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There Are Bones in the Trees

by Boy Without God

supported by
Ben Greenberg
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Bryan Hauver
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1.
Lost in the Snow 02:21
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i know i am lost out here in the snow you’ll never hear me you’ll never see me i know i am lost out here in the snow
2.
Starlight 06:00
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My father stands in the warm evening on the porch of my first house. I am four years old and growing tired. I see his head among the stars, the glow of his cigarette, redder than the summer moon riding low over the old neighborhood. We are alone, and he asks me if I am happy. ….Are you happy?” I cannot answer. I do not really understand the word, and the voice, my father’s voice, is not his voice, but somehow thick and choked, a voice I have not heard before, but heard often since. He bends and passes a thumb beneath each of my eyes. The cigarette is gone, but I can smell the tiredness than hangs on his breath. He has found nothing, and he smiles and holds my head with both his hands. Then he lifts me to his shoulder, and now I too am among the stars, as tall as he. Are you happy? I say. He nods in answer, Yes! oh yes! oh yes! And in that new voice he says nothing, holding my head tight against his head, his eyes clsoed up against the starlight, as though those tiny blinking eyes of light might find a tall, gaunt child holding his child against the promises of autumn, until the boy slept never to waken in that world again.
3.
Please Don't Bury Me By the Highway 05:35
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Please don’t bury me by the highway, though it’s true that I was long in wandering. In search of things always just round the bend. Time divides into smaller and smaller sides. You’ll never see your life end, so just relax, it’s not a test we’re here for. Forgive yourself your life. Please don’t bury me by the highway, noisy and gray. Let me fall forgotten; no monument an embarrassment to my memory. When I go, some endless evening, be not sorrowful for me. You go on. Pick up where we left off. Home, it follows you. please don’t bury me by the highway, underneath famous eyes spent cigarettes and plastic cups, multicolored lies When I go, some endless evening, be not sorrowful for me. You go on. Pick up where we left off. Home, it follows you.
4.
Rise Rise Rise 01:16
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(see title)
5.
Dogs 05:54
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it’s darkening and something’s wrong, but I will not leave the city wrapped in song. Turn off my mind, kill the engine. Everyone wins. i’m wandering and something’s wrong: why am I out of sorts where I belong? Laughter spills from lit windows: it overflows. The dogs are out in the street turning down scraps of meat they’re animals but they won’t eat Rain is falling all around, and if I leave the city I will drown. Watch as the clouds slowly recede. sink into peace. But I don’t know how to drown, my body lift me up when I wanna go down. light reflects from every angle, up we rise. up to the skies. up to the heights. The dogs are out in the street turning down scraps of meat we’re animals but we won’t eat
6.
The Tree Is Me 04:49
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Outside, the kids are killing braincells pink polo shirts and dirty mouths get drunk and fuck, baby leave your cross at the door jesus don’t love you anymore. on the table in the morning cold mozzarella sticks and warm busch lite it’s so easy to be angry when you’re dying by fluorescent light girl breaks your heart? son, have a drink got a brand new job? well hey, have a drink it’s tuesday night? well damn, have a drink. stumble home blind drunk, take a piss in the sink in the toilet in the morning, everything you don’t wanna see everybody wants to get to heaven on a technicality don’t be afraid of love, that’s what the stereo says but I don’t wanna love someone thinks I’m going to hell the kids are bending into question marks underneath the weight of the blue blue sky the dead-eyed boys are dying in their pillows while the girls cry black mascara tears into their smirnoff ice wake up, feel down the king is in the kitchen with a half a crown roads lead, away but there’s a man with a gun and he looks just like me sunlight, barbed wire searchlight towers and machine gun fire let me pass, let me pass I gotta get out or leave my blood on the grass don’t shoot, don’t shoot my hands sprout leaves and my feet grow roots if a tree’s transplanted to a hotel no matter what you do, he ain’t gonna do well complimentary coffee just stunts his growth he’s afraid to stay and he’s scared to go
7.
A Little Less Love 05:29
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push everyone away talking never helps anyway the sickly scent of smoke and other people’s dirty jokes says in my clothes for days try not to fall in love sing a song of murdered doves and things too big to say the girls I’ll let grow old and gray there’s a little less love in the world today sleep the sting away replace it with a dull gray ache flowers on your grave for doing things the right way what a good man, they’ll say shoulders weren’t meant for cryin on, just being ice and payin rent hustle to your grave before you track dirt on the family name life you never spent a refund won’t come heaven-sent all the ones he loved too much there’s always something he’s afraid to touch all along, been doin it wrong, don’t go away we still got something to save grown on the other side of the fence there is an empty nest oh my friends, my friends it’s all “just wait”s and “until then”s but you’re never so alone as when you’re standing on a sputtering sun and everyone’s TV’s on there’s no silence in this place but I won’t be what I fucking hate
8.
Happy As a Clam 02:01
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many months ago before it all began I cried tears of snow happy as a clam harbor no regrets harbor no hopes hollow out your home hang your walls with rope let it not be said that i went like a lamb words won’t raise the dead only time can water up above water down below four white birds are the ones departed before the snow i have no remorse i have no surprise the meek become the earth no one ever cries I don’t even try
9.
Holy Ground 04:28
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the air outside is cold, unworn and new your hair’s alive, it stands and it salutes and all at once you know just what to do you can save every hard-hearted knave all bent and blue forgive them all slowly, so slowly, so slow lean against the wall and think only of how lonely this stone be if you won’t see your clothes streaked by earth and cold sleet and soul sing louder (be serious about happiness) than flame and gunpowder (be serious about happiness) taking aim at the glowering silence (be serious about happiness) of mustachioed minds
10.
Remembrance 04:46
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We used to blacken the windows wreathe black the door now the children of the dead grieve privately in metaphor elegy is the wheels spinning on the bicycle of the capped boy who brings the yellow telegram telling of sons who fell in the wars the neighborhood knew the pain we blackened the windows blackly wreathed the door now the blood is drained from the poppy we’ve worn for eighty years I refuse that hollow wreath I won’t be that rotten door Better to go and hear the cattle screaming in the abbatoirs afraid to die afraid to live these are the same fears elegy is the sound of windfall pears hitting the wet grass and we die like this living, we die like this mute at the little grief-windows of the flesh we die like this
11.
Bury it in Bells 03:27
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when we met, you were headed out to sea and I waited patiently you’d been hiding in another man’s arms he was just another in a series of storms I can’t eat, I can’t see Trust became a powerful part of me I sent myself a message, it said: STOP FUCKING EVERYTHING UP There is blood in the well There is a rising hell swallowing glade and dell push it back against the swell There is blood in the well There is a rising hell swallowing glade and dell choke it back, bury it in bells There is blood in the well There is a rising hell swallowing glade and dell push it back against the swell the first time I heard you laugh I knew something was wrong all frayed and singed and cut within you careened along and I couldn’t hold on
12.
Every Shining Word 03:11
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once upon a time, we’d twist and rhyme and I left with some of your breath in my lungs and the wind will stay exactly how it was that day shivering my bones like last legs of long roads home oh, oh, oh you’re coming soon to spin around my empty room shed new light on this old, old tune every shining word, the truth
13.
Life Is Easy Until... 06:07
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Life is easier without words. life is easy till someone wants to know your secrets can’t explain, I can’t explain

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The first thirteen songs ever put to hard drive by BWG. A learning process, for you and for me.

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released December 1, 2006

Gabriel Birnbaum - everything

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Boy Without God Brooklyn, New York

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