In The House Of Dust

by The Republic Of Wolves

In The House Of Dust cover art
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    20 B-side, Demo, and Unreleased Tracks
    8 Live At the Vail Levitt Tracks
    5 Acoustic Sessions Tracks
    'Home' and 'Oarsman' Music Video Downloads (.Mp4)

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credits

released 01 December 2011
All Songs Written by The Republic Of Wolves.
Produced By The Republic Of Wolves
Mixed and Mastered by Gregg Andrew
Cover Art By Ben Kehoe

The Republic Of Wolves are: Gregg Andrew Dellarocca, Mason Maggio, Christian Van Deurs, and Billy Duprey

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republicofwolves.com
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tags: rock alternative folk indie rock punk rock

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Track Name: In The House Of Dust
You laid all your feelings down,
Like worn and guilty knives

But I cleared out that filthy mess
That lived between our words
And painted us apart

But we're the same for what we've done

I was a simple process,
Suddenly cold and honest
A system of dissipating truths

And you were a swerving labyrinth,
Always awake but absent
A ceiling of smokeless flame

Dawn took us for sightless fools,
As if it needed to
But it's really all the same

And I thought change
Was just a name

We were just soldiers serving time
And tracing out our entire lives

And I was afraid of progress,
As though it would cave in on us
A feeble and desecrated house

And we took the past for granted,
As though we could understand it
But we'd never been so lost
Track Name: Varuna (Acoustic)
Our home is a jagged mouth,
streaming out pleas to the dead
We are misshapen teeth
uprooting ourselves

But we could have spent our time
burying strangers instead
We would've settled in
and found out our names

But calm your heart
The dark is still the dark

We'd told our sons to wait their turns,
like eager months lined up in herds
to age our skin and stretch us out.
They never get tired of stretching us out.

We read the braille with our bare feet
It would not teach us how to see,
But we finally realized ourselves.

Varuna is counting the notches and nicks in our planks.
Do we deserve the grave,
or the table you set for the liars
and unloving husbands and wives?
They hadn't seen themselves
They couldn't have known.

But face that fact,
Every branch you cut grows back.

And we're growing into the thought
that we're cast like iron,
forced into these shapes.
Track Name: Stable
They said, “just leave it up to us.

What good is a god that you can’t trust?”


I am all that you have seen,

I am not the only one here.


They’ll fill the vents with ragged cloth

And bolt shut the trap door to the loft.

Kept safe from what we cannot know,

kept cold, and stable, and as still as stone.


Had you ever really tried?


And I strayed into a vile thought

The second I was forced awake

Out of a reeling frame of soaking smoke

That I grew into.

And we staved off every breath

And burning bush and holy ghost,

Then we measured him

And measured you

And measured every damn thing in the room.


That’s when we really saw ourselves,

A collection of proportions

And irrational anxieties.

But that won’t ever really do,

We cannot stay unsolved

And we will work ourselves to death

Or perfect squares.
Track Name: You Missed The Point (Acoustic)
Forget the pain you once held dear,
It cannot help you here.
Did it ever help you anywhere?

You're kneeling on a memory,
some Pyrrhic victory
But could you ever be that young again?

My dice are cast, I can't turn it around
I've set these frames but there's no doors to fit them.

Recall the way she tied that rope
Was it just as you had hoped?
Even though you never had a say

But you missed the point 'cause you were caught
in the rains that you had brought,
And you could never get your color back.

Our posts are placed,
we can't turn that around.
But I still won't breathe until I see it set in stone.

And now you're filling up with shade again, and I am too
After all the years of fighting it.

But now I'm pretty sure
that our books are bound, and we can't turn that around
I built this bed but there are no sheets that fit it.
And our bricks are laid, can we turn that around?
I still won't breathe until you get your color back
Track Name: The Dead Men Stood Together (Alternate)
The Dead Men Stood Together

They kept their heads in books to drown it out
The clinking glasses of an inlet's open mouth
The straits were shaking us in circles now
I faked a faster death but knew that time was headed south

Through all my thinning paint regret
We were metallic green and red
I was a compass drawing lines around that point,
but never getting closer.

I paid my debts to men in swirling crypts
Who swore they'd keep our names alive in manuscripts
I kept my sins in tow but you'd let go
That's why you moved a little faster.

