Hell-On

God is not a contract or a guy
God is an unspecified tide
You cannot time its tables
It sets no glass or gables
God is a lusty tire fire
Its bristles scrape and strike the stage
A rock-paper-scissors rage
Have mercy on the natural world

My voice is not the liquid waves
The perfect rings 'round a heron's legs
My voice is straight garroting wire
A stolen mile of fingerprints
Peeled the quiet from the dunes
Captured and re-spooled as ruin to be used
At a different time

My voice is a fracture
Of a shinbone's lust
Pounding barefoot ground
It lifts you up and sits you just
Just at sorrow's waterline
I drape you on tomorrow's plate
Ferrous metal, marrow spilling
Not yours but mine
I'm an agent of the natural world

Don't you tell me I didn't warn you
That that's some gravity you ought not to play with
Don't you tell me I didn't warn you
That that's some gravity you ought not to play with

Nothing quite so poison as a promise
Nothing quite so poison as a promise
Nothing quite so poison as a promise
Nothing quite so poison as a promise

And me, I am not a mess
I am a wilderness, yes
The undiscovered continent for you to undress
But you'll not be my master
You're barely my guest
You don't have permission to take any pictures
Be careful of the natural world

Nature can't amend its ways
Boils along and then replays
Despite heartfelt springtimes of regret
The storms she still cries for days
Have mercy on the natural world