Lyrics exchange – Elliot Carter: Lady Lovecraft

Sometimes the most unusual things happen … a snowstorm in August, a sudden eclipse of the sun, shooting stars that fill the nightsky, alien abductions, my darkened and withered heart is being touched …
Yeah, that happens every other century or so – and today it seems like the century is over. I’m not sure wether to grin like an idiot or to shake my head in amazement and wonder.I always thought that I can’t be “read”, was somewhat proud of the fact that I am unpredictable – because that what I’m being told all the time.
And now … now Kamilla has been sweet enough to contact me, because she thinks I should know about these lyrics. As it turns out, there is somebody who doesn’t even need to look at me to read my mind, my thoughts, my soul … who looks right through my facade, takes me apart and makes me enjoy this all the time.And who has turned this into a poem … a song … and leaves me sitting here in front of my screen, filled with wonder and being at a total loss as to how (and what) to think …What the hell is going on? Thanks a million, Elliot.I missed you!

Lady Lovecraft
Dear Lady Lovecraft, or would you rather be Katrin? Did you hear your name being carried over seas? Could you sense the attachment in the memoirs that were sent? Or did I ever string together the words I meant to say. I keep your insights in a bell jar on the shelf, like your brilliance set aside and preserved because I love them. I keep my eyes open until night divorces day, because I know you would have wanted it that way.

I’m so hard to remember, but so easy to forget. remember me as a time of day. Should the sun be coming up, should you be unable to sleep, remember me to pieces and throw them all away.

Dear Lady, the leaves are turning colors I never thought I’d see from the confines of my Lockjaw swollen heart. I would give the moon just to see your face. I drift through skies of chemical suit, forget-me-not blue. Where speech fails, I suppose silence compensates.

One of these repetitive days, we’ll walk the halls of our similar ways, with whatever flowers at our bedsides while silence plays. And you’ve no idea how hard it is to capture you in song, Because I’ve learned you can’t be captured much at all.

When it’s dark, I think of you. And when it rains, I think of you. When I can’t sleep, I think of you. But I don’t need it in return. It’s funny though, that despite myself, I can’t see the Apocalypse without somehow seeing you.

You don’t believe in goodbyes, so I don’t believe in goodbyes. Let’s sleep away eternal ties.

I’ll see you in the morning.

Phoenix Foster – Lyrics exchange – UNTITLED

“I never thought I would fall in love with the end-all, the epilogue. I knew your familiar face, your arms were laced with scarlet, you lived in darkness. Draw the curtains across the rotting walls, seek a sigh from all the earth. Staring out from behind a garbage can, hands over my head, I saw them cowering and weeping, eyes enormous at all the dead. But you weren’t finished. You had more to go and you knew I was hiding somewhere. Death shouldn’t hurt as bad as it looks, they said.

“I wrapped my fingers around the weeds and anchored myself to the ground; Hoping the peeling paint would conceal me and the shadows would hide me somehow. I still remember the way you looked when our world was new and there were kisses hidden in the corner of your electric smile. But now you suck the metal into your mouth, for you are home.

“I would die a thousand times by your hand, just to hold your hand. So I waited and I held my breath while I listened to your staggering footsteps. No barricade was strong enough to save me from the hell you were. I didn’t plead, I didn’t ask for mercy; I just memorized your sunny day eyes and pictured my arms around you, where I belonged. Until you were finished with me.

“They were right; Death doesn’t hurt as bad as it looks, even though they’ll never understand. Shot right back into the real world, where my stitches are still together and my wounds don’t bleed. Don’t think I didn’t go back for you, but the ice had covered up the portal to your world. I wonder if you were ever sorry for the damage you had done.

“With your world cased over in ice, the headlines told me you were dead. Sirens screaming, you were cornered like an animal in a cage. You lashed out as a last resort and were finally brought down and contained. Your demons will never get the best of you again.

“So tell me, sleeping beauty, did they give you a proper burial? Or are you still lying facedown in the dream world with bullet holes in your back?”

Elliot Carter – lyrics exchange – Sinti Gypsy

Sinti Gypsy, you went out like a flame beneath a bell jar; Straight to your grave from your vanity fair. Darling, we should have come up for air. I remember holding back your hair while you purged up all your venom. Even displaced and disheveled, you were still miraculous to me.

Six winters I watched you fall apart. Six summers I followed after. I sent you fragments of myself in every self-pitying letter. Every envelope came back to me unopened and unknown. I can’t help but wonder if you’re dead or getting better.

Sinti Gypsy, your reflection is all my fading eyes can see. My heart beats faster and my knees are getting weak. You know I’m reaching the end of myself when traces of you are all that’s left of me.

I watched in silent horror as he dragged you from the crowd, As you suffered his fury, his violence, his storm. We all looked on, but with lungs constricted, and never made a sound. Sinti Gypsy, who came to your rescue? Who pulled you from his violent arms? Who swore they would protect you until all the stars fell down? They say I don’t know you’re dead to me, because intent never makes a sound.

Sinti Gypsy, your reflection is all my fading eyes can see. My heart beats faster and my knees are getting weak. You know I’m reaching the end of myself when traces of you are all that’s left of me.

You’ve been a vapor for so long, that I’m just keeping my heavy eyes open to remember what you looked like. Sinti Gypsy, your obituary is the story of my life.