Keep sailingWas through strange seas he'd swaggered
and sailed in his day
He told tales uninvited and we liked it
that way
Mermaids with the darkest of stories, he said
Saw some things best forgot, and in far-lilting beds
he dreamt things he told naught
but with fluttering hands
and a sharp tongue he lured us
away from the land
The nights overcame us
with tall tales and short, and by god the wind found us
far strayed from the port..
And keep sailing! we cried
at the break of each day
Just keep sailing, we've decided now,
Please, come what may
No I've not! found a reason
to anchor or moor
Nor nary a husband! for whom to seek shore
Keep sailing! Keep sailing!
with suffering and song
Keep sailing! through short years
that thus become long..
Around peaks of dark mountains
we did venture and climb
behind, o'er and under
tall brambles and vines
Through deep, screaming pockets
'tween towering waves
reared of taxes and seawater
rearing for days
Shrieking from nightmares,
our scrambling crew
become things best forgot
'fore the hardest is through
But Keep sailing! for fuck sake
Just keep to the sky
'fore through black seas we'll travel
and know 'fore we die
The fiercest of women
with stretched hearts 'stead of veins
and the bravest of men, willing to suffer
the strangeness, the terror in things
better faced in the dark
when ones eyes cannot focus
left alone with ones heart
Wander shipwrecks unspeakable
never mentioned though warned
hold our white breath for days to see the worst of the storms
And salvage! the planks, all the strange metal forms
Rebuild! from the broken, overgrown and unborn
Now with masts made of moss
salvaged jewels and combs, unwound
bowstrings and basslines
and unfinished songs
tattered hope, squandered plotlines
but nights still stretching long
we sing poems of shipwreck,
Valhalla, and dawn.
Hammer rhythms with dishware
and boots to the floor
calloused fingers a'flyin
rebuilding the score
Weaving lies and our memory,
the big squid, that one girl,
Rip Van Winkle and Dylan,
Taraf, the Black Pearl,
And we beckon! the wind again
once each drunk our fill,
armed with skeletons, affection, and curiosity still...
"And so it began", said the shape at the bar
and let loose in his eyes just really how far
he had wandered, been lost, found things undescribed
Whom he'd left, where he'd been, the last time that he'd cried
But it was only a moment, a flicker, if that,
and his hand slid up deftly and tipped on his hat
Keep sailing, he called back, from the end of the hall
But I seen it myself,
his mouth din't move at all.
