Get all 10 Steven Lambke releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Frenzy of Our Dreams - reconstructions, versions, dialogues, Volcano Volcano, Sea Level / Acorns And Beach Stones, Every Lover Knows / Deep Water, dub.tape, Former Firsts, Dark Blue, Revolution C, and 2 more.
1. |
Days Of Heaven
02:34
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Low blazing sun of winter,
like an oncoming headlight;
interrogative lamp of God:
asks nothing. Says nothing,
but the prophecy is clear:
another day passing of the year
under the gaze of heaven.
A woman with a family,
she calls me sweet potato.
I enter as a guest into her home.
She lights a candle on the table,
drops the match into the coffee.
She says she’s seen the future and read its mind:
“Don’t be alarmed, darling.
It looks like any other time
under the gaze of heaven.
But it takes a strong mind
not to turn away
from the gaze of heaven,
under the gaze of heaven.”
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2. |
Hummingbird
02:56
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We are creatures of quick need,
stunned by beauty
to the quickening beat
of a hummingbird.
We are seeds blooming
in the scrabble,
blooming to be seen
by the hummingbird.
I’m kneeling in the rut of flowers
and the hummingbird is gone.
I’ve forgotten how to speak.
The colours bloom silently.
Dull earth, the rut of flowers,
until the hummingbird returns.
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3. |
Sunflower Mind
03:02
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There’s more in common nature
than the human mind can bend to reason;
bend low with a sunflower mind
full of sky and earthly seed.
All things will over-reach, then bow
with the weight of the season.
My mind is too much
full of sky and earthly need.
I bend close to you
in the evening, listening.
My love, be brave.
Speak with tenderness.
Speak plain.
Raise your voice uncommon.
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4. |
Memory Forever
02:36
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I was scared. I was scared
that time had wounded me
with age, and that loss,
once suffered, would repeat
in my memory forever.
But the echo comes according
to the surface that it meets,
and I met you, echoed in your body,
and your mind, and my body echoed too:
strong enough to love,
strong enough to be loved,
to listen close to love,
and hear love.
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5. |
Silence/Love
02:13
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My love,
I do not want to talk of love.
Love has made me silent,
and silence breaks the room.
Silence, Love.
My love,
why do we weep so quietly?
So silently in love?
Is it love that makes us weep?
Silence, Love.
It’s silence makes us weep
our silent love.
What is love to say of beauty,
so unspoken, so unspeaking
as a silent love?
My love,
I heard the water breaking
and the moon, beloved, above,
silently watching.
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6. |
Dead Stones
02:51
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I’m like every man before me:
standing high above the ocean
I need to try my distance
from the shore.
Throwing stones into the void,
throwing short and landing dry,
I’ve heard hymns and horrors in the wind
and felt alone without measure.
But O, befuddled judges!
A man is slight of strength and short of days,
but in love his life has measure
and peaceful hours.
And the stones will turn to swallows.
And bloom like flowers in the water.
And then I say I love you like no other.
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7. |
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A man knows no peace
in his body until it’s broken.
Like the world’s common curses,
it’s better broken on a common deed.
We drank together in the evening:
broken glass and screaming swallows.
I cut my finger on the pieces
and saw my blood was filled with blooming flowers.
And it’s a good light and tired feeling
with the sunset bleeding at the wound.
Peace rising in an empty body
like a stony, starry moon.
You called me to companion
your surrender to your fate.
You said, “If I have strength and health to mother let me mother,
or let me be mother to my own making.”
We were tired in the morning,
with the curtain swaying at the window
slowly rising on a good light.
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8. |
You Know Me Well
02:35
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You know me well, my love.
You know my many natures.
The mule headed wonder
lording in your bed,
sometimes brave, and sometimes lazy,
and handsome in my way.
You know me well.
My step is long like someone running.
It’s one measure of a man, I guess.
A little lost at every footstep.
My mind is full of water.
It’s easily rippled, naked swimmer.
Split the surface, slide me under
into the breach.
You know me well.
You know me well,
as I am,
and as I wish to be.
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9. |
Moonshine Brother
02:23
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Lately I’ve been living day to day,
by the wisdom of the ages:
take my pleasure in hand,
leave my troubles where they lay,
make hay when the sun shines,
make moonshine in the moonshine.
Brother, no sun or moon opposed us.
With winter cold, life retreats
to the root but it does not whither.
So bless the woman in the garden.
Bless the chickens where they lay.
Make hay when the sun shines.
Make moonshine in the moonshine.
Brother, no sun or moon opposed us.
There’s love in our work together,
and love in the return.
Let another warm day embrace us.
No sun or moon opposed.
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10. |
Under A Dumb Moon
03:04
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Alone beneath the dumb light
of the full moon,
with the dim stars, far apart,
growing dimmer, and further away.
It’s a hard space cast by one light.
If not this full moon unreckoned,
than blazing sun will still the tongue:
there is no speaking in it.
Still, there’s a clatter in the shadows,
a black raven in a burnt black sea.
The lilac blooms at the bloody root of the dumb moon,
and the static holds a song.
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11. |
Days Of Rough Grace
02:02
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How will I ever know
how close I came to loving you
the way you would be loved:
in the morning, with the coffee,
and in the evening
with the swallows
falling through the tilt and sway,
home to nest?
How will I ever know
how close I came
to what I tried to be:
a man who learned to speak
of beauty?
With the swallows
falling through the tilt and sway,
and the evening falling low,
alive, and sweetly swaying,
unknowing.
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Steven Lambke Toronto, Ontario
Folded ticket. Lucky Numbers.
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