1. |
Deep Cuts
02:28
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Let’s begin at the end
of a bad year with bad things at my back.
A tragic truth I’ve been slow in learning
is there are certain breathes you simply can’t retract:
Every deep cut, every backbeat every sound I send into the street’s still living.
On display, ricocheting off of walls and drop ceilings.
Songs I spend on her never stop repeating.
But so it goes; these blunt punches sting.
But they’re just glancing blows searching for the heart of a thing.
A snapshot’s all I can provide
of a wet beach a dry beach not shifting of the tide.
Every deep cut every back beat every sound I send into the street’s still living.
On display ricocheting off of walls and drop ceilings.
Songs I spend on her never stop revealing.
Songs I spend on her never stop repeating.
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2. |
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I'll need some convincing before I sleep
with a new heart where you once thumped next to me.
Hey you, “absence!” You're just my type.
You feel cooler on warmer nights, alright
There's always a fallout, a sometimes subtle shift
of light pouring through an orange sky. The same general objects a tiny bit different.
Your anchor’s a loose end--
boat untethered with a dull knife in your hand.
And even an evergreen can get sick you see.
And Indian kerosene
Still needs a spark to light up a scene.
And antiquity
is filled with little stones like you and me,
cracked and burdened with meaning
like the rock of Calvary.
I hear a whisper right behind my wall
in my tone of voice, inflection, and word choice, damn near identical.
Saying “beg for her back.”
It’s one of two: a genius a cynic; a short money move or the most prescient act, yeah.
So look out to the garden--there's a good deal of unrest
with marigolds repelling scores of invasive insects towards bats and a quick death.
So why look so surprised?
I'm an afid, and you're a carrot fly.
And even an evergreen can get sick you see.
And Indian kerosene
Still needs a spark to light up a scene.
And antiquity
is filled with little stones like you and me,
cracked and burdened with meaning
like the rock of Calvary.
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3. |
Cash on the Barrel
04:25
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How much wind rushing
can make your heart burn,
make the ashes swirl?
And no discussion
can spark a cold coal.
You can still smell the smoke
when you wake with it clinging to your clothes.
It’d be a bad mistake not to tell her that you love her though.
But you are not a savior--
you’re a long awaited male heir
You’re clear blue water rushing through my hair.
Cash on the barrel:
I can’t offer much that will make you blush.
But shake them out, when they’re unfurled
in bare light of day a moonlight paper crane
with some work you don’t deserve or not deserve kid
will show you quote-unquote just to prove your intuition.
That you are not a savior:
you’re a breath-takingly comfortable pew.
And all I’ll genuflect to is me and you.
But what is more infatuating than infatuation?
And what beauty is ever revealed without a revelation?
So love move like a glacier slowly.
If you can carve up a mountain please show me.
You are not a savior:
you’re a mansion
seemingly built by me for me in some past life.
(you are not a savior)
With shifting amenities,
a crackshot caretaking team,
where you can have whatever you like.
(You are not a savior)
You can have whatever you like.
A 1st mate in the captains seat.
(you are not a savior)
The dead alive and apple cheeked.
(you are not a savior)
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4. |
Prison Boxing
04:27
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A dispatch from the icy mist to rosy cheeks that I once kissed:
you'll see me go.
My heads already out the door, thinking a month out, maybe more.
And feet will follow,
somewhere a violin bows, and a rock erodes, oh oh.
The prison boxing got to me, the toughest fights you've rarely see
beyond the bars.
Ignore the fists in gloves, the cruiser-weights with eyes swelled shut
and look at them.
No one wins.
Until a room of friends say, “How are you? It’s been too many years.”
And I say, with purity and candor, “I’ve missed you.”
So bring young poppies home to us, forget the roses buttercup.
There’ll be no need.
We’ll plant ‘em row by row, a promise in the ground below
that there will be more.
So swing wide the doors, the not yet buried that I'm ready for.
I won’t press you in a book a flat brown shell of what you were.
I'd never need another look.
Cuz I'm not proud I'm not ashamed I'm not at risk of forgetting your name.
You are an ending
I've found some peace in.
A room of friends say, “How are you? It’s been too many years.”
And I say, with purity and candor, “I’ve missed you.”
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5. |
My Heart Is Calling
02:47
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And if you’re moving to the east,
if you’re moving to the west coast darling
all that I ask is baby please,
you let me know the area code where you’re calling from.
(My heart, My heart is calling)
My heart, my heart is following
(My heart, My heart is calling)
My heart, my heart is following
I wanna be your Lenonard Cohen
and use your Christian name in songs, my darling.
I can’t, but the point is your knowing.