We were all just floating dead,
Drowning in our sunken heads
Let hell on board this broken deck,
and we'll forget our lies.

And all he knew, he had to leave
A shell of skin beneath the sea
The only thing he got to see
That dead men stand together

We are all lost.
Track Name: For His Old Branches (Alternate)
There is a wheel
That spins to keep the river flowing.
It runs a course between your eyelids and your aching jaws.
There was a bird
Who took your voice and turned it backwards.
He and the past were aiming arrows at your heaving chest.
You took a train into the mouth of all you hated,
Spent half an hour watching hope pass through a window
You’ve got that singing crown of thorns
around your thick head
You and the kid that you once were
are fighting over it.
(Then we ran down the river Van
To the mouth of old Fenrir
And he swallowed us up)
I collected rocks, filled up my pockets
and tried to swim across the stream.
I was told I’d be kept afloat
By the ghosts of the hills that I’d flattened to get here.
Trusted a fiend and lost my hand.
My blood flowed white and filled the canyon,
And I saw faces in the leaves
And they were preaching to me.
There is a tree you cannot cut.
He knows your name and all your fears.
You dare not lay an axe to his old branches.
They dug a coal mine by your house.
His yelling kept you up all night.
All of your friends got caught between his black teeth.
We left our shoes under the ground,
tied yellow feathers to our arms,
and learned the language of the aching mountain.
Then I went out west
and tried to build a better version of myself.
My iron tools got swallowed up by spirits.
And I knew my head was inside out,
so I sold my soul to taste the clouds,
ate from the tree and started digging up the ground.
There is a thought you cannot shake
Of her asleep under the lake.
The ice is eating up the surface and you are the fish
Sleeping peacefully.
Track Name: Albatross
I sent a crackling message
It had grown old inside my mouth
It was phonetically in tact,
But the meanings were mismanaged in a way

You were a bed of coral
In some domesticated dream.
You were laconic when you woke,
But our words had all been sewed up all the same.

We were both simplified
And sharpened down to symbols
that we hadn't even tried to understand.

And we felt something tear
But we held the sorry truth inside our throats
And let it burn, and scratch, and claw, and finally fall.

Our fear was tightly packaged
In some warehouse we had built.
You said I'd tried too fucking hard
And got caught up in definitions from the start

I met a sickly liar
And I borrowed both his lungs
Thought maybe I'd set them straight,
But his guilt, it fit me better anyway.

And I don't think you'll ever know
How hard it was to let that go
And yeah, I guess I lost control
But I never will again
Track Name: Monologues (Alternate)
When day dawned, the tempest passed away
and the warm sun shone out.
I was caught in a sunbeam that dried my eyes closed

I'll show you what it means to come home alive
'Cause I've seen the curtain fall one too many times
And it's my fault.

Don't let the weight shatter your shoulders
Just lay it down before you forget how.

When God spoke, the field was dry as day
And she felt her cold hands meet
I was lost in the wood grain,
'till I heard her call my name

We held a funeral for the moths we'd killed,
then set to work again on the ones that lived.
At least we knew.

Have you been kneeling here long?
Shedding your youth
teaching yourself not to argue
You're caught in a shroud
you shouldn't have found
Those monologues spoiled your innocence.

I swept up all your tiny fragments
And spun you into thread,
and dyed you gold
But you never kept me warm enough
to make it through a single night.
So I cut you to parts,
and sold you as scarves
so you could go on after I was gone.

When we meet again we'll be asleep
underneath the flower bed.
You'll tell me everything that you wished you'd done
I'll wrap you in my arms and then I'll wake up
But you will not.

Can I finally say that I found some truth?
That everything dies before I do
'Cause I've driven these stakes
for all of my days
Just to try and escape my uncertainty.

There's nothing here to keep us from setting
We're layers of paint eventually washed out.
Track Name: A Weather Vane (Acoustic)
All that time that you killed,
Pulling smoke to your lungs
In a parking lot covered in green glass
And shimmering
The light on your face starts to darken and dissipate
The ghost was inside your mouth
Placing bets with your teeth.
Forcing your voice out,
Pushing your tongue up from underneath
And out past the fields we were racing the sun.
You slipped away past the fog and the firelight
I saw the footsteps cut out of the ash.
We traded names just to see if the colors would change
And they did.
I got sick of the pull
You just sputtered and sank
You were nothing
A curtain of sawdust
A weather vane.
And don’t try to skip past the part where you realize.
But I lied my way out of this one
And you lied your way to a ditch
And I fought myself just to stay up
Out of your street-walking, tongue-talking sleep.
How it consumed you
and eventually me
Track Name: Rosary
Collected up in laurel wreaths they found it,
A reason not to grieve
And they stitched it to our sleeves

Saying, "maybe it's the dead who should be praying
For those of us who still
Have shaking shoes to fill"

So they tilled the hollow land that we had left
And they welcomed every weed their fingers met,
Saying "life is just that, no matter how sad it is."

