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Murmurations

by Scott Ezell

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1.
Coming Going Redux 05:31
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Coming Going Redux I came alone and I’ll go the same with no one to love you got no one to blame I’ve got two white stones instead of eyes you can climb through my window when the moon begins to rise I love your dog more than I like your wife I’ll give you a blade but I got to keep the knife in case the taxman come shooting down my door they don’t want much from you just your money then some more and more and more Go downtown lace up your fancy shoes you’re going to howl like a madman you’ve got to sing the blues give me one shot of whiskey pour it straight into my soul they aim 3 bullets at you and say you got the right to choose I’ve got flowers growing out of my heart I bought the seeds at a gas station minimart it’s advertised perfection, sanctification guaranteed I’ll give you some for Christmas with a sprig of jimson weed Nowhere to go I’ve got nowhere to stay you can’t you choose your poison or the game you play electric wires run through me instead of nerves all the colors of your life lift away like a flock of wild birds I love this woman no matter where she goes she rides the subway naked except for the paint on her toes she’s got a handlebar moustache between her navel and her knees I gave her my best sail boat now the wind takes her anywhere she please I rolled some tobacco and I smoked some spleef drank some wine trying to get some relief my roads were too long, my tongue was never long enough they killed every living tree then built a museum for an autumn leaf I came from there I’m going to here my home is far my heart is never near when you hear the train whistle you know it’s time to go falling is flying if you land someplace you’ve never known In the ambulance I heard the siren wail my ghosts were calling and my songs were frail I looked out the window to a cloudless sky my bones were rivers and my rivers all ran dry
2.
Unraveling Days 05:09
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Unraveling Days I want you to come to me I want you to come I want you to come to me…I want you… When I feel your skin I don’t know where I’ve been I don’t know why roads have been my home all these wild horse trails I want you to come to me I want you to come I want you to come to me… I want you… Lips of memory and pearl waves of salt and the moon move through you my throat is always full of greed and love I feel I might crack like an old machine seized with dried up oil and rust dust blows through me words fall from me words fall from me, like leaves flow away…flow away leaves in a stream…flow away I’ve been traveling all my days unraveling all my days eating gravel all my days swinging a gavel all my days I’ve shattered all these days…all these days Now we’re tangled together all our days rain patterns all our days homesick salmon all our days panhandling the days picking coins from fountain spray spare change and malt liquor on San Francisco quays mesmerized by manta rays till my eyes begin to glaze and my heart thumps out of phase pitch curveballs to Willie Mays throw out donuts eat the glaze trace my heartbeats through a maze fly paper airplanes through engine haze bathe my mind with photon rays act out a lifetime of one-man plays eat TV dinners without the trays drop the baton forfeit relays let my hound lie where he lays beg the po-leece not to taze tell skyscrapers they’ll be razed by jealous sidewalks who demand a raise ride a donkey till it brays eat fishbones discard fillets hit on eighteen to chance a trey win in hopscotch against a priest who prays ring churchbells in the mouth of May jump unguarded into the fray keep on roaming…or learn to stay with you
3.
Indefatigable Hearts 04:01
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Indefatigable Hearts roads we wander become our home autumn leaves become our dreams love's a game that no one wins why can't we just be friends along the way what's the how of who where why distances corrode, collide all the fences we've contrived I stumble on my ragged rhymes the stairway's broken, climb and slide just pass me that jug of ol’ rotgut wine anger glumps like old oatmeal let's throw down our rusty swords and shields before this love congeals on my diamond lies I kneel just to tell you how I feel but I can't promise you it's real naked in a bath of you brilliant beams and bubbles blue biochemical hormone glue friction's co-efficient, mu and blank hair follicles accrue but all this is nothing new (to anyone but me and you) now you're busy so am I with three-martini lunch fish fries I still want to quiver between your thighs I'd travel long roads in disguise to the place my virility dies but lately I surmise that's not far from where we are on a boat that floats a moat hairs in our teeth beneath a heath love's a game of broken bones, dusty tomes, evil gnomes, rabies foam, diaspora homes, sticks and stones, stupid poems, and— unenlightenable heart zen koans, indefatigable hearts that roam Don Quixotic labyrinthine windmill catacombs indefatigable hearts just roam like a nasal rolling folksong stone, our indefatigable hearts just roam
4.
Oudomxay 03:52
