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Prayer (Died in my Sleep)
I died in my sleep last night
Woke up this morning
I was gone
Died again in my sleep
Woke up this morning
Good as gone
My heart came home at daybreak
& my old soul walked in drunk
Still singing
Just around dawn
When I get that dream of dying
I can't help but wonder
Where I go
In my dream of dying
Cannot help but wonder
Where they find my clothes
& outside on the veranda
My old snake skin gets shed
& shredded in the gravel blown down the road
The curlews cried at midnight
& all my love was blown like dust & ashes
Scattered, lost upon the wind
& a human voice at midnight
Sang 'til there was nothing left to sing
The sky stood pale & starstruck
& the dying day reborn
& the earth standing still
Still standing, listening
Then the sky became
Thick with Angels
I do not mean just by face & name
I have always counted angels
& numbered them
Not just by face & name
But Angels do not love their work
They get lonely & they wonder
They wonder why they came
I put my hand to her shoulder
I could feel
Wings under her skin
Put my fingers to her shoulder
Invisible wings
Mysterious skin
& the level look she gave me
Well it undid me
Cut me down like mystery
But it made me breathe
Out & in
& this is what I say
Whenever I meet some angel
Somewhere someplace out on the road
I say, “May peace be upon you
& your love be received in love
& recognised by men
By those who walk in shadow
May we recognise good fortune
Good fortune walking to us
Where you come"
So I offer up this prayer
I hammered it out of lost years
& tears & tin
I offer up this prayer
I hammered it out of years & tears
& rusting tin
This song has no beginning
No way home, no reason to be
& no good reason to end
I died in my sleep last night
Woke up this morning
Well, I was gone
Died again in my sleep
Woke up this morning
For all money I was gone
But my heart came home at daybreak
& my old soul walked in drunk
Still singing
Still breathing
Out & in
Still breathing
Just around dawn
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A Ghost Horse & A Talking Dog
Me & the dog we go walking down town
Up from the river down the old main drag
& the dog says, 'Boss, you better get that gun
There's a big white horse & it's coming at a run'
I said, 'Wait a minute, Cleo. That ain't clear
& we don't shoot horses, not around here'
& the dog says, 'Well, it's just a false alarm
It's just a Ghost Horse & it thinks it's a unicorn
But I can see right through it, Boss
& it's got no horn'
I've got a ghost horse & a talking dog
What more could a pilgrim want?
I ride that horse all around my dreams
& I listen to the dog about what those dreams can mean
There's only one streetlight in this town
& it shone through the horse as the moon went down
& the horse said, 'Dudes, we live in interesting times
& I've come here to help you read the signs in between the lines
You've got a murder mystery & a drowning town
& a ten year drought & an outlaw gang
There's a lot to think & there's a lot to do
& I'd've got here sooner but I caught my death when I threw that shoe'
& the dog says, 'Horse
Don't you ever call me Dude'
I've got a ghost horse & a talking dog
What more could a pilgrim want?
I ride that horse all around my dreams
& I listen to the dog about what those dreams can mean
We get to the bottom of all of those dreams
So we headed for home as the darkness grew
Back to the Ghost Town Bridge Hotel
& we stopped at the stable with the kicked in door
& wondered how long 'til it's an antique store
I saw a torn down poster from the rodeo
& I thought about Jenny getting ready to go
& the other missing Jenny that the wind blows in
& Billy on the road getting born & born again
& Susie disappeared when the bridge burned down
But Uncle got a letter from a foreign town
She said, 'I'm leaving tomorrow but I don't know when
I've been lost & found & found & lost again'
& the dog says, 'Boss, I know that you're missing
Your very best friend'
I've got a ghost horse & a talking dog
What more could a pilgrim want?
I ride that horse all around my dreams
& I listen to the dog about what those dreams can mean
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In the Foothills
I got a call from Louise
She's in the foothills
With her books & her mandolin
& a piano ruined by lighting
& a hole where the smoke blows out & in
I drove down the valley to see her
With the Hummingbird Gibson guitar
She said she'd light the lantern at sundown
I stalled in the water just on dusk
So I wrapped up the rain & the Gibson
& left the car in the river to rust
I followed the smoke
Up the skyline
Where the stones sing
& when I heard stones I buried the keys
I saw satellite dishes & fox hides & tails
Nailed to the shadows of trees
He poured kerosene on the lightning
& like lightning the campfire lit up the storm
His bad eye fixed on the Hummingbird
& his good eye scrutinized me
He said, 'I heard about you from Louise...'