We buried them in pairs along the floodplain,
So no one could complain
For lack of things to say

And some cemetery bird was shedding bad dreams
Like feathers floating down
But they'll never reach the ground

When you knew there was a hole you could not fill
You were fired in a kiln against your will,
But the rivets that bound your love to the ground
Were still in tact.

But if we're all just beads
On a rosary,
Then a breaking cord
Could set us free

You built a quiet house for all your worries
And sent them off to sleep,
Then knelt down next to me.
Track Name: Greek Fire (Acoustic)
Where have you been lying
ever since the fortunes changed their minds?
You're nothing but a sleeping quarry,
caught up in the snares that you yourself had lain.
But I am not your keeper
Don't call for me when you finally realize
No one's coming, so you'd better find some peace.

When you wash up
I will fold my hands
and contemplate the ways
to keep you in your place

Please tell me,
Why have you been mourning
since the day you really met yourself?
Well you and all your seething lowlife best friends
were lining up like sparrows on a wire,
Talking like the twelve Apostles
dressed in leather,
wandering the alleys,
clenching your fists
"Relax, it's just a business."

Your Maker was a servant
who plowed 'til he was swollen
and fell into the ground.

His phantom took the shape of
your seven years of labor
but you would not stay down.

I couldn't get you because you got me first.
You were a fixture
I must have been a fool.
I couldn't face you, because your face was mine.
But I will be long gone
before I take your side.

We're nothing but receding figures
robbing each other of our final thoughts.
Track Name: Wood/Bricks
Two carpenters of failing worth
We found ourselves in disrepair,
But didn't care.
So we took the wood from that old tree,
Built a coffin on the sea.
Flowers strewn across the deck,
Sails draped around our broken necks.

And I will be taken apart when it's over.

Our ruined hands collecting dust
Uneven loves that drove us into our bodies
But we found the bricks from our old house,
Tried to put them back together
But with no foundation underneath,
It crumbled right back to a smoldering heap

And we will be taken apart when it's over.

So we gave every flaw in our crooked construction a name,
And accepted that nothing was meant to hold up for this long.

When you felt the sun come alive in your ribs
You were dying, just to try it
As the sutures and stitches that held you together were splitting,
And it made such a glorious sound.

Your wire strings slowly disappear
Well I have been emptied of every fear
The things that we had but never replaced,
We're falling asleep and forgetting the names.

Well I pried myself into pieces and scattered them over the wreckage,
And you were still shaking your head, holding on to your nails.
And every splinter of timber like thunder inside of my shuddering frame
Says I'm gonna pay, yeah we're all gonna pay, when it's over.
Track Name: Sea Smoke (Demo)
I drove an ancient copper thorn
into your Red Indian heart
Pulled the cross down and myself
into a hundred weaker parts
Pointed up into the cliffs,
I saw the villains they became
Just an angel and a lion,
spitting fire in my name

Won't be long

We threw the Stygian hypocrites
into the warmest pit of Hell
Down to the violent jet-black delta
where the redwoods rose and fell
I painted all of man's mistakes
inside a giant golden frame
I was a tax collector up until
the spirit spoke my name

In the fog of the graying woods we'd grown
We heard the cedar bulkheads moan
So we replaced it with a field
And now it's scraping up our heels.

And I can hardly move my mouth
To get these hallowed insults out
Past my bear trap jaws into my wandering father's ears
So I'm packing up my tattered thoughts
and swallowing my prayers.

And I'd been too long
in a polished wooden tomb
Should've left some space for you
But I never got my fill of tempting fate

So I sold my spine to the devil-handed dusk
Finally a captain I can trust
He formed a brand new trinity
With the hypocrites and me.
Track Name: Grounded I Am Traveling Light (Demo)
So we were living out our days
in an old abandoned palisade
Sweeping chimneys 'til our backs hurt
and singing 'til our throats were dry.

