you live in a cage

When you live like a freak on display

Nothing I see has an interest to me

As I wait for the end of the day

Is it too much to ask to be held for a while

Is it too much to ask just to give me a smile

Do you know what that means to me, know how it grieves in me

Keeps a fire burning inside

I’ve come to bring you home--sharing the germ

To lay you all low some peace-release

He feeds your sorrow I feed tomorrow

You can work it all out in the end

Nowhere is home for a thing of disgust

The pariah cooped up in his hole

Why can't you see what it's doing to me

As it's eating away at my soul

Can't you tell all you're doing is feeding my rage

Can't you tell all you're doing is setting the stage

For the coming apocalypse, sinking the human ship

Prepare to meet your darkest day

I’ve come to bring you home-spreading relief

From all of your tripe some rest-ceaseless

No lies of redemption No cries for exemption

You can work it all out in the end

Nowhere is home for the angel of death

And I'm really not looking to find one

I'll make you pay for the lives you've betrayed

And the damage your therapy’s done

I will rage like a cancer on all of your lives

I will make war not love upon all that's in sight

I'll reject all you give to me, live on in infamy

And there will be no way that you can fight

I’ve come to take you home-pouring the fire

To cauterize the cut-ever shut

Realization Sterilization

You can work it all out in the end

The Great Stereopticon

words by Groves and Henry, music by Henry

I will scorch your epitaph “amuse me”

Liquid crystal display on your coffin lid

And then remote control for the “other side”

Which poor soul gets voted off the island this week?

Couldn’t “cross over” the 10 foot living room

Maybe you can take it with you after all

It got so sad – your life as “Viscount Voyeur”

Your flesh was willing and your spirit just as weak

Pathetic circles spinning through this universe

Surrogate Elijahs breathe their fiery curse

Was it as fun for her as it was for your pride?

Underneath it all I find no underneath

The spark He gave you--never a fire

The years of becoming--when will you be?

Not even a thought Craving realistic

Eating realism avoiding real

I will scorch your epitaph “amuse me”

Your fifteen minutes locked in syndication

Children of the Dust

Groves

You let the building burn

They were only criminals

You watched the frisking filth

Safe believing “it’s a show”

You steal it from the store

There is no face attached

You teach your children well

Yet puzzle when they vent

You kill ‘em for their creed

While they are bowing down

They’re heroes ‘cause they’re queer

You gonna bow for them?

You hate them for their love

Use it to strangle them

You keep the fire cool

Lest it bloom to light the course

So human…so human

You let the babies starve

Yet bristle at my words

You piss in your bathtub

And see yourself as clean

So Human

Groves

Brave the knife to make ‘em bigger

Take a pill to make it harder

Suck the fat then run the treadmill

Give ‘em toys for time

Buy the land then pour the concrete

Drive the car but leave the kiddies

Break their bones then ask forgiveness

Pose while they’re in rags

So human

Existential reverential

Contradicting self-restricting

So romantic yet pedantic

Corporeal tangential

Hurry up to catch the stoplight (Hurry, hurry, hurry up)

Sell your soul to snatch the spotlight (Smile, little buttercup)

Hoard the ribbons of your children (Give a curtsy flash a smile)

Vicars for your lives (Mommy’s little clone beguile)

Pay the poseur pluck the preacher Let the TV be your teacher

Paid for beer expected champagne Now you take her home

So human

Existential (happy little lives) reverential (offer up some chives)

Contradicting (faith upon the sand) self-restricting (sitting on your hands)

So romantic (enchante l’amour!) yet pedantic (seen it all before)

Corporeal (give a little pinch) So surreal (do you like my fish?)

Existential (I think so I am) Reverential (Friday don’t eat ham)]

Contradicting (paying for your trash) self-restricting (sitting on your ass)]

So romantic (ooh la la, cherie) yet pedantic (status quo for me!)

Corporeal (take a pound of flesh) tangential --

Underneath

Groves

I’ve never been a child of the dust

Is being on or in all there is?

From what I’ve seen it seems so

I come from somewhere else

And I wonder

What lies underneath

To see the cascading of a slip

Along the full crescent of a hip

To kiss the soft velvet of the lips

A human eclipse

I’ve never been a child of the dust

Is feeling chills all there is?