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Bad Night on TV
Well well mister, it's a long way home
How the hell did you get in that creek?
It's ten mile back to the bitumen
& the Ghost Town RACV
Well anyway well you'd better come in
I'll tie up the dog to the tree
I'd just about kill for a filter cigarette
& there's nothing on the TV
I set up here about two years back
The place was gone to ruin
They built it out of old beer bottles
& salvaged galvanised iron
There was trouble with the law of course
About things I got for free
But when I'm in the mood for blame
I blame it on a bad night on TV
I was working in the garage back then
& cutting my losses at the TAB
& down come Julie in a rebirth car
& she throws the keys over to me
Well I don't know why I went along with her
She's just something you might get for free
& she had on a pair of them bedroom high heels
& there was nothing on TV
It was a bad night on TV
It was something about duty free cigarettes
& Chinese DVDs
When we got the place it was the boyfriend
Taking a swing at me
Well I didn't mean to hurt nobody
He's still got the one good knee
& then outside two cars collide
Because there's nothing on the TV
Well of course somebody shot all this
On one of them mini DVs
& now they're paying some actor about a half a million bucks
For pretending to be like me
& yes it makes you want to spit
But I'm a man you don't meet for free
I reckon everybody ought to hurt a little bit
When they're making a bad night for the TV
Well I reckoned I was dead & buried
When I woke up lying in dirt
Looking up at Romeo's pals
& Juliet's see-through shirt
Well they dumped me on Somebody's nature strip
Somebody must've liked my face
Then I come up here to lick my wounds
& then I found this place
You know I reckon there's a snake in that wood heap
You'd better give me a hand with that log
You just wait here & hold the rifle
While I go & untie the dog
& listen, as far as your car's concerned
Well I reckon that the motor is seized
You'd best start walking back to town
Because there's nothing on TV
It's a bad night on TV
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Saturday Night (& Sunday Morning)
She walks in the hotel
& I've seen her face before
So far from television
That I cannot tell for sure
It hit me like a hammer
& I straightened up to go
Then I said, 'How are you Jenny?'
& she said, 'Well well well
& how are you?'
Last time I saw her
Was beside me in the car
She was wearing nothing
Just a cowboy hat & shoes
With one hand free for talking
& one on the steering wheel
Switching off the lights, switching off the engine
Free-wheeling through the starlight
Down the hill
From Saturday night
To Sunday morning
It's another country
From sundown until dawn
I used to go there all the time
Just leave here without warning
I still get there sometimes
& get happy & get gone
She said, 'How are you doing now?'
'Well', I said, 'I make the rounds
Bringing what I can deliver
To all these little towns'
She said, 'Let's go in my car
They give it to me free
For selling someone something
& talking about the weather map
On the TV'
From Saturday night
To Sunday morning
It's another country
From sundown until dawn
I used to go there all the time
Just leave here without warning
I still get there sometimes
& get happy & get gone
& I'm gone, gone, gone
Saturday night is the other side of dawn
Sunday morning I'll be long gone
Leave my body here to carry on
& I'm gone, gone, gone
We drank from the bottle
In the dry grass by the road
Drank it to the bottom
All the way down to the worm
We drank it for the first time
& we drank it for the last
Drank it for that one time
That the present lives in the future
Does not live in the past
The winter time is rolling in
& it feels like frost to me
We gather on the river bank
Around the burning tree
Drinking from a bottle
On the bonnet of a car
Jenny's gone like weather now
& we don't know how long
Or how far
From Saturday night
To Sunday morning
It's another country
From sundown until dawn
I used to go there all the time
Just leave without warning
I still get there sometimes
& get happy & get gone
& I'm gone, gone, gone
Saturday night is the other side of dawn
Leave my body here to carry on
Sunday morning I'll be long gone
& I'm gone, gone, gone
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Clouds & Rain
Well I'm dreaming you in a bar somewhere
Where the jangling guitars play
Staring into that Tiger beer
While the rain shuts down the day
We were drinking to the love of all our friends
& we drank to the love we made
& now I'm drinking to the kiss of your skin
A drink I call the Gates of Jade
I travelled all night to be with you
To meet you in the air somewhere
Where the spirit women walk the trees at night
My heart was singing me there
& the perpetual motion of the ceiling fan
Spins me in & out of time
I'm drinking a drink I call the Gates of Jade
Whisky, sugar & lime
Whisky is the mystery of the Western world
Lime the mysterious East
I put them together on the tip of my tongue
& kiss you to the brink of release
Kiss you maybe a thousand times
Until the moon spins 'round
& sugar is the tears in the kiss of the rain
& your laughter is a singing sound
So I'm dreaming you in a room somewhere
& you're stepping out of your gown
Saying, 'This is not a dress I would normally wear
When I'm improvising in a foreign town'
Then you hung your necklace on the back of the chair
Said, 'Darling, why don't you hang around?'