Scraping the red from every rusty nail
Stitching the carpet tears
We kept our salty voices hushed
You looked loveliest all dressed in dust

And I cleared the cobwebs while you slept,
set a fire that we'd both regret.
You woke up coughing out a storm
and we never made it out the door

'Cause I for one was taking my time.

I think it's time you and I should come home
It's been three years and I can feel it in my bones.
If turning back means I'm turning back alone
then I guess I'm on my own.

It was six hundred degrees
We had nothing to protect our feet
from the glowing embers hardening our soles
Our burning bed of coal

But that fever that we shared
wasn't nothing that we couldn't bear
We just wrapped around each other
and we sweated out our worst nightmares.

And I think that's when I was born,
in your arms during a firestorm.
We were perfectly in place
We were filling up the empty space.

But you were tired of wasting your time.

Your spirits fled from all those bad ideas we bled
I twisted up all of your words
And I turned to brass while you were tearing down the past
Now I'm trailing
I'm traveling light
and losing my memory.
Track Name: The Clouds (Demo)
I’ve been waiting on a response for days.
There’s been a complication
It seems your heart needed a break
From pumping the blood through your veins,
and keeping the oxygen okay.
I still see your face in the day.
And I see your eyes in the bottle that was way too tall
I finished it just to see if we could talk.
Now I’m speaking with your ghost again
It’s telling me that I don’t listen.
Can we be friends,
In another lifetime
I might pretend that we are right now.
I summoned demons from a dying tree
I took a long walk off a short levee
I drank the poison from a black moon seed,
and then I saw you.
I felt your kiss in a dream I had
I felt your skin in a monument
Then I went home to live a brand new life without you
I buried all our things
Beneath the giant shadows of the clouds.
And they will stay there underground,
but no matter what I do I never will stop talking to you.
I never did get the last word in,
And you said I always did.
Track Name: Oarsman (Demo)
I woke up sweating on the moaning mount of olives
My black dove penance weighing down my feather feet
Woven into my skin, the covenants I'd broken
My granite heart will not forget what it once was.

A coffer full of your love
I couldn't bear it.

I don't believe I ever had a choice
When the sun came up and my eyes were struck
I don't believe I could've changed my mind
In the dead end heat of that withered beach
With my grave stone teeth and your seven shades of grief

We were unleavened earth before the first unsettled word fell
They drew the devil's iris in between your brows
Accursed breath that left our bodies when the day broke
Who built that weary wooden cabinet for your faith?

All these doors I see
mean nothing to me.

I don't believe I ever had a choice
When we lost our sight to the teething night
I don't believe I could've changed my mind
When the seeds were sown and then left alone
How could I have known I was never on my own?

Oh God, I feel like every saintly fire was my fault.

That I got crossed off of the wall
and my fingers all bloodied and torn
and it's just a lie,
a poor excuse for all the fumes
that I spit out back when I was young,
and god damn the truth,
I was unused,
an empty glass,
an oarsman and no one knew my name.

I am not welcome in this house I built.
Track Name: Tanzih (Demo)
My left handed heart is still painting your face
over the walls of my dim mind
These contrary winds hiding under my eyelids
I hope I can stomach the weight.

But each bristling wave is an unfinished thought,
swept out of view by the next one.
I've tried and I'm trying to string them together,
but oh what a waste of my rope.

Like a disappearing act

On a lofty brown bed, treading masses of blue
I started coughing up questions.
There's a giant asleep under all of this water,
I'm searching in vain for his name.

Written on my tongue,
There is none merciful but God.

Iron pinned you down
You were coming unstitched
You were flickering and you didn't have time to ask why

