I won't go to heaven only out of fear for hell
Isn't that an easy sell?
I've got better things to do than be afraid

Like trying to forget the Fundamental things I learned
Like how to sleep with fear
To know the devil's always near
That he'd jump into me when I least expected
That he'd steal my soul just to be respected
And I could go on about the antichrist,
But I figure it'll be addressed in the afterlife

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

The elements strike harder here, I do not heed their sting
I host the highest heavens, fight the lowest beasts
Time does not exist
I've got all of it to spare,
But I've got none to give to you,
I've got no way to share

The pious come to see me
They remark about my beard
I almost hear them singing, I almost see them stare
I think they think I see them
I think they think I'm glad they came
But I did not ask for their leisure
I have a higher goal than fame

I have come here to complete in me
What was lacking still there in my suffering
I have come here to escape,
And, in escaping, understand
I have come here for the quiet solitude affords

I think they think I see them
I think they think I'm glad they came
But I did not ask for their leisure
I have a higher goal than fame
I have come here for the quiet that solitude affords
And any other of concerns, I have chosen to ignore

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

I won't pretend that I saw it coming,
But foresight doesn't ease the pronouncement
I can only guess how you are feeling
If nothing less, less confident

So, here it is, your separation, and I've got nothing but to cry
Here it is, your separation, I better learn to say goodbye

Isn't it just like the thing to change you?
To make you send a pitiless attack
These 30 years, no match to anger
You didn't even try to have me back

Well, I won't pretend that I don't blame you,
But blaming doesn't ease the aftermath
I can't even guess what you are thinking
Or why it fell so easy and so fast

So, here it is, our separation, and I've got nothing but to cry
Here it is, our separation, I better learn to say goodbye

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

But still moved west,
With a baby in the belly of our youngest
West, with a fire in the belly of our oldest
West, a better life is coming soon
We moved west

So, brother, I'll see you at fireside,
Where we'll pretend a better life:
Eleanor will have us over for a White House meal
No, I can't spare a dime
I'm just as poor as you,
Poorer if you count all I lost you never had to lose

It's not a village
We don't live here
There are no children anymore who ain't been raised
They're ancient beggars with no fear,
Lining streets like pockets lined with cash
Praying hard to God that that bread will last

Here in the west, with a hunger in the belly of every liar
West, with cotton picking gone like paper fliers
West, a better life is coming soon
We love the west

Painters paint murals to happier times
Young men ride the rails to happier lives,
Digging ditches in the desert,
Laying line that leads to never
Living paycheck to the next meal,
As they work out Franklin's New Deal,
But you can't trick the spirit
Being useless, we all fear it
And you can't convince that useless tasks don't make the worker worth his work
Oh no

© 2007 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

And when the morning comes, nightwatchmen climb from towers,
They watch your husbands sneak home in the early hours,
Back to the wives they left when you called them in the square
They turn their backs and run only to leave you there

Oh, forgotten harlot, does it make you want to sin no more?
Oh, forgotten harlot, does it make you feel like a whore?
But when your harlot's wages keep rolling in,
Does it make you want to begin again?
Just a harlot, still a harlot, till she becomes somebody's bride

Do you profane your father on every threshing ground?
Are you a constant hunter, your feet knowing no house?
Does your face stay veiled, your forehead show no shame?
Are you an act of folly for many men to blame?
And when before a king, a sword is drawn for justice
To dispense whores' sons, one lost, one stole for fairness
Do you claim an even share that then betrays your lie?
Shout, "Neither mine nor hers! But let monarchs divide!"

Oh, forgotten harlot, does it make you want to sin no more?
Oh, forgotten harlot, does it make you feel like a whore?
But when your harlot's wages keep rolling in,
Does it make you want to begin again?
Just a harlot, still a harlot, till she becomes somebody's bride

So take up, take up and play with skill
Take up and roam that city still
Take up, take up and sing your song to be remembered after long

© 2008 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

And here you are With all your life supports
I hope you hear me reading you to sleep
No first steps, but there were first breaths
And we were just as proud of them
That's why the best thing we'll ever do
Was our decision to keep you

So, where were we again?
He was on the move
He'd just returned
He had come to scare the winter with his wail
There was a proper place
And an ancient way
And when the winter breaks, we'll have you back again

Now here you are
Freed from your life supports
I hope you hear me reading you to sleep
No first steps, but there were first breaths
And we were just as proud of them
That's why the best thing we'll ever do
Was our decision to keep you

Still no first steps, but there were first breaths
And we held you till goodbye
That's why the best thing we'll ever do
Was our decision to keep you

© 2010 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

When you die, if I am still alive, I will be sad beyond compare

If you die out in the cold, all frozen in the sleet,
I will have to travel to a land of summer heat
I'll sell all of your things, but I will keep a few for me
Just enough and not enough to forget,
And to remember you

When you die, if I am still alive, I will be sad beyond compare

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

I'm only bold in my assertions I'm never bold in my behavior

I'm paralyzed by loiter,
When all we ever hear, it seems, are rumors of our war
We're sitting safe in service,
Reciting tidings of who's felled by whatever evil sword

I'm only bold in my assertions
I'm never bold in my behavior,
And clever as I want to be,
I could do with being braver

There's a longing to reconcile to rightness
There's a brazen sort of truth about this war
But there's hope in the Victor and an end,
Simple and final that everyone is fighting for

Everyone but me, I'm a reluctant soldier
Everyone but me, I'm a reluctant soldier who could do with being braver

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

But how can I give you up, oh Ephraim?
How can I surrender you, oh Israel?
Though you've taken hired lovers,
Traded your altars for thorns,
How can I give you up, oh Ephraim?

