T H R E A D S

image/graphic by jack hastings

MP3 Audio File

I go to save you, that seems sure
I used to sit at your right hand
But you slipped away at my distraction
Like a ghost floating over the sand
The spacefaring stranger

I’m sure you’ll welcome my embrace
I who know you best
Drifting, forgotten, wayward wraith
An angel of infinite jest
The spacefaring stranger

Varicose veins in the clear night sky
A thread of galaxies stretch
I say my prayers as I draw my breath
Like a finely detailed sketch
Of the spacefaring stranger

You said forgiveness was our only hope
I turned away and didn’t see you leave
Now I stand alone and board the ship
Fly through the night and grieve
For the spacefaring stranger

MP3 Audio File

She’s a dark dark matter,
a dark matter indeed
She’s a thread way way down
in the wild wild weeds
She wears a blue shift
she ignores red lights
She ain’t giving me the message
that I need to expedite

Chorus:
Don’t weave me in your madness
You invisible crone
Don’t give me grief and sadness
It’s too late to atone
When I look straight at you
You’re invisible to me
You’re the very best thing
that I’ve ever never seen

I can talk to anyone, anyone on earth
I can find out anything
but what is that worth?
The name of the game
is stay out of the flame
This is something, baby, interstellar rebirth

Chorus:

Her interactions, factions
and her passions are weak
She’s a massive piece of the great mystery
When an axion come crashing down,
she changes her skin
She’s a karma chameleon
And a cardinal sin

Chorus:

Don’t weave me like a silver thread
to fix your party dress
You grow in deep deep darkness
while I acquiesce
You can make me shake with fear
but I won’t fluoresce
I thrash around in nothing
while you play with finesse

Chorus:

MP3 Audio File

I'm living in my hoodoo
I'm taking stock of space
Rooting round the garage
But it's vanished with no trace

Chorus:
I search for trouble here and I search for trouble there
I looked into a rat hole with a cold bleak stare
But I wake up tomorrow with a big surprise in store
Because I always forget that I've been blind before.

Looking down a black pipe
Plumbing gone to rust
Hairballs taken over
No one left to trust

Chorus:

Taking stock, I'm taking stock

Stocking up on fever
Maxing out on funk
If I could just take a step
I'd pack the leavin' trunk

Chorus:

(Thanks to bosonHavoc at Looperman for Bongo 2)

MP3 Audio File

Will I see
What was not there

Chorus:
Through my fault
Through my fault

Will I hear
What was never said

Chorus:

Will I believe
What was not true

Chorus:

MP3 Audio File

The white spaceship lies on its side in a field
Many days after the flood
It doesn’t look a thing like what we’ve seen on TV
Its shape is all wrong as it sinks in the mud

When the water receded, it didn’t leave much
Broken hearts, broken homes, broken dreams
And the folks who first went to scavenge the sight
Found out it was not what it seemed

Chorus:
Hannah was there, a curious little girl
Followed after that by her dad
And then a few animals wandered too close
After the holler filled with water and it all went bad

There was many a body seen floating by
In the days during the flood
And some said that they only looked barely human
As they passed with the muck and the crud

The roads washed away; there’s no phone access here
We sent Henry for help but he hasn’t come back
And no one really knows what’s making those sounds
That we hear from old Wilson’s shack

Chorus:
Three rivers did rise when the sky’s dam burst
In those days just before the flood
And there are other relics but not like this thing
Surrounded by the bones and the blood

Now no one else will get very close
And no one else knows what to expect
So each day we rise and hope it sinks more
Wondering what comes next

Chorus:

MP3 Audio File

Come with me across the galaxy
The spaceman’s dream, the astronomer’s fantasy
Stars like dust my destination
Rapt in utter fascination
Rainbow clouds, the nebulae
Fill my wondering eye

We won’t stop at the edge of the universe
Dodging quasar blast and gamma ray burst
The stars beyond the darkness call
As through the firmament we fall
In shadowed radiance we’ll see
The end of everything

Chorus:
Matter dark and, undeniable
Now our course become, unreliable
Falling, flying
Through the night
Floating, soaring
I’m all right

Down and round the endless black we go
A bleak horizon waiting just ahead
My heart feels stretched and thrown across
The sands of time
If we keep pressing on, I know
Eternity is mine

Bridge

Chorus:
Thread the needle through the hole
The fabric tears, the thread won’t hold
Falling, flying
Through the night
Floating, soaring
I’m all right

MP3 Audio File

West of Saturn Enceladus rose wild
Like I remember
our moon on the quays
It’s a bad place for a dream
or imagination
And I don’t really know what it means

A groaning joist turns silence to clatter
As it slowly flips light into dark
The lovely Rhea rises, weeping with fear
As tentacles seem to
sprout from her heart

Chorus:
There’s glimmer of color
as I watch the stars
But I can’t recollect what I’ve known
How to speak, how to think,
with this thing at my heels
On the run from the soporific drone

The groaning is joined
by sounds in the hull
A skittering scattering click clack
Tumptytumtoes kinetic insectoid rasp
Then I notice a blip on the blap

it’s a blasted heath in my throbbing head
I see a shape that’s
been following for days
With a pointy toe aimed
at my cobblestone stern
Just waiting to blow me away

Chorus:

What cacophony fills
my humptyhillhead with noise!
What dank creature
has sent this my way?
The gaggin fishy gods with their
death claw boomerang
These are times of deep secrets
and no end of strange days

The drone blacker than black
closes in at my back
As sounds rise in the blasphemous din
I try to escape but I’ve lost all control
Cast adrift in the wake of my sins