And if I push you to a guess I bet it won’t take long
(My heart, My heart is calling)
My heart, my heart is following
(My heart, My heart is calling)
My heart, my heart is following
Just rumble strips and center lines.
No barricade of steel to stop you darling.
So If I ever cross your mind
don’t think, just put your blinker on.
(My heart, My heart is calling)
My heart, my heart is following
(My heart, My heart is calling)
My heart, my heart is following
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6. |
Things You Need to Know
05:57
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These are the things you need to know
before you go, before you go, before you go.
Number one, the first, the first:
is you're my girl, you're my girl, you're my girl
You bookend my waking thoughts.
Sometimes in the best of ways and sometimes not .
No wedding ring tucked in my palm
but I'd be lying to you clean claiming that word's never an option.
These are the things you need to know
before you go, before you go, before you go.
Number one, the first, the first:
is you're my girl, you're my girl, you're my girl
I've been searching ad agency vaults
for a pitch, for a good sell, for an angle.
I could walk back when I said "it's both our faults."
But if honesty's our problem, to be honest, I feel anger.
These are the things you need to know
before you go, before you go, before you go.
Number one, the first, the first:
is you're my girl, you're my girl, you're my girl
I'm not so young, don't even ask
to think that you compose the bulk of what I am.
But if you're only my urethra, one kneecap,
those would still be bad things not to have.
These are the things you need to know
before you go, before you go, before you go.
Number one, the first, the first:
is you're my girl, you're my girl, you're my girl
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7. |
Fog on the Glass
04:09
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One rare morning I awake
and in some not small part of me I’m shook by a feeling of grace.
A feeling of grace.
Rain may patter, the wind may hiss.
But it's not so much forgetting,
relics that clung to me loose their grip.
They loose their grip.
And we're all composed of some old beliefs.
You can't make little cuts, until you feel clean
of your memories.
And if you ever feel
when you're looking back
it would make you sick
to get past the past just breath quick
and cough ‘til you fog up the glass.
You can smooth the wood,
sand down the burl,
but to a certain extent our history is irrevocable.
Irrevocable.
After all this hand-wringing
there's still shifts in my breast.
My old body, new body, a cognate misleading at best.
And if you ever feel
when you're looking back
it would make you sick
to get past the past just breath quick
until you fog up the glass.
‘Til you fog up the glass.
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8. |
Don't Lose That Feeling
05:57
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I had a dream last night.
Everything that happened had happened.
The air cracked in my throat.
A dry highway through stubble fields
All the businesses were torn down,
flat lots on the left and right.
I wasn’t tired or hungry.
I felt almost home
And you came by driving
in a brand new blue car.
Stopped at what was a gas station,
maybe a restaurant ,
and came running,
filled with joy at me being there.
And we didn’t kiss
(everything that happened had happened)
but we embrace, in a way I imagine
we will someday,
melting what years have hardened.
We walk to my house where I lived for a summer
but repainted and inside filled with beautiful inlaid woodwork.
A room with a piano--you scratch out a song
on the violin which I believe your sister plays.
I start thumping along.
It feels like a hymn to one another.
Modal and loping but it doesn’t seem too tough.
A little intuition and it sounds good to us
After we finish there was a silence
and we looked at each other with a version of trust.
Everything that happened had happened,
there was no promise,
no future, no insight, and no guarantee.
But I felt some love, I felt love inside of me
I got the spirit, so don’t lose that feeling…
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9. |
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You left me here with ghosts,
the only holy things I know.
Some untraceable line of feeling,
an apparition apparently appealing.
“Be gone now!” I decree.
It’s shocking they’re obeying me.
I know only a child believes in ghosts
but I’m the oldest kid I know.
There’s no doubt
it’s time to make some new plans.
So reach out
and touch someone’s hand.
A tangled mind retires
and truth comes raging through the briar.
And I finally view with some clarity
the unseemly thing that’s been killing me.
I tend to underplay
I wasn’t happy anyway.
Just think I’d never been a bigger liar
than when you were lying next to me.
There’s no doubt
it’s time to make some new plans.
So reach out
and touch someone’s hand.
Someone’s hands
are on my back and I can
feel more love than I can stand
until I let some blood,
until love is all I am.
There’s no doubt
it’s time to make some new plans.
So reach out
and touch someone’s hand.
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Cataldo Seattle, Washington
Cataldo has been hailed as “the rare kind of artist who’s able to absorb the chaotic world around him and distill it into crystalline song” by American Songwriter. Keepers has been welcomed as “nostalgic, and effortlessly, poetically profound,” by Nylon and “wistful and hopeful and beautiful, a brightly emotive yet understated slow-build." by Stereogum. ... more
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