Pale Kings

Summer’s blood

Breaks a winter’s composure

And I’m in love with your daughters

I’m in love with your sons

And a flush of rain

Floods the banks of all reason

Turns your memory golden

And it hides how it was

In the ordinary light

You know how sometimes,

You’re so tired of the country

You could run to the ocean

And surrender your life

But in the same breath,

A light burns through your dreaming

And blows holes in the ceiling

Till there’s nothing but sky

Run out

like a ribbon unreeling

head down and careering

colors drained from your life

But listen

Just the sound of your breathing

Blows the cover of silence

Blows the cover of lies

With incendiary light

You know how sometimes

You’re so tired of the country,

Its poptones and its pale kings

And its fences like knives

But in the same breath

Your heart breaks with the feeling

With love and with grieving

For its irrational life

Right

Now