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Oudomxay Sometimes you can’t go back home the world changes with every door your heart passes through Sometimes you can’t say what you know you try to speak, your teeth fall to the floor meanings break apart Someday you might lose your paper throne the ink and words that build your walls might burn and blur Someday you might remember me someday you might reach to me I’ll give you all my mind, all my bones, all my hair all my gasoline I’ll give you all my window dreams you can look through them to me Someday they’re going to draw lines across your skin to tell you where your body ends and theirs begins they’ll try to mine you, mine you, mine you peel back your skin and dig excavate your streams and stones twist your lips into a grin You have your better days when you fly but when the rain comes you’re going to flow flow all the way to heaven or the deep blue sea someday you might flow to me, flow to me flow on back to me
5.
Fragments of an Ancient Dream 05:00
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Fragments of an Ancient Dream You can’t find me now I’m on the run all my rainclouds follow me You can’t hold me now my heart is a hollow stone my words are ghosts in an empty room I was an engine bathed in marmalade I held you like the spoon of a hand grenade but you only loved me for my guitar and my tongue I couldn’t strip my skin away I lost my sanity for a day petroleum jelly joined me and you to the singing earth and continents are fragments of an ancient dream all my continents have fissured like a dream Now I’m on the road with a heart tattoo in binary code my rucksack full of empty pages and empty poems Hitchhiking south into mystery migration trails of rhapsody arctic terns and starlings on sky trails high above and the continent lies before me like a dream sometimes things are exactly what they seem So fall into the liminal world ghoulash of dust and bones unfurled paprika sprinkled on the slipstream of love and pain We’re all dressed up on the installment plan spinning through space like an old tin can riding shotgun with the repo man revving engines in rastafari vans crawling from oceans up onto land blue fermentation of regeneration and decay and you passed through me like a dream I sometimes wonder, were things ever what they seemed our days together still enfold me like a dream all our continents reunited in a dream
6.
Words like Wild Horses 04:42
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Words like Wild Horses Well you know, I don’t want you to go I want you to stay…I want you to stay You came to me like a flower on a tree but when the rain came all my blossoms fell from me no pollination could touch your love to me I know my heartstrings sing too slow you whispered to me but I was made of stone I need cool water to carve love into me flowing water to carve you into me I feel like bones are breaking in my heart I want your love to heal and enfold me I want your breath like ocean waves to cover me I want your skin like a desert to welcome me My guitar always plays the same old song I wrote it for you but forgot to sing out loud now every heartbeat tells me all I’ve done wrong reverberations of all I’ve done wrong You know I never wanted you to go but my words were wild horses and ran away from me I feel empty because I could not say I want you to come to me and stay
7.
Down to the River 05:26
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Down to the River You’ve come so far but you never looked around to see just where you are you wear your diamond ring just like it’s any other bright shiny gaudy thing You tear off your clothes all your ribbons and your bows you lift up your dress for a dream of happiness and you’ll go down to the river tonight I was a drunken matador a thousand traffic jams came dancing all around me I swung my cape and clicked my goldplated heels as skyscrapers crowded in all around me I ate the skeleton all the bones of the sun I peeled off my skin to end and begin I went down to the river to find my way You say you swallowed the ten thousand things but you only got 9,999 you got everything but one somehow you missed the one real reason to sing you read big books and kissed the bars of your cage you drank down wine and love and sex and rage You tore off your clothes dead petals from a rose you kicked off your shoes with no colors left to lose then you stepped down to the river to ride away from here I tried to love you but I never even knew how to say hello still I’m trying to find you some day you’re going to have to find your way home you’ll find yourself all alone trying to find your way home you’ll see you’ve torn your dress and your face is a mess you’ll be all alone trying to find your way home face is a mess you’ve torn your dress but how could they know you’ve torn your dress your face is a mess you’re all alone trying to find your way home and how could they know you smashed all the chairs set fire to your hair you fell down the stairs and nobody cares but how could they know you tore off your dress for a dream of happiness
8.
November Rain 05:05
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November Rain When your days are broken, you just wander empty streets of love, shadows fall across the earth I’ve put on some coffee, to share with you beneath the trees gray leaves glisten in the rain When the dust asks about you, I look out to gray November rain falling in the garden washing your bare footprints away washing my heart towards the sea washing the blue from the sky I chopped down a tree, just to see my leaves and branches bleed I dream of the desert I dream empty days I dream empty skies I dream desiccation rhymes my love for you grows cactus thorns Today I’m hungover, from too many glances in the mirror I drink myself down no no no water no ice go to hell and take all your goddamned good advice leave me alone I’m feeling fine My guitar says I love you, but I am more likely to say fuck off my words are hunger my words are rusty dull-edged blades my words are mute shovelfuls of clay rocks thru a