I’ll take your word it seems so

I’m all alone in your world

And I wonder

What lies underneath

To count the slow seconds of a strip

To breathlessly nervously unzip

To taste the moment pass like a blip

A human eclipse

Apollyon

words by Dearing, music by Dearing and Groves

Apollyon

I have come the world's destroyer

Look into the face of death

Apollyon

Look on me with eyes of terror

That is all that you have left

Don't wanna hear about your stupid little lives

Don't wanna hear about betrayal

Prepare to say all your pathetic goodbyes

For there is nothing that can save you

Don't wanna hear about what's wrong and what is right

Don't wanna hear about compassion

Prepare to find out if there is an afterlife

For there'll be nothing left but ashes

Cry for mercy but in vain

I have come to bring you pain

Curse the darkness if you dare

But it won't get you anywhere

Love Won’t Save the World

words by Groves, music by Henry and Groves

It’s tossed away like sweat

Off of the skin into the wind

And hovers valiantly

As if to say, “I’d like to stay”

And then evaporates

To be breathed in our lungs again

Call it what you may

Sex or Doris Day

Chocolate coffee cake

It’s thrown away like trash

Into a can then under land

And there seeps in the ground

Content to be a source for seed

But is dug up again

To be reused Perhaps abused

Call it what you will

Hugs or cars or pills

One big hole to fill

Love won’t clear your lungs

Love won’t thin your tongue

Love can’t save the girl

And love won’t save the world

It falls away like tears

Into the sea to memory

And mingles with the salt

A gentle sting A home to be

Seattle (In Memory Of…)

Groves

London of the States

You realized too late

That I was in your lungs

It was more than mist

That on the morning hung

And Puget Sound makes none

Another tide unsung

The thick Snoqualmie trees

With their leafy arms

Ellenburg did reprieve

Who’ll watch the Needle glow?

No Starbucks, Ichiro

Red Delicious, Ann and Nancy

Eddie’s flannel show

Ferries hug the shore

No purpose anymore

The drizzle on your skin

Mingles with the sweat

As judgment day begins

London of the States

You’re quiet as of late

The Red Pool

words by Groves and Dearing, music by Dearing and Groves

I wouldn't touch you

When I had the choice

But with the thinning air

We have the same voice

I wouldn't listen

Wasn't worth the trouble

With the setting sounds

We share the same puddle

Join me in the Red Pool

Another fall for another fool

Together we can grow cool

Mingling in the Red Pool

I wouldn't see you

When I had the time

But now I notice

We walk the same thin line

Wouldn't regard you

Empty prayers in vain

But when the lids are closing

We call on the same name

A Perfect Light

Groves

I’ve read about your kind

Snatched from second story windows

Mom and daddy blind

A child of the dust

As yet to know the sober pain

Of broken bonds of trust

I’ll hold you till you sleep

Warm and peaceful keep

No more to fear from strangers

I will be your manger

Regard me…regard me

I’ve read about your kind

Hatched from plastic teller islands

Buy and sell and grind

You love her like your car

Would she be proud to call you hers

If she knew who you are?

I’ll hold her till she sleeps

Warm and peaceful keep

And this to you I give

Another day to live

Regard me…regard me

The blood pools to one side

Nobody left to know the joy they

Shared before they died

Anonymously bright

A frozen frame of family

Perhaps the perfect light

I Didn’t Come for You

words by Groves, music by Henry and Groves

You gotta break—you gotta break some eggs an omelet to make

But I only want—I only want the yolk, the white is the wake

To get to the Bars, foot soldiers will fall

How many will the battle cost?

A cry to the sky—a world-weary “why?”

This contest isn’t won or lost

You slip and you search these eyes

For mercy or hope or lies

That tell you this can’t be true

But you are the shoulder tap

A tug on the hem, a slap

‘cause I didn’t come for you

You gotta step—you gotta step on folks to get to the top

A staircase made—a staircase made of flesh, a plentiful crop

In any rescue-collateral damage

No time to stop and sort ‘em out

They aren’t aware of the gift or the favor

I’ll take the number He allows

You gotta break—you gotta break some eggs an omelet to make

But who would’ve guessed—who would’ve guessed that it’d take

Six billion eggs?

Beings

Groves

So what is man but a day?

A vapor soon blown away

A grain of sand washed ashore

The tide reclaims without a war

The right of flight an easy choice

So say goodbye and live

There is no end save in your grave

For one last cradle to give

Propensity for the floor

Capacity for much more

So what is life but a breath?

A tortured trance a dance to death

Allowed to bask for a while

Then history: somebody’s smile

True regard sacrifice

Frozen in their last embrace

Tenets of a lifetime grown

(Tenants of a lifetime groan?)

In one act are erased

Propensity for the base

Capacity for such grace

Love could change the world

…just might save the world…

Regard Me

Groves

We measure size by what we know

I always felt so small

With nowhere as my home

And silence as my song

I guess it’s true that most fear death

More than any other test

But comforting it’s welcome rest

Release from loneliness

Regard me

All I ever wanted was a Nod

I always feel that I’m alone

With nothing here but empty skies

To shake my fists toward

I never knew until today

That there is more that we can be

So maybe love will save the world

But it’s too late for me

Regard me

Regard me

The sun dips down to shine upon

The nakedness of the Lonely Ones

Then slips beneath the bracing waves

(Javert, c’est moi) And so will I.

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Songs from the Hill, SESAC, © 2003. Lyrics reprinted by permission. Unauthorized use and/or

reprint of these songs is a violation of international law and is strictly prohibited..