Something was circling our heads
Was it the patron saint of death?
I heard you spoke from your new grave,
"There is no truth that will not fade."
Well I guess you'd know better than me.
Track Name: Cardinals (Demo)
Reach in for it
Your rusted, iron-covered cross
Pour out your breath
into the furnace again.
I think I found a better way to live
And I think I’ve found a better way to die.
And I’ve been fitting myself into that small space
That you set our for the screaming of the wind.
That is all I’ve ever been.
And sorting through it,
I never saw something so clear
As your hands bound up in prayer
Behind a closed door.
I thought I’d walked a better road, alone
Until I felt my feet turn into stone,
And that’s when I turned back.
Track Name: Spill (Demo)
She was in the back yard,
Digging out a trench
Praying for her father’s gun again.
All the holy weight they’d laid across your back
And the hundred years you’ll waste
just thanking them for that.
And you can’t blame anyone for what you’ve done
Oh my God you can’t blame anyone
Before the bridges are built, you’ll burn them down.
You had built a new face,
empty but awake
And painted it the one shade you could never fake.
Love had kicked your crutches
out from underneath.
I was still the sandstone cutting up your feet.
God was in our back yard, tearing down the fence,
Calling out our father’s name again.
So we fixed him to the floor, covered up his ears
And spent another lifetime
Shaking off our fears.
Oh but I could be something else entirely
And spill out of my burning head
And underneath your door.
No, I do not see what you see
in your old eyes.
And I will be cutting up your feet
for eternity.
Track Name: Through Windows (Demo)
I am not the devil under the water
Pulling you down by your old wooden ankles.
Splitting and shriveling,
seeping out of me.
God, I’m afraid of the songs you’ve been singing me
God I cannot hear your voice quite so clearly.
And I am the walls crumbling down.
We are clearly the saints
No, we are not afraid
Our names cannot be engraved in the sand.
I am just a sinner, pulling my splinters out
Chipping away at a crackling flame.
Well I felt my shoulders begin to get lighter
When I realized that it all would get harder than this.
But I don’t believe in the surface.
We can’t see through the sheets
No, we are not asleep
And I will not be the leaves on your tree.
I am the tides
I’m the beggar left for dead on the side
And I am the walls crumbling down
They’re watching me fall through the windows of saints
They’re making me something I am not.
Your brother got killed in the snow while you slept
But you never grew out of the secrets you kept
To keep all his light-headed hoping alive
Carried for miles inside of your mind.
Now I’m writing down all of my saintly complaints
And pulling the strings they’ve attached to my face
But I’m done haunting houses
And cursing at God
And filling up spaces with black and white fog.
I saw my whole life in the glass on the floor
Well what did you think all of that shaking was for?
Now I’m floating downstream
Chasing after my bones.
Well I guess I grew old
But I never went home.
Track Name: Cardinals (Live)
Reach in for it
Your rusted, iron-covered cross
Pour out your breath
into the furnace again.
I think I found a better way to live
And I think I’ve found a better way to die.
And I’ve been fitting myself into that small space
That you set our for the screaming of the wind.
That is all I’ve ever been.
And sorting through it,
I never saw something so clear
As your hands bound up in prayer
Behind a closed door.
I thought I’d walked a better road, alone
Until I felt my feet turn into stone,
And that’s when I turned back.
Track Name: Tanzih (Live)
My left handed heart is still painting your face
over the walls of my dim mind
These contrary winds hiding under my eyelids
I hope I can stomach the weight.

But each bristling wave is an unfinished thought,
swept out of view by the next one.
I've tried and I'm trying to string them together,
but oh what a waste of my rope.

Like a disappearing act

On a lofty brown bed, treading masses of blue
I started coughing up questions.
There's a giant asleep under all of this water,
I'm searching in vain for his name.

Written on my tongue,
There is none merciful but God.

Iron pinned you down
You were coming unstitched
You were flickering and you didn't have time to ask why

Something was circling our heads
Was it the patron saint of death?
I heard you spoke from your new grave,
"There is no truth that will not fade."
Well I guess you'd know better than me.
Track Name: Grounded, I Am Traveling Light (Live)
So we were living out our days
in an old abandoned palisade
Sweeping chimneys 'til our backs hurt
and singing 'til our throats were dry.

Scraping the red from every rusty nail
Stitching the carpet tears
We kept our salty voices hushed
You looked loveliest all dressed in dust

And I cleared the cobwebs while you slept,
set a fire that we'd both regret.
You woke up coughing out a storm
and we never made it out the door

'Cause I for one was taking my time.

I think it's time you and I should come home
It's been three years and I can feel it in my bones.
If turning back means I'm turning back alone
then I guess I'm on my own.

It was six hundred degrees
We had nothing to protect our feet
from the glowing embers hardening our soles
Our burning bed of coal

But that fever that we shared
wasn't nothing that we couldn't bear
We just wrapped around each other
and we sweated out our worst nightmares.

