Joanna Newsom

I killed my dinner with karate
Kick 'em in the face, taste the body
Shallow work is the work that I do

-the Book of Right On

While outside, the wild boars root
Without bending a bough underfoot
Oh it breaks my heart
I don't know how they do it
So don't ask me

And as for my inflammatory writ
Well, I wrote it an' I was not inflamed one bit
Advice from the master derailed that disaster
He said "Hand that pen over to me, poetaster!"
While across the great plains, keening lovely and awful
Ululate the last Great American Novels
An unlawful lot, left to stutter and freeze, floodlit
But at least they didn't run, to their undying credit

-Inflammatory Writ

Svetlana sucks lemons across from me,
and I am progressing abominably.
And I do not know my own way to the sea
but the saltiest sea knows its own way to me.

...

And Jamie has eyes black and shiny as boots
and they march at you, two-by-two (re-loo, re-loo)
when she looks at you, you know she's nowhere near through:
it's the kindest heart beating this side of the blue.

And the signifieds butt heads with the signifiers,
and we all fall down slack-jawed to marvel at words!
While across the sky sheet the impossible birds,
in a steady, illiterate movement homewards.

-This Side of the Blue

And all day long we talk about mercy
Lead me to water, Lord, I sure am thirsty
Down in the ditch where I nearly served you
Up in the clouds where he almost heard you

And all that we built and all that we breathed
And all that we spilt, or pulled up like weeds
Is piled up in back and it burns irrevocably
And we spoke up in turns 'til the silence crept over me

And bless you, and I deeply do
No longer resolute, oh and I call to you
But the water go so cold
And you do lose what you don't hold

This is an old song, these are old blues
And this is not my tune, but it's mine to use
And the seabirds where the fear once grew
Will flock with a fury and they will bury what'd come for you

And down where I darn with the milk-eyed mender
You and I, and a love so tender
Stretched on a hoop where I stitched this adage:
"Bless our house and its heart so savage"

And all that I want, and all that I need
And all that I've got is scattered like seed
And all that I knew is moving away from me
And all that I know is blowing like tumbleweed

-Sadie

Joanna Newsom.  The Milk-Eyed Mender