& now I'm lost in Clouds & Rain
& your breathing is a singing sound
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Sugarloaf Road
Somebody burned down the silo at the siding last night
Set fire to the signal box too
I awoke to the siren & the flickering light
& a shadowy fear concerning you
I stumbled in the darkness for my keys
& matches for the kerosene lamp
'lectricity got cut back in '93
The modern world didn't make my map
They say the world got changed with a hijacked plane
In the year of zero & one
But that ain't the year the axe fell here
It was a ten-year drought that broke this town
So come on Susie put your tears to bed
Everybody's got plenty of those
I do my best to forget the rest
& I'll meet you on the Sugarloaf Road
All of those acres & all of that grain
& all of that blood & sweat
When your dad went under to the globalised chain
The CEO got another big cheque
So they give him a job on the silo at night
Feeding wheat into the two mile train
He was up on a ladder with a torch & a spanner
Disappeared into the grain
So they shut it all down five years ago
Two towers & a moaning wind
Where the red rust grows & the red dust blows
& of course the trains no longer run
& I hear you drowning in your dreams
Wheat dust around your tongue
I heard you telling somebody that on the internet
Any child can learn how to make a bomb
So come on Susie put your tears to bed
Everybody's got plenty of those
I do my best to deny the rest
I'll meet you on the Sugarloaf Road
Well it could have been you but I don't think so
Your grief & loss are bottled in
& I can hear the sirens of the law
Hunting somebody who was seen
Everybody'll say it's the religious wars
& it's all about a smoking gun
But you are an orphan in this world
& sometimes that's just about enough
& on the highest plain of the Sugarloaf Range
I reckoned where you would go
But all I've found is a sleeping bag
& a half full bottle of White Crow
Hey Susie, get some sleep
All of those miles I know
Everybody's got a promise to keep
I'll be waiting on the Sugarloaf Road
Somebody burned down the silo at the siding last night
Set fire to the signal box too
& I awoke to the siren & the flickering light
& a shadowy fear concerning you
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Jenny's Gone (For Rock 'n' Roll)
She was sitting on a saddle on the stockyard fence
With a great big hat & a great big grin
Saying, 'Come on boys
Please let me sing
I'm just rodeo girl on the outside looking in
I can roll you a cigarette with one hand
Standing on the saddle up in front of the band
How about it boys?
& I can carry a tune
Give my horse two beers & he can sing back up too'
& Jenny's gone
For rock & roll
She sent me back a dollar & the saddle she stole
& I see her picture in the paper every now & then
She cut a dollar in two with the crack of her whip
& I bet on her for the championship
& when she won that belt
I laid by a diamond ring
She said, 'Let's get back up on the back of that truck & sing'
We sang all the songs off of Three Chain Road
A couple by Slim & a song I wrote
& on the slow song
The horse played violin
If I could do it all over I'd do it all over again
& Jenny's gone
For rock & roll
She sent me back a dollar & the saddle she stole
& I see her picture in the paper every now & then
One day Jenny said she could no longer sing
On the back of this truck in Deniliquin
So she got us three tickets
Out to the USA
Said she was a whip-cracking poet with something essential to say
Well I give her a kiss & one more for luck
Said, 'I'm happy here on the back of this truck'
& me & the horse
Well, we've struck up a deal
I do the smoking & horse plays pedal steel
& Jenny's gone
For rock & roll
She sent me back a dollar & the saddle she stole
& I see her picture in the paper every now & then
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I Come Back Here
I first met that kid who loves birds
When I come back here around the end of winter
He was kicking at the padlock on the door
Of the closed down café
The rain was blowing in across the veranda
Tambourining on the corrugated iron
& there was a mopoke trapped behind the glass
Immobilized by daylight & fear
The kid had been singing to the bird
& the owl seemed to like the song
But it still wasn't going anywhere
& the kid could feel his loneliness
Aching to keep the bird with him
But he'd swallowed his need
& was kicking the mopoke loose
'My soul', he said, 'Cries out to anyone who'll listen to my song
But the songs I sing, though pretty
Are sorrowful
& sometimes they are long'
I was, at that time, of a mind to relinquish the pleasures of the world
So I gave him my cigarette lighter & the last of my tobacco
& as the mopoke drifted up like smoke
From the fireplace through which it had entered the town
Me & the kid sat down
Cross legged on the café floor
& played rock scissors paper until dawn
I got lost in the maps & mandalas etched into his riding boots
He got lost in smoke
& yes, vanished & soon became a story
& hung in the air, solid, like a song
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A Brand New Pair of Riding Boots
From Nowhere North to Ghost Town Bridge
There's a kind of a heroin trail
I've done my time in heaven there
& I've done my time in hell
My friends & I at twenty-one
Were all that way inclined
I've got a brand new pair of riding boots
For stepping across the line
& I'm liking what you're smoking
Can you get me some of those?
