NEW SUN RISING Lyrics
Torch of Freedom © R. Leschen 2010
I carry a torch of freedom through a land of money and sin,
A rock in an acid ocean I am steel that bleeds in the wind.
I’ve dug deep and I have wondered if this land would self-destruct,
And all the sweet green pastures will burn to ashes and dust.
Blue rivers flow from the highlands ascending ancestral shores,
Each turn brings new color to an otherwise emerald stone.
A song for hope and mercy calls where lightening strikes,
With a torch of freedom I can see a distant light.
A dark and empty presence rules an uncertain land,
Stealing the hearts of angels breaking their delicate hands.
I
am drenched and bare and forsaken reminded again and again,
That my soul is simple and supple that my flesh cools in the rain.
I’ve tread in icy waters been cut to a lesser length,
Burned in summer oil and thrown to an open trench.
I’ve slept beneath a rainbow awoke in love’s embrace,
Now I’m strong willing and able to unshackle this ball and chain.
I carry a torch of freedom through a land of money and sin,
A rock in an acid ocean I am steel that bleeds in the wind.
I’ve slept beneath a rainbow awoke in love’s embrace,
Now I’m strong willing and able to unshackle this ball and chain.
Episode of Susan:
Limit of Love © R. Leschen 2010
Dim down to quarter light, smoke the stage and
focus tight,
Dip your wings into the clouds,
send your thoughts to higher ground.
Perfect Polly has gone astray, disappeared
without a trace,
A lion
knows to feed her young, seat yourself the rest will come.
*No one told her she was dying,
no one had said her race was won,
No one told her she was trying too hard, to
reach the limit of love.
Sister snake and daughter doom, stole the gold
and split the room,
Jack the
Ace with missing teeth, found his love between his feet.*
Can’t seem to shake these stitches from my
skin,
Won’t you remove that phantom limb?
I saw an episode of Susan last night,
I wonder, like me, if you cried.
The coffin’s set the nails are in, cut the rope
why not drop in,
Streams of tears
like bitter rum, content to watch the seasons run.*
Bardoni’s Picasso © R. Leschen 2010
Antonio Bardoni drew horses, flocks of geese aloft in the wind,
In open-air markets and street-ways, was paid for portraits of men.
He blended cobblestone courtyards, with scenes from the new frontier,
You might say that he created, from battling the storms and the rain.
Arriving by Kensington carriage, a girl with a white parasol,
Her face a washed in cosmetic her beauty struck sweetness and awe.
She met the eyes of Bardoni, he was lost in the moments embrace,
I think I’ll have me a portrait — make me a heavenly saint.*
*An angel of redemption ruling empires grand and divine,
For me she symbolized freedom, an eye for the poor and the blind.
Antonio understood clearly, when he drew that perfect face,
That colors disclose the places, where ladies and men embrace,
In the Atlas of the World he traveled, to affect her masterpiece,
Casting with strings of silver, he reeled in rainbow dreams.*
Strumming at the corner, St. Luke is buskin a tune,
For all those busy streetwalkers, who work the mornings till noon,
And the lady at the market, that Bardoni framed in gold,
Sleeps in oil and canvas, was offered for sale and sold.*
Young Man Down © R. Leschen 2010
Watching the world from the rim of a glass,
What matters most is a dream that’s left,
Cruising the highway where vagabonds roam,
Hepa hepa it’s a handicapped zone.
*This is a place that keeps a young man down.
In little churches you rise to the clouds,
But who holds a smile on
The garden’s full of well-spent lives,
Marked and numbered in cold steel files.*
10 foot fences barbed and rigged,
Electrified keeping children in,
This tortured town keeps a young man down.
Streets filled with rubble and household scraps,
Burned-out tires scar what’s left,
How ‘bout that prize of diamond stone,
Hold that thought the best is worst to come.*
A taxi driver with a deformed face,
Broke my spirit when he spoke in rage,
This tortured town keeps a young man down.
Sucking my pillow and strangling sheets,
My room was filled with dancing teeth,
I was losing (the winning race),
It got so bad I had to wake.*
Eve of the Steel Blue Moon © R. Leschen 2010
A lonesome red sun burns in the darkenin’ light,
One or two stars form in the opposite sky,
Red-legged lizards dance slow on cool cactus sands,
When creosote fades coyotes assume their command.
Daybirds surrender to the rise of
the
A world awakens as night returns to the dunes,
Unearthed by the wind are stones withered and worn,
I read from your skin you’ve been stung by a near-fatal storm.
*Now sage and chuparosa begin to blossom and bloom,
A coyote’s last call confirmed by a steel-blue moon.
Half night half day the sun continues to fade,
Stars assemble like jewels in the Milky Way,
Ain’t it supreme to breath so simple and sweet,
No need to explain a world worn by deceit.*
Ain’t it supreme to breath so simple and sweet,
No need to explain a world worn by deceit,
When sage and chuparosa begin to blossom and bloom,
I’ll return once more to the eve of the steel-blue moon.
When sage and chuparosa begin to blossom and bloom,
I’ll return once more to the eve of the steel-blue moon.
Aye General © R. Leschen 2010
Wake my sweet Melinda turn your head up to the sky,
Our son spins in his cradle he needs you at his side,
When the bell strikes ten in the tower I’m off to the Grande Hotel,
Lucho the candlestick maker awakens the old General.
