1. |
I Walked A Wizened Mile
04:52
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I walked a wizened mile
To see the clouds explode
Inside a broken sky.
I felt the rain expose
My dark and bitter side,
My dark and bitter side -
I walked a wizened mile.
I swam a surging sea -
The salt became my prayers,
Dissolved in endless depths.
My breath: a drowning tide,
A cold and brackish sigh,
A cold and brackish sigh.
I swam a surging sea.
I dreamt a sleep of dreams
And spoke a foreign tongue
To ghosts that filled the flames
Hot inside my head.
They sang a haunted song.
They sang a haunted song.
I dreamt a sleep of dreams.
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2. |
Rivers Of Gold
04:55
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Money is a road to ragged neglect,
And I’m tired, oh so tired, of sleeping underwater
While half of the angels are standing mute
Watching the other half drown in rivers of gold.
One thing or another can lead to the end
Where one meets the other careening through fields;
Lost in the waving and hypnotic leaves,
Watching the trees slowly drown in rivers of gold.
And why won’t you swim
And lift your head clear?
And why won’t you listen
To the sound of the river so near?
I don’t care to fall through memories you have.
The lonely are milling in shadows and doubt
(The storm bearing down in the clouds and the rain)
Watching their dead lovers drown in rivers of gold.
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3. |
Nothing Worth Repeating
05:37
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99 seems so relentless,
Passing through these lonely towns.
Yellow lights fight the darkness,
But the darkness of this valley always wins.
Eastern skies and looming mountains
Shed the snow and flood the fields -
Birds in spirals above the steeples,
But the towns are drowning far below.
Drowning in impatience
And disrepair.
Bridges spanning rivers
That no one knew were there.
Love seems short but life is shorter,
And the dirt covers the graves.
And the bones recall the memories:
There is nothing worth repeating when it’s gone.
Dreaming through frustration
And despair.
Sleepless, spanning lifetimes
That no one knew were there.
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4. |
No Turning Around
04:06
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I awoke walking past a row of terraced houses;
I heard a train in the distance and I started running.
And I don’t know where I am,
And I don’t know where I am,
But I’ve been here before…
I sat down on the train and I looked out the window
At a tattered, harried landscape full of broken, dirty dreams.
And I don’t know where this is,
And I don’t know where this is,
But I’ve known it before…
The soot on the houses, the bricks and the rubble,
The grime on the trestles that shelter the homeless,
The trash and graffiti, the broken glass sparkles -
This isn’t a promise unfolded,
This isn’t the promise revealed.
When the train crossed a river, the tracks started trembling;
I stood up with a start and it all was familiar.
But I don’t know where I’ve been,
But I don’t know where I’ve been,
And I can’t turn around…
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5. |
Echoes Of The Storm
04:02
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Water pouring down and the walls are bleeding;
Strands of ivy waving in the wind.
Broken bricks in piles above the ashes, crashes
Wake the walking strangers from their sleep.
A damaged step upon a stairway leading
From the street above to the hole below,
A garret underground. A cloud is lifting. Shifting
In a chair a singer sings her song.
Words of halting laughter
Notes of polished steel
Shining light reflected from the moon
Thunder, screaming rain, and the walls are pounding,
Trapped inside a head that won’t explode.
A friend of mine is praying to the ceiling, kneeling
In the rubble, blood and broken bones.
The breathless face the wind and keep repeating
Words they’ve heard a thousand times before.
Echoes of the storm in phrases falling, calling
Out to gods abandoned long ago.
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6. |
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I bent my back on a broken wave.
I knew my heart was not that brave.
I knew I’d go – I knew you’d stay;
I ducked my head beneath that wave.
Broken hearts and a drowning tide
I cannot keep this all inside
The water cold, the currents strong,
I didn’t know if I was wrong,
If I was right or just confused.
I held my breath and it was bruised.
I couldn’t swim against the tide.
I knew at last I’d finally died -
Until the wave broke on my back.
I felt the surge and heard the crack.
The winds will blow from sea to shore.
The waves will break upon my door.
I’ll keep it closed but in my eyes
Tears will flow from sorry skies.
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7. |
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The fallen bones of summer lay crumbling on the earth:
The broken nameless forms of our existence.
The winter night was dropping the stars upon our heads,
While we scratched and clawed the dirt for our subsistence.
No future for the fearless – no tombstone for the meek
The walls that hold the world at bay are falling
The rows that were remaining held a yellowed line of kale;
The weeds that choked our breath lay wilting, rotting.
An older man, exhausted, forgetting what he’d known,
Refused to face the fact that he was faceless.
After all the windstorms that ripped the soil and left
A rocky barren empty urban landscape,
Cracks that broke the concrete, the asphalt and facades
Yawned and opened up to hold the future.
Leafless trees were reaching to grasp the weary necks
And hold them till the breath had left the body.
A younger man was weeping, and dropping to his knees,
With his bare hands interred his faceless father.
The thirsty earth was drinking the hot and bitter tears
And opened up to hold the weightless bodies.
The stars were starting fires that melted rock and stone:
The broken nameless forms of our existence.
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8. |
Bury My Thoughts
05:41
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I dreamed I drank the waters of the San Lorenzo River -
The water cooled the fever in my bones and made me shiver.