And I think that's when I was born,
in your arms during a firestorm.
We were perfectly in place
We were filling up the empty space.

But you were tired of wasting your time.

Your spirits fled from all those bad ideas we bled
I twisted up all of your words
And I turned to brass while you were tearing down the past
Now I'm trailing
I'm traveling light
and losing my memory.
Track Name: Mirage (Live)
Mirage

I once met a man
With spotted skin and leopard hands
He said you were not far from here.

The edges were close,
I saw the wake a golden coast
And then I saw your sails just floating on the surface

Now it's hard to believe
That someone can leave
And then suddenly reappear
A mirage of your trust, imagined and lost
Of a ghost who's been standing right here

Well I fought through the ice,
But fell to needled skinny flies
They sucked out my blood
And replaced it with black water!
The closer I get to boiling over
My skin's crawling off of my bones

Now it's hard to believe
That someone can leave
And then suddenly reappear
A mache of your trust, folded and cut,
Into a mask that I've got to wear.

I was cold, dripping wet,
(it was worth it for you)
I was so out of breath
(it was worth it for you)
Now I'm practically dead
(and it was all for you)

All the wars that you set, it was worth it for you
All the lives that I left, it was worth it for you
Now I'm practically dead, and it was all for you.
Track Name: Wood/Bricks (Live)
Two carpenters of failing worth
We found ourselves in disrepair,
But didn't care.
So we took the wood from that old tree,
Built a coffin on the sea.
Flowers strewn across the deck,
Sails draped around our broken necks.

And I will be taken apart when it's over.

Our ruined hands collecting dust
Uneven loves that drove us into our bodies
But we found the bricks from our old house,
Tried to put them back together
But with no foundation underneath,
It crumbled right back to a smoldering heap

And we will be taken apart when it's over.

So we gave every flaw in our crooked construction a name,
And accepted that nothing was meant to hold up for this long.

When you felt the sun come alive in your ribs
You were dying, just to try it
As the sutures and stitches that held you together were splitting,
And it made such a glorious sound.

Your wire strings slowly disappear
Well I have been emptied of every fear
The things that we had but never replaced,
We're falling asleep and forgetting the names.

Well I pried myself into pieces and scattered them over the wreckage,
And you were still shaking your head, holding on to your nails.
And every splinter of timber like thunder inside of my shuddering frame
Says I'm gonna pay, yeah we're all gonna pay, when it's over.
Track Name: The Clounds (Live)
I’ve been waiting on a response for days.
There’s been a complication
It seems your heart needed a break
From pumping the blood through your veins,
and keeping the oxygen okay.
I still see your face in the day.
And I see your eyes in the bottle that was way too tall
I finished it just to see if we could talk.
Now I’m speaking with your ghost again
It’s telling me that I don’t listen.
Can we be friends,
In another lifetime
I might pretend that we are right now.
I summoned demons from a dying tree
I took a long walk off a short levee
I drank the poison from a black moon seed,
and then I saw you.
I felt your kiss in a dream I had
I felt your skin in a monument
Then I went home to live a brand new life without you
I buried all our things
Beneath the giant shadows of the clouds.
And they will stay there underground,
but no matter what I do I never will stop talking to you.
I never did get the last word in,
And you said I always did.
Track Name: Rosary (Live)
Collected up in laurel wreaths they found it,
A reason not to grieve
And they stitched it to our sleeves

Saying, "maybe it's the dead who should be praying
For those of us who still
Have shaking shoes to fill"

So they tilled the hollow land that we had left
And they welcomed every weed their fingers met,
Saying "life is just that, no matter how sad it is."

We buried them in pairs along the floodplain,
So no one could complain
For lack of things to say

And some cemetery bird was shedding bad dreams
Like feathers floating down
But they'll never reach the ground

When you knew there was a hole you could not fill
You were fired in a kiln against your will,
But the rivets that bound your love to the ground
Were still in tact.

But if we're all just beads
On a rosary,
Then a breaking cord
Could set us free

You built a quiet house for all your worries
And sent them off to sleep,
Then knelt down next to me.
Track Name: The Dead Men Stood Together (Live)
The Dead Men Stood Together

They kept their heads in books to drown it out
The clinking glasses of an inlet's open mouth
The straits were shaking us in circles now
I faked a faster death but knew that time was headed south

Through all my thinning paint regret
We were metallic green and red
I was a compass drawing lines around that point,
but never getting closer.

