Messes of Men Lyrics

"I do not exist,"
we faithfully insist
sailing in our separate ships,
and from each tiny caravel -
tiring of trying, there's a necessary dying
like the horseshoe crab in its proper season sheds its shell.
Such distance from our friends,
like a scratch across a lens,
made everything look wrong from anywhere we stood.
Our paper blew away before we'd left the bay,
so half-blind we wrote these songs on sheets of salty wood.

You caught me making eyes at the other boatmen's wives
and heard me laughing louder at the jokes told by their daughters.
I'd set my course for land,
but you well understand
it takes a steady hand to navigate adulturous waters
the propeller's spinning blades held acquaintance with the waves
as there's mistakes I've made no rowing could outrun.
The cloth low on the mast, I say "I've got no past"
but I'm nonetheless a librarian and secretary's son.
With tarnish on my bra*s and mildew on my gla*s
I'd never want someone so cra*s as to want someone like me
but a few leagues off the shore, I bit a flashing lure
and I a*sure you, it was not what I expected it to be!
I still taste its kiss, that dull hook in my lip
is a memory as useless as a rod without a reel
to an anchor-ever-dropped-seasick-yet-still-docked
captain spotted napping with his first mate at the wheel.
Floating forgetfully along, with no need to be strong
we keep our confessions long, and when we pray we keep it short.
I drank a thimble full of fire and I'm not ever coming back.

Oh, my God!

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist,
while watching sink the heavy ship of everything we knew.
If ever you come near I'll hold up high a mirror.
Lord, I could never show you anything as beautiful as you.

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