The water line was low and left a trail of tangled grasses -
The summer sun felt warm upon my neck, but summer passes…
Bury my thoughts in these mountains
Bury my hopes in this soil
Carry what’s left to the ocean
And let my body be
I dreamed I was a hawk above the San Vicente Mountains
Circling in the drafts that come up off the dark blue ocean.
The bay was there before my eyes, Big Sur off in the distance;
I couldn’t see a sign of cars or roads or barbed wire fences.
Someone spoke - I dreamed that I could understand their silence:
A gentle voice, a gentle hand, without a trace of violence.
I tried to answer with a tongue so swollen in my sickness;
The fever broke and I awoke beyond the sway of illness.
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9. |
Groundswell
04:24
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Torrents of moments come flooding the mines
Where darkness is hacked at, where timbers and signs
Propping and pointing a path through the rock;
A crack is a danger no miner can block.
Groundswell
In a crack in the earth
Groundswell
It fills with the moments that freeze and then swell.
A break in a wall that divides him from hell.
Drowning in moments, the miner expires.
Darkness returns and his god quickly tires…
Of toying with mortals, of toying with hope.
His hands are quite dirty, he washes with soap.
The blood of the miner is the mark of the beast.
The most of this moment is the best of the least.
Empty the moment but swollen the storm -
Cold is the promise, but promises warm
To the touch of a god whose hands ever shake;
To the death of a miner whose thoughts never wake.
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10. |
Shouting Match
03:39
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Window panes are shivering – a storm is coming on.
Lights are slowly stirring as the nighttime moves to dawn.
I am standing in my pride – I’m just about to fall.
I’ve never stopped this shouting but I’ve never scaled that wall
Standing on a precipice that isn’t really there –
If I had half the sense I’ve known I wouldn’t really care.
The wind is rising steadily, the trees begin to fall –
I’ve never stopped this shouting but I’ve never scaled that wall
Somewhere on the ocean there’s a boat that’s painted blue,
No one’s in the cabin and the mast is snapped in two;
I wish I had the tiller headed for your port of call.
I’ve never stopped this shouting but I’ve never scaled that wall
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11. |
A Draught Of Sorrow
05:05
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I would drink my draught of sorrow slowly,
So it coats my tongue and cuts my throat.
Leaving words where no shadows fall:
A thirsty sea and a sinking boat,
A bitter taste where there once were lies -
I would I could see through other’s eyes.
I would drink my draught of sorrow slowly,
So the former lives of all the stars
Would rise like wheat in a summer field,
Would fall like boys in forgotten wars,
And light up the measure of all I despise -
I would I could see through other’s eyes.
I would drink my draught of sorrow slowly,
So the floods would find the bank’s rough edge,
Come pouring down and drown the leisure
Of what remains of the trees and sedge,
And listen to woebegone moans and cries -
I would I could see through other’s eyes.
I would drink my draught of sorrow slowly,
So acceptance melts the ridge of stone
That stands between the beating heart
And the speechless mind that stands alone
Beyond the place where all knowledge dies -
I would I could see through other’s eyes.
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12. |
Dregs And Holly Bushes
06:03
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Nothing was flowing but the river remains;
Someone was drowning in the mid-summer rains.
Calling for mercy but their savior’s asleep -
A nightmare resulting from diving in too deep.
Someone was calling as the tide flows in;
A mixture of blood, stagnant wine and sin.
The screaming is haunting the disciple’s dreams -
Something for nothing – never what it seems.
And a sign that the day was drawing down – the wine
Oh the wine dripping from the crown
The holly turning brown
A savior awakens but it’s far too late
To break from the timeless into short-term fate.
Leaving disciples scattered, wandering, lost.
A desert is calling that no one has crossed.
A forest of failings mostly stumps are left;
The moorland expansive with a fault line cleft.
A holly bush growing at the base of a tree:
The dregs of a moment that could never be.
Falling through fashions that assume a storm
Crashing and tearing at the clinging form.
Disciples and saviors walk their well-worn tracks,
The crowns cut their foreheads, the wind at their backs.
Stealing the reason that requires a prayer;
Sediment settles but creates a layer
On top of another and another to be:
The dregs of a moment at the base of a tree.
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Jim Powell Boulder Creek, California
I am a songwriter & guitarist working out of my home studio in beautiful Boulder Creek, California. My arrangements use a mix of voice, acoustic and electric guitars, bass and drums, along with the occasional mandolin, bouzouki, or keyboard part.
Jim Powell recommends:
I heard about this album in a random email, and something in the description persuaded me to give it a listen. And I haven't stopped listening yet! Great songs, beautiful voice and a band to match.
go to album
BLUE BOOK
by Lisa Mednick Powell
I found this artist through a compilation on Aldora Britain Records and I really love all three of her albums.
go to album
From an Old Guitar: Rare and Unreleased Recordings
by Dave Alvin
Dave Alvin is one my favorites, and this album is definitely worth a listen.
go to albumIf you like Jim Powell, you may also like:
Rundgren-esque rock with big hooks and a hint of the baroque, recommended for fans of Jon Brion and post-Kill Rock Stars Elliott Smith.
go to album
Stuck in the Aching Again
by Fur Trader
L.A. singer-songwriter Andrew Pelletier goes full on Gene Clark with some woozy effects on this latest EP.
go to album
This Bay-Area based band offer modern indie songs with intertwining harmonies and searching refrains.
go to album
