Sunny Side Up

Sunny side up, Sister
When the stars go down in flames
Watch them die before your eyes
Find the gold within the grey
When a monster crawls beneath your bed
Stare him down and learn his name
On the other side of the rising tide
Use the light to push your weight
Use your callous to kiss the devil
Don't give him your finer skin
If the record skips and you purse your lips
Silence is a pretty place to begin
Sunny side up, Darlin'
When your spine, it hits the dirt
Is there a better view than in a blackened hue
A better healing than in the hurt

Johnny Cash Pills

I got a bag full of Johnny Cash pills
God wants to catch me but he knows he never will
I stutter, stammer and I can't stand still
Sloe Gin Fizz and these Johnny Cash pills

I'm riding high for the fourth damn day
What Mama taught me, well I just can't say
I plug the jukebox with "Smokey Mountain Rain"
I line 'em up on the bathroom pane

I got these angels hanging on my back
They tell me how to how to breathe and how to act
They soar from Heaven but I send them back
But if they asked me I'd share my stash

Cause I got a bag full of Johnny Cash pills
God wants to catch me but he knows he never will
I stutter, stammer and I can't stand still
Sloe Gin Fizz and these Johnny Cash pills

Never Met A River

I never met a river
Like the one that lies behind
Murky as the Mississippi
And winding as the Rhine
Lord knows it wasn't pretty
My stroke not so refined
But I'd never met a river
Like the one that lies behind

If you stood on the shoreline
If your toes never got wet
If you hid behind sandcastles
And felt richer for my debt
If you mocked my sloppy motion
Saying you could do it best
And held back your penicillin
From the slivers in my chest

I leave you in the shadows
I leave you on the banks
I leave our memories in ashes
They give no heat to my flame
I part with final words
But in them you'll find no thanks
I leave you in the cattails
To receive what you gave

You see, I never met a river
Like the one that lies behind
They say they can cross with ease
Yet pray that they never have to try

Rufus Buck

I lived on the Snake Creek
The summer of '95
A shanty I called home
Where the Arkansas collides
The sun, it turned my skin to leather
And the cotton gave callous to my hands
My knees were stained with red clay
Yet I never cursed that land

The sun had taken its leave
When a rap came upon our door
Five young men stood ragged and thin
We had never seen their faces before
They said they'd give some silver
If I'd feed them biscuits and greens
You see, I was a Christian woman
I thought my Savior had called upon me
I poured them water in tin cups
I recited the Lord's Prayer
They did not bow their heads
Rather I could feel their heavy stares
They wiped their mouths on their sleeves
The tall one reached into his coat
To grab the silver they had promised
But they'd come for something more
A pistol he withdrew
And he held it to my husband's head
Four of them dragged him into the yard
While one dragged me to bed
I saw five sets of eyes
In the hours that went by
They laughed and pinned my hands
Until I began to bleed from the inside
The last thing I recall
Was my husband calling my name
It must have been with a thrust
That the blood went still in my veins

I lived on the Snake Creek
The summer of '95
A shanty I called home
Where the Arkansas collides

Aces And 8's

Pulled a hand when I was young
Before I learned to breathe
Black and white, aces and eights
Feasting on the smile or the seethe
Adrift on seas that seizure
Quaked by a collapsed serotonin vein
The pleasure of elation headaches
And the gift to go insane
I traded blush for bruise
And found some beauty in the view
A population sees only darkness
But I've trained my eye on subtle hues
I had to bathe in barbed wire
But Lord, how I can swim
Knocked out past the eight count
But how I fought for my black tooth grin

Ammunition On The Shelf

I could go for a comedown
A little rupture in the solid ground
A little rain from the plain white clouds
I could go for a comedown
I'm a mile from a breakdown
A deaf ear in the cyclone sound
A pair of dimples that used to be a frown
A long mile from a breakdown

I've got a mistress in the moonshine
And I can hear her calling through the pines
It's been a while since I felt her hand in mine
I've got a mistress in the moonshine
I've got a taste for the hard times
Like a fruit fly to a rotting black vine
I'll take the poison and you can drink the wine
I've got a taste for the hard times

Doctor, Doctor I'm bored
Like a housewife that used to be a whore
I'm full of bullets and I need to go to war
Doctor, Doctor I'm bored