Chorus:

MP3 Audio File

It's dark
it sure looks slippery and it's dark
and if it won't float Noah's ark
I still wonder if it matters

I'm lost
And I know where I am but I'm lost
into this sea of webs I am tossed
Until I find out what's the matter

I have appointments in a place
where I have never been
I have my side bets but there is no way I can win
and at this place they never heard of sin
I have my marching papers and I have got to go

I fear
but only all the things I hear
the cosmic dust will dry my tears
But no energy will match my matter

Chorus

The darkness knows the darkness grows
the darkness froze everything that I knew
And if I called the darkness friend
it will just say everything is True
And stir me dissolving into its black stew
Again I die again I die again I die again I die

MP3 Audio File

When the hills were glowing
With the shine, oh! the shine
Please remember
Not to leave me behind

Chorus:
It was only days
Of innocent lives
The lonely, the bitter
Days of monstrous moonshine

If the dew in the meadow
Isn’t gone with the sun
Alone, I would shudder
Too late to run

Chorus

Like the threads of a story
Coming undone
Like the shame of your breaking
A promise to someone

Chorus

MP3 Audio File

This lens is too small to climb through
Inside of this moon-lit tank
And for all of this cheap entertainment
I’m not sure who I have to thank

Take me out to the infinite ball game
Take me out to the big black beyond
And if you should find
That I’ve been left behind
Conceal your envy, baby I’m gone

Chorus:
This lens is too small to climb through
Inside of this moon-lit tank
And for all of these vast tribulations
I’ll remember who I have to thank

Don’t try to sugar coat this hot mess
You will figure you have it wired
And if you find this sight magnifies the plight
It’s not that you’re stupid - just tired

So just build my coffin from wooden quarks
Spare no expense and get a good view
And when the minister’s finished with his prayers
You are welcome to my coffin too

Chorus:
This lens is too small to climb through
inside of this moon-lit tank
amid all of my cheap entertainment
Please remember who you have to thank

MP3 Audio File

I can't find it beside the planter
I thought I heard it by the bathroom door
At first I thought it was in my head
Then I couldn't hear it anymore

But it's never too far from me
Whether it's there or not
Whether the wind is howling
Whether it's freezing or hot

Chorus:
You made your point with a mighty cry
Like a grating clang it seemed
The will to live, the will to die
The unsaid words, the hidden scream

Couldn't find it in the attic
Just some old worn out shoes
And it wasn't in the basement
Where I heard the strangest blues

I crave the light of day
The gap between the breath
The end of the pain
The life before the death

Bridge:
To be cleansed of the braying beast
To find silence in the roar of defeat
To feel calm when there is no relief
To find faith where there is no belief

Camellias rustle in the wind
The clouds go floating by
Guess I'll be driving out tonight
Where the mountains meet the sky

Chorus

MP3 Audio File

Last night, at first light I’m tumbling
Falling right out of a dream
I saw crystalline tears, you were weeping
And flying on perfect white wings
But I fought to stay in dreaming, not wanting to wake
And face the harsh light of day
Remembering when you and I were one
The time before you went away

Chorus
Head over heels
You know how that feels
Just a part of some woeful parade
Ass over tit
I stumble and trip
Into this pathetic charade

Long days, the last rays of sunset
As the world turns its face to the night
A vision of romance turning to dust
I fall from a terrible height
Now only in dreams are we lovers
Only in dreams are you mine
And I don’t want to think that it’s over
That we’ve reached the end of the line

Chorus

I rattle the chains of my memories
I shake out the shadows and rust
I try hard to only look forward
And I break down whenever I must
But when I’m asleep I’m not careful
My heart, it goes tumbling free
I see your green eyes and soft red lips
May this dream last an eternity

Now only in dreams are we lovers
Only in dreams are you mine
And I don’t want to think that it’s over
That we’ve reached the end of the line

Chorus

MP3 Audio File

I’m not sayin’ I couldn’a tried harder
I’m not sayin’ I was right
I’m not too proud to stop from praying
Or to hope it’ll turn out fine

Chorus:
But if you
Keep two steppin’
With those guys
All night long
Well then
My little darling
I’d rather be
I’d rather be
I’d rather be
Gone

Morning’s light is breaking out
Don’t know where you are
Used to be we’d take to shoutin’
When you came home from some downtown bar

Chorus

Somewhere the story has a happy ending
We stay together for all time
The price of pain in the wages of love
Is endured and all is sublime.

Chorus

MP3 Audio File

They’re selling tickets
to the showdown
With pictures of her lungs
The place next door is full to the brim
The drinking has begun
The wall between’s an air sac
Where no one’s s’posed to go
The grins are long; the place is packed
For the shell breather show
Ooooh, The shell breather show

She saw something she shouldn’t
Now it’s stuck inside her brain
So she pretends to be sleeping
And looks to be in pain
There must be ducks in the dungeon
And squids down below
There are rats in the walls
when midnight falls
At the shell breather show
Ooooh, the shell breather show

Bridge
The curling iron’s burning
The hairs off of her head
Her wings begin to open
As she rises out of bed
The sun shines on her spacesuit
And away she floats
Anticipation’s building
For the shell breather show
Ooooh, the shell breather show

And the next time that you take aim
With the gun from off your shelf
Just be careful you don’t miss
And only shoot yourself
And if you’re throwing kitchen knives
As the target spins around
It takes a single cut, right to the gut
At the shell breather show
Ooooh, the shell breather show

In alphabetical order:

• William Fuller
• Jack Hastings
• Spencer Kimball
• Gary Sears