I paid my debts to men in swirling crypts
Who swore they'd keep our names alive in manuscripts
I kept my sins in tow but you'd let go
That's why you moved a little faster.

We were all just floating dead,
Drowning in our sunken heads
Let hell on board this broken deck,
and we'll forget our lies.

And all he knew, he had to leave
A shell of skin beneath the sea
The only thing he got to see
That dead men stand together

We are all lost.
Track Name: Wood / Bricks (Acoustic)
Two Carpenters Of Failing Worth
We Found Ourselves In Disrepair
But Didn’t Care
So We Took The Wood From That Old Tree
Built A Coffin On The Sea
Flowers Strewn Across The Deck
Sails Draped Around Our Broken Necks

And I Will Be Taken Apart When It’s Over

Our Ruined Hands Collecting Dust
Uneven Loves That Drove Us Into
Our Bodies
But We Found The Bricks From Our Old House
Tried To Put Them Back Together
But With No Foundation Underneath
It Crumbled Right Back To A Smoldering Heap

And We Will Be Taken Apart When Its Over

So We Gave Every Flaw In Our Crooked Construction A Name
And Accepted That Nothing Was Meant To Hold Up For This Long

When You Felt The Sun Come Alive In Your Ribs
You Were Dying Just To Try It
As The Sutures And Stitches That Held You
Together Were Splitting
And It Made Such A Glorious Sound

You Wire Strings Slowly Disappear
Well I Have Been Emptied of Every Fear
The Things That We ad But Never Replaced
Were Falling Asleep And Forgetting The Names

Well I Pried Myself Into Pieces And Scattered Them Over Te Wreckage
And You Were Still Shaking Your Head Holding Onto Your Nails
And Ever Splinter Of Timer Like Thunder Inside Of My Shuddering Frame
Says Im Gonna Pay Were All Gonna Pay When Its Over
Track Name: Mirage (Acoustic)
Mirage

I once met a man
With spotted skin and leopard hands
He said you were not far from here.

The edges were close,
I saw the wake a golden coast
And then I saw your sails just floating on the surface

Now it's hard to believe
That someone can leave
And then suddenly reappear
A mirage of your trust, imagined and lost
Of a ghost who's been standing right here

Well I fought through the ice,
But fell to needled skinny flies
They sucked out my blood
And replaced it with black water!
The closer I get to boiling over
My skin's crawling off of my bones

Now it's hard to believe
That someone can leave
And then suddenly reappear
A mache of your trust, folded and cut,
Into a mask that I've got to wear.

I was cold, dripping wet,
(it was worth it for you)
I was so out of breath
(it was worth it for you)
Now I'm practically dead
(and it was all for you)

All the wars that you set, it was worth it for you
All the lives that I left, it was worth it for you
Now I'm practically dead, and it was all for you.
Track Name: Tashbih (Acoustic)
When I was six months old
there was a price upon my soul.
They placed me in a basket
and sent me down the rapids
So all I ever knew was a wicker tomb.

Please lock the door behind me
Just lock the door after I go.
I'm sorry for my tied tongue
I'm sorry that you left alone.

When I replaced the cross
with monuments to what I'd lost
I grew apart from myself
and shook until the night fell
But all I ever was
was merciful.

Well I never got out of those rapids
We never get out of the rapids.

You're still here in some way.
But I couldn't have known
so it's alright.
Track Name: Woolen Blankets (Acoustic)
I had alot to say
before they sewed my mouth shut
Out on a rosy field,
between a cross and crescent

I had a love so pure
I had to leave her behind.
I never told her why
Did I ever tell myself why?

I kept a steady hand
as we untied the bowline,
Off of a ragged pier
during a grey-haired sunset.

Past the old tree and the coal mine,
We deserted all the burdens of the land
Traded all that aging clay
For the urgency and anger of the sea

A hundred fading prayers
sewn into woolen blankets
And my father's rosary
twisted around my frail uncertain wrist

I'd heard a soul could float
But could it swim to safety?
Well I'm scared that when this ends
I may not even have one
at all.

And you said,
"I do believe that hope
is just a grand distraction
from the walls you will have to climb."
So pick up your weeping feet
and just start moving forward
And don't look back to see if she's there