As a mother, I have reason
As a bride, I have a case
You have joined yourself with others to the reaches of my shame
The affection you have for me is the dew's affection for the ground
A fall at night
And then you leave me early

But how can I give you up, oh Ephraim?
How can I surrender you, oh Israel?
Though you've taken hired lovers,
Traded your altars for thorns,
How can I give you up, oh Ephraim?

Bring words with you and return

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

So you keep sleeping from sorrow
If you can sleep at all
Does it help to borrow
All the memories we hold?
Learning to smile again,
Things you never knew were learned
It's never for the better anyway

I should start thinking more about how we live
But whenever I think about life
How it's metered out and ruled by exception
Strange for everyone and fleeting
I can't help thinking how it ends

How you keep sleeping from sorrow
If you can sleep at all
Does it help to borrow
All the memories we hold?
Learning to smile again,
Things you never knew were learned
It's never for the better anyway

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

That you've got recovery on your mind
You've been recovering all this time

I know how you did everything all wrong
I could recite it like a song
So I've been recovering ever since
Hoping that you would not notice

But when I recover I want it gone Don't want a reason to hang on

I'll have a daughter of my own
I never want her to have to know
How to recover and never to heal
But to be free and free for real

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

What if I have only come to set things right
To love the whore
To settle every score without a fight
To straighten limbs
Uncover eyes
To fix your mind
To fill your belly full for every night

There is pain enough for us

There will be peace enough in a valley for us
There will be peace in the valley for me one day
There will be peace in the valley for me, I pray
There'll be no sadness, no sorrow, no trouble I see
There will be peace in the valley for me

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

From all reforms and all regimes exists a set of vast extremes,
A reactionary system of dichotomy
The premiere action long forgot, we're given only to react,
And, in reacting, we all win with something nobody believes,
But we go on acting in our disbelief

If God is love, he's also war,
And though he heals, sometimes he kills,
And he is fierce and angry but strong,
And he makes justice out of wrong

But he is not God if only love,
He is not God if only war,
He is not God the way we've purposed him to be

Who could not hate a god of hate?
Could not abuse a god of love?
Could not refuse a god who's any less than what he said, he says he is?

It is a fearful thing to wind up in the hands of an angry God,
But it is fearful all the same
Not to be caught in the hands of one
Who loves and loves and loves and loves
Who loves because he's love,
But tempers love with righteousness because that's who he said he is

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

It must be the snow
It started falling today
Must be the sound of the freeze as it seizes the leaves
The sound of you leaving me

It looked like you were standing
Like you were landing across the street
But I didn't hear an echo of a hurried pair of feet
So I keep waiting for nobody to come in

It must be the snow
It started falling today
Must be the look of the breeze as it seizes the leaves
The look of you leaving me

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

On somber October mornings
Making way for snowy warnings
When the well dressed look the same as the huddled, coated rest
As they hurry indoors

Getting warm
Matters more than independence now
Getting warm
Making heat however we know how

Neighbors act like neighbors
And drivers act like friends
Schoolboys will salt and shovel sidewalks
And night never gets dark for all the Christmas lights

© 2009 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

But it's nice to hear you laughing
It's nice to see your face
It's nice to be around you
Daniel, it's nice to have a place

You've been gone the weekend
I try to keep busy
But the things that occupy
They only work when you're with me

So it's nice to hear you laughing
It's nice to see your face
It's nice to be around you
Daniel, it's nice to have a place

One day, it seemed I woke up and love had become a choice
I see now that that meant freedom to choose
and I choose to

© 2010 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

I just realized how lonely you might be

So they sent you away
You left yesterday
And we were glad to be
Free of you, I guess

I am sorry for how lonely you might be

I meant to get a card
But I didn't really try
I mean to say something kind
But I let it pass me by
I wrote a lot of things to say to you
I never end up following through

Oh, how lonely you might be

© 2010 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

Set the captives on a right road
Lead them safely to a home
And to those who would turn them away, settle harshly
Do not delay

If only for the night, let injustice cease
If only for the night, bring these people peace

Send the horse and rider to sea
Cover under with the waves
But let defectors pass right over
Find them a way

If only for the night, let injustice cease
If only for the night, bring your peace

© 2010 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved

But now, none of that matters to me
I've made a place on the land, and I don't want to leave
I've forgotten how to long for the sea

When I was a sailor, I could wait for hours for a wave to roll
Fending off monsters
In between the haul-ins, each unforeseen foe
Ghosts of the water and ghosts from my past
Casting out a way to make that freedom last

But now, none of that matters to me
I've made a place on the land, and I don't want to leave
I've forgotten how to long for the sea

Something happened on that last ship to shore
I can't get up from where I'm rooted anymore
So when you call, I won't answer
If you knock, I won't receive
I've forgotten how to long for the sea

© 2011 the Bell & the Hammer / All Rights Reserved