You carried me across the ocean on six months’ whim.
I thought I had something to prove,
and so, pretended sympathy.
In my head I gave my life to going back (to serving you).
I drifted for two years talking about it.
Sat in the car on the interstate...wept and pleaded and prayed
for you to let me leave. But nothing changed.
Your will is like water–steadily dripping, gradually wearing away
at the hardened earth. Perfecting and carving glorious
caverns that echo your name.
You laid life in her womb after seven years effort
(‘O what rejoicing! What noise, for you!)
Six months later, we lay fretful and shivering after the ultrasound.
Too much liquid in that tiny brain.
We laid hands on her belly each day; wept and pleaded and prayed.
six months thereafter, the baby was born–
the solution still in him. Nothing had changed.
You brought her to me (twenty-three years treading water).
By the fifth month, I had decided to wed.
I prayed for your will, and you drove her away.
I’d imagine and wonder what love was mine.
Wept, and pleaded, and prayed for
the empty to end. But nothing changed.
An hour of spacey, dreamlike new music from Ducktails. “Daffy Duck in Hollywood” boasts mirage-like songs with laid-back melodies. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 27, 2017
Tom Heyman documents life in San Francisco circa 2023, refusing to succumb to easy characterization & instead capturing the city’s nuance. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 22, 2023
Tanya Donnelly, Wreckless Eric, Rosanne Cash, contribute cover versions of John Wesley Harding’s songs for this charitable compilation. Bandcamp New & Notable May 6, 2021