& maybe a box of matches
& a packet of tally-hos
& if they've got sale on souls
Lay by one or two
I've got a brand new pair of riding boots
& the devil likes new shoes
He likes the hand tooled leather
& he likes the Cuban heels
I got them from the saddle man
Way up in Tenterfield
We were running meth-amphetamine
To the rich kids in the snow
I've got a brand new pair of riding boots
Five hundred dollars a throw
In the old days of whisky
They ran the pack-horse then
& crossed the flooding river
To deny the customs men
But my old black Monaro
Does the job with a hollow door
I've got a brand new pair of riding boots
One foot on the clutch & the other foot down to the floor
But of course it's all gone bad now
For Susie & me & Jim
You're putting out a fire with petrol
When you call amphetamine in
& your friend will be your enemy
Your enemy your friend
I've got a brand new pair of riding boots
& I'm too tired to pretend
& I see you're getting restless
To hear how this pans out
Well, Jimmy opened up his heart
& he let the goodness out
& he took a rifle with him
& I don't know where he's been
I've got a brand new pair of riding boots
& I like to keep them clean
I won't be back in town again
Old Uncle got my car
I swapped it for his stock horse
& the saddle that he carved
I'll be riding 'round & 'round the world
Until I get reborn
I've got a brand new pair of riding boots
I will keep you all informed
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I Can't Tell This Story
If you held me for a minute
That would get me through an hour
& if you held me for an hour
I could hold on until dawn
& if you held me for a night or two
I believe that would see me through
One more season of a year
But I can't tell this story anymore
I can't tell this story anymore
& it's not about some wedding vow
& it's not about who we kiss now
& it's not about some promise never made
& it's not about connectedness
& it's not about stepping out of a dress
& it's not about duplicity or trade
But I can't tell this story, not today
I can't tell this story anyway
& it's not about transmigrating souls
& it's not about alcohol
& it's not about when cigarettes were sublime
& it's not about sweat & skin
& pillow book imaginings
& it's not about some other place & time
& it's not about a perfect day
& it's not about knowing what to say
& it's not about if all the words are wrong
& it's not about who will come
& soft explosions on the tongue
& it's not about some overloaded song
But I can't tell this story, it's too long
I can't tell this story, it goes on & on & on
& it's not about an empty sky
A stolen chance to say goodbye
& it's not about where love begins or ends
I think it's just some human thing
Infinite, suffering
But I can't tell this story, not again
I can't end this story, or begin
I can't end this story, or begin
But if you held me for a minute
That would get me through an hour
& if you held me for an hour
I could hold on until dawn
& if you held me for a night or two
I believe that would see me through
One more season of the year
But I can't tell this story anymore
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(A Song is Just) One Man Breathing
I got hit by lightning
I was coming apart in the rain
Hung out on the sky to dry
& stuck back together again
& I don't care about the burning air
& about the shape of me
I look in the mirror at someone there
& no lifetime guarantee
Drifting in the dust storm
In one more rusting car
Rattling around in the boot back there
Is a two thousand dollar guitar
& I don't care about the wear & the tear
& the singing in harmony
A song is just one man breathing
& no lifetime guarantee
A song is just one man breathing
One man breathing like me
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