*Aye General, we come to you in need,
Aye General, your children must be free.
Retrieve
the guns from the graveyard prepare for the Big Farewell,
Chin-chin
and an ounce of sulfur, let’s blast those gates to hell,
Take for instance the chancellor who rules from a black Rolls Royce,
In exchange for the men he’s murdered I’ll give you his bloody corpse.*
Between the eyes of hatred benevolence lost its chance,
The wires connecting our bodies
loose strength snap and detach,
You and me and the neighbors are ragged from digging our graves,
The votes have all been counted you’re the light in the road ahead.*
Oh my sweet Melinda take care of our blue-eyed boy,
The General sees us forward once moved he can’t be destroyed,
Oh I love you sweet Melinda I’ll return to you intact,
I may be loaded and leaded with scars of war on my back.*
I broke in the road was born to young-worked meadows,
Pulled by the strings I was raised by dust-coated cowboys,
My arms like stairs I was hung in the balance of shadows,
That grew as I grew through cool winds that swept the prairies.
Often I come here to dream but my voice is too broken,
Did you kill did ya kill when really you really didn’t have to,
Any chance of cutting to the tongues of the pass by midnight?
Now stranger oh friend I am thumbs in the face of dragons.
*Without walls I wondered without borders we roam,
‘Cross the Borland Saddle just shy of the Auckland Plateau.
This ain’t my home I’m just flesh upon bone of some sort,
Of two-minded minstrel whose eyes were cut from tombstone,
I deliver to pressure a burden to most of us cowboys,
With all due
respect we all come to rest at
Like a moth on a
ledge we’re still in
Prose as we know has lost all meaning and measure,
I hope where we go our souls might mingle with rainbows.
I believe you know what words were sent from Otago,
By birds spun down to caves that brake the horizon,
Even clouds are bright when you see through thick ice and wasteland,
And the sun stroked the moon that rang a full tune of gladness.
Don’t worry its
fine we all run the line to
And the sun stroked the moon, don’t worry its fine,
And the sun stroked the moon,
Don’t worry its
fine we all run the line to
All Souls Day © R. Leschen 2010
In adobe towns and beaten streets people pray for simple needs,
Bands of Mariachis play their tightened suits reveal their age.
One account of
A bearded man from the border store for a hundred dollars he’ll open doors.
*Behind the Devils Barricade, once inside you’ve got it made,
Don’t forget a change of clothes, you’re going where the free trade blows.
Jose-Luis was a brother of five an honest man to every eye,
He married young and planted corn, but the bearded man offered more.
He said I tell you in strict confidence, pigeons peck in the pebble streets,
With little risk you’ll be out of the ditch, imagine yourself Jose-Luis.*
A ranger counts the men that cross, tequila tossed he can really talk,
Though I feel regret inside, I’ll drop a man dead or alive.
On a fair cool morning of April stirred1 an echo from a pistol heard,
Jose-Luis lost his life, when he tried to run from the Texas Knight.
God protects and watches all from cathedral towers he knows your thoughts,
But the Ranger wiping a pistol clean knows the man who sells you dreams.
Eagles rule from desert skies as Aztec legends testify,
For a million years it’s been the same, oh you let me know when there comes a change.
On All Souls Day we celebrate, and a widow remembers Jose-Luis,
Mourners gather ‘round a grave and a band of Mariachis play.
Mourners gather ‘round a grave and a band of Mariachis play.
1Modified from the opening sentence of John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Discontent (1961).
The Great Divide ©
R. Leschen 2010
Alone in the street your cheeks cracked and pink, I know you, I know you,
You played all the halls the king of it all, I know you, I know you.
*The trains and the trolleys the backstreets and alleys steal warmth and lead you astray,
Spare change is due but if you’re needing fuel, take the ship that leads you away [to the golden age].
Witness the end of the past my friend, remember when, remember when,
The glitter and dust who do you trust, look around, your old friend’s in town.*
The 8th of July, your eyes full and wide on the cusp of the great divide,
The rice in the heat fragrant and sweet, helping to keep us alive.
A dancer spins an electric wind, I know you, I know you,
You dosed my heart with neon sparks, we could never part, never part.*
The 8th of July, your eyes full and wide on the cusp of the great divide,
The rice in the heat fragrant and sweet, helping to keep us alive.
There’s less of me there’s more of you, what to do, what to do,
Outlast the dark, recast your heart, ignore doom, I’m leaving soon.*
New Sun Rising ©
R. Leschen 2010
The dawn choir calls the children off to school,
Assemblin’ words from the book of rules,
Mothers hang loose among yesterdays cane,
They fill their bags ‘fore the mid-day rain.
Fathers flex their legs at the drying shed,
Drop their tools then break for bread,
The master calls, “bring that wagon round,”
The sickle’s split and there’s millet to ground.
*There’s a new sun rising, and it’s quitting time.
The mice are dancin’ in the sacks of corn,
The dirty ole cat ignores the toot of the horn,
The doctor’s here he’s got word from home,
There’s a new sun rising and a baby’s born.
There’s a new sun rising in the western sky,
There’s a new sun rising, come clear your eyes,
There’s a new sun rising and it’s quitting time.
Pull the hemp and wrap the leaves up tight,
Grandfather’s slacking ya know he’s been up all night,
The mangoes ripe sink your teeth in deep,
One eye closes while the other’s asleep.*