window on a pretty pretty day shoeshine infatuation feet that stray thru cracked concrete gardens in the merry merry month of May but no one’s listening either way The rain is falling, and I don’t think it’s going to stop I put on my raincoat ride the motorbike thru the gray across the mountains someplace far away where no one’s heard all the useless words I say where the sun shines hot and hard every day where I can use emotional diamonds to pay for all the masturbatory games I play where I can bury my heart and make it stay where Ferlenghetti’s dogs to go get laid where castrated donkeys bray and bray where high priests of solitude pray and pray where I can shake my fist at the sky and bray tear off my clothes and skin and bray where I can bray and bray and bray and bray work a lifetime without pay and bray and bray and bray and bray and bray and bray
9.
Your Ghosts Won't Haunt Me Now 04:05
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Your Ghosts Won't Haunt Me Now Your ghosts won’t haunt me now earth fills my bones waves rise in my lungs subside back to the sea I wore a skin of salt you washed me like rain violence fills my eyes and you’ve flown to the sun My hands are dust and seeds starlings carry me away bluebirds fall from the sky your ghosts don’t haunt me now
10.
Eternity too Soon (“Swing and Turn Jubilee” Reprise) 07:01
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Eternity too Soon swing a meathook swing some bread swing your lifetime till you’re dead swing your tongue swing your sex howl like a tyrannosaurus rex colonize a fishbowl colonize a cage swing on a strand of hope through our cities of atomic rage swing your golf and tennis clubs armchair violence married to opiate love swing your freeway engine speed swing your love and death and sex and lust and need and seeds swing your satin swing your lace carve new stars and eyes into your face swing your lover by her thighs sink and drown in her until she sighs swing your tongue into your love lick and drink from her treasure trove fuck running through life like it’s a steeplechase fuck all the prison bars holding you in place fuck your mortgage fuck your car fuck the imperatives of perpetual war swing with joy and swing with dread why not swing with joy as long as you’re not dead you’ll be dust and ashes soon why not swing your heart like a feather to touch the sky the earth the sea the moon the song of a loon a pretty girl’s pantaloons a dirty cartoon a cockstroke too soon a full spittoon William Faulkner’s favorite octoroon a rose with all it’s thorns in bloom a weeping groom a sweeping broom all of our incipient doom an ex-lover’s womb and a broken loom and a bomb-blast boom, and a bombast bloom… I want to meet you in an empty room I just want to see you in an empty crater of the moon but eternity always comes too soon come to me baby we hold the ocean between us in a spoon the ocean swings between us in a spoon my breath for your breath and we’ll hold them between us in a blue balloon eternity always comes too soon let my heart beat next to your heart while the cherry blossoms are still in bloom eternity always comes too soon let my heart beat next to your heart while we’re both still in bloom eternity always comes too soon let my heart beat next to your heart I want my heart to beat next to your heart while we’re both still in bloom * This song is based on a traditional folk song, Swing and Turn, Jubilee: It's all out on the old railroad, It's all out on the sea, All out on the old railroad, Far as I can see. Swing and turn, Jubilee, Live and learn, Jubilee. Hardest work I ever done, Workin' on the farm, Easiest work I ever done, Swingin' my true love's arm. Swing and turn, Jubilee, Live and learn, Jubilee. If I had a needle and thread, As fine as I could sew, I'd sew my true love to my side And down this creek I'd go. Swing and turn, Jubilee, Live and learn, Jubilee. If I had no horese to ride, I'd be found a-crawlin' Up and down this rocky road Lookin' for my darlin'. Some will come on a Sat'day night, Some will come on Sunday; If you give 'em half a chance They'll be back on Monday. Swing and turn, Jubilee, Live and learn, Jubilee. I won't have no widder man Neither will my cousin, You can get such stuff as that For fifteen cents a dozen. Swing and turn, Jubilee, Live and learn, Jubilee. Coffee grows on a white oak tree, Sugar runs in brandy, Girls are sweet as a lump of gold, Boys as sweet as candy. Swing and turn, Jubilee, Live and learn, Jubilee.

about

Murmuration (noun):
1. the act of murmuring
2. a flock of starlings

This collection began with “Coming Going Redux,” written on the hoof in southwest China in early 2016. “Oudomxay” was plunked out on a purple guitar on a guesthouse balcony in the town in Oudomxay, Laos. The other songs followed during the half-year after that, with the exception of “Indefatigable Hearts” and “November Rain,” which are call-ups from previous songwriting incarnations. As a cycle written during (bellyflop) reentry into the United States, these songs document a process of refamiliarization, and the shifting balance between estrangement and belonging that comes from the vagaries of the road, far margins and borders, and the rooted intimacy of “home,” wherever that may be.

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released March 20, 2017

Written, recorded, produced by Scott Ezell.

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Scott Ezell

Scott Ezell is a Pacific Rim writer and multi-genre artist with a background in Asia, border zones, and indigenous peoples. His music spans folk, ambient, and experimental styles.

www.scottezell.com

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