In Christ Alone

by Stuart Townend

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones he came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground his body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as he stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am his and he is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from his hand;
Till he returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

Halloween Parade

by Lou Reed

There's a downtown fairy singing out 'Proud Mary'
As she cruises Christopher Street
And some Southern queen is acting loud and mean
Where the docks and the Badlands meet

This Halloween is something to be sure
Especially to be here without you

There's a Greta Garbo and an Alfred Hitchcock
And some black Jamaican stud
There's five Cinderellas and some leather drags
I almost fell into my mug

There's a Crawford, Davis, and a tacky Cary Grant
And some homeboys looking for trouble down here from the Bronx

But there ain't no Hairy and no Virgin Mary
You won't hear those voices again
And Johnny Rio and Rotten Rita
You'll never see those faces again

This Halloween is something to be sure
Especially to be here without you

There's the Born-Again Losers and the Lavender Boozers
And some crack team from Washington Heights
The boys from Avenue B, the girls from Avenue D
And Tinkerbell in tights

This celebration somehow gets me down
Especially when I see you're not around

There's no Peter Pedantic saying things romantic
In Latin, Greek, or Spic
There's no three bananas or Brandy Alexander
Dishing all their tricks

It's a different feeling that I have today
Especially when I know you've gone away

There's a girl from Soho with a t-shirt saying, 'I Blow'
She's with the 'Jive Five Two Plus Three'
And the girls for pay dates are giving cut rates
Or else doing it for free

The past keeps knock, knock, knocking on my door
And I don't want to hear it anymore

No consolations, please, for feeling funky
I got to get my head above my knees
But it makes me mad, and mad makes me sad
And then I start to freeze

In the back of my mind I was afraid it might be true
In the back of my mind I was afraid that they meant you

The Halloween parade
At the Halloween parade
At the Halloween parade
See you next year at the Halloween parade

The Dry Salvages (Pt. II)

[Pt. I here]
by T.S. Eliot

Where is there an end of it, the soundless wailing,
The silent withering of autumn flowers
Dropping their petals and remaining motionless;
Where is there an end to the drifting wreckage,
The prayer of the bone on the beach, the unprayable
Prayer at the calamitous annunciation?

There is no end, but addition: the trailing
Consequence of further days and hours,
While emotion takes to itself the emotionless
Years of living among the breakage
Of what was believed in as the most reliable—
And therefore the fittest for renunciation.

There is the final addition, the failing
Pride or resentment at failing powers,
The unattached devotion which might pass for devotionless,
In a drifting boat with a slow leakage,
The silent listening to the undeniable
Clamour of the bell of the last annunciation.

Where is the end of them, the fishermen sailing
Into the wind's tail, where the fog cowers?
We cannot think of a time that is oceanless
Or of an ocean not littered with wastage
Or of a future that is not liable
Like the past, to have no destination.

We have to think of them as forever bailing,
Setting and hauling, while the North East lowers
Over shallow banks unchanging and erosionless
Or drawing their money, drying sails at dockage;
Not as making a trip that will be unpayable
For a haul that will not bear examination.

There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing,
No end to the withering of withered flowers,
To the movement of pain that is painless and motionless,
To the drift of the sea and the drifting wreckage,
The bone's prayer to Death its God. Only the hardly, barely prayable
Prayer of the one Annunciation.

It seems, as one becomes older,
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence—
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy
Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution,
Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.
The moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfilment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination—
We had the experience but missed the meaning,
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form, beyond any meaning
We can assign to happiness. I have said before
That the past experience revived in the meaning
Is not the experience of one life only
But of many generations—not forgetting
Something that is probably quite ineffable:
The backward look behind the assurance
Of recorded history, the backward half-look
Over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror.
Now, we come to discover that the moments of agony
(Whether, or not, due to misunderstanding,
Having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things,
Is not in question) are likewise permanent
With such permanence as time has. We appreciate this better
In the agony of others, nearly experienced,
Involving ourselves, than in our own.
For our own past is covered by the currents of action,
But the torment of others remains an experience
Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition.
People change, and smile: but the agony abides.
Time the destroyer is time the preserver,
Like the river with its cargo of dead negroes, cows and chicken coops,
The bitter apple, and the bite in the apple.
And the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.

[Pt. III here]

Key/Hole

by Lee Ranaldo

I'm thinking about the first line that I wrote you
Way back when
You always said I was the last
In your long line of friends
But peeking through a keyhole
There's only so much to take in
Things get so uneven
Like they do in the end

Deny me any indication
Define me any way you can
That's when I call you over

See a little a darkness
Mixed in with the light
I know your kisses herald
A night of sweet delights

Let's make the best of a bad situation
Try to define love any way we can
That's when I call you over

You're bright like a shadow
And dark like a sunny day
You shuffled all the pages
Until the words decayed
I'm a traveler in the hard, hard rain
And you, my dear, are quite insane

I'm in the middle of the river
Scattered ropes and jewels forever

I'm back out on the town now
Back out on your street
I feel a little strange about it
But you know what I need
So take this as a last line
Take this as the end
Scattered fruit and chatter
And youthful malcontents

Let's take our eyes out
And then complete the conversation
Devise a way out of our grandest plans
That's when I call you over

A Late Walk

by Robert Frost

When I go up through the mowing field,
    The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
    Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,
    The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
    Is sadder than any words.

A tree beside the wall stands bare,
    But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
    Comes softly rattling down.

I end not far from my going forth
    By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
    To carry again to you.

Elephant

by Jason Isbell

She said, 'Andy, you're better than your past'
Winked at me and drained her glass
Cross-legged on a barstool like nobody sits anymore
She said, 'Andy, you're taking me home'
But I knew she planned to sleep alone
I'd carry her to bed, sweep up the hair from her floor

If I'd f—ked her before she got sick
I'd never hear the end of it
She don't have the spirit for that now
We just drink our drinks and laugh out loud
And bitch about the weekend crowd
And try to ignore the elephant somehow

She said, 'Andy, you crack me up'
Seagram's in a coffee cup
Sharecropper eyes, and her hair almost all gone
When she was drunk, she made cancer jokes
Made up her own doctors' notes
Surrounded by her family, I saw that she was dying alone

I'd sing her classic country songs
And she'd get high and sing along
She don't have much voice to sing with now
We burn these joints in effigy
And cry about what we used to be
And try to ignore the elephant somehow

I've buried her a thousand times
Given up my place in line
But I don't give a damn about that now
There's one thing that's real clear to me
No one dies with dignity
We just try to ignore the elephant somehow

My Town

by Michael Stanley

This old town's been home long as I remember
This town's going to be here long after I'm gone
East side, West side, give up, or surrender
Been down, but I still rock on

And this town is my town
Alright?
Love or hate it, it don't matter
'Cause I'm going to stand and fight
This town is my town
She's got her ups and downs
But love or hate it, it don't matter
'Cause this is my town

This old town is where I learned about loving
this old town is where I learned to hate
This town has done its share of shoving
This town taught me that it's never too late