"Subtle Love" lyrics - JOAN SHELLEY

Brighter than the Blues

Got to leave this house, go swiftly out
I've been lying around till noon
Till the fear comes on
That I might have fallen
Honey, I think of you.

The winter's calling loudly now
I believe it'll be here soon
And it won't be kind,
It'll rule me with shadows
Turning my gold to blue.

Go away, go away you poison loves
For you I have no use
I can sleep alone
Many a night I've gone
Never to think of you.

Well, the leaves have fallen
The season's passed
I'll go west, or someplace new
Where the lights are low
So the stars can glow
Brighter than the blues.

Stay on My Shore

Stay on my shore
And don't desert me
And if you go
The wind will blow you back to me
And if your boat is broken out on the rocks
It wasn't anger, but a longing.

We feed the birds
Syrup and seed
So they stay near,
So we can see
Flashing red and blue amid the green
When the fruit has long since rotten.

Rolled in the needles and wrecked our skin
Gave it all to be empty
Wrapped in leaves wet and clinging
In wreathes so holy

You split the cord,
The cedar and holly
And lie indoors
Let the smoke do the cleaning
And sweeten our skin with the salt and the stone
Lace the pages of our story.

Over and Even

We sight the mornings softly
Take to them easy
The scent of the wood and coffee
Our cup is filling.

Outside the river flows
Its course unfolding
A strength it never knows
A sweet outpouring.

The scents that bloom the hours,
I write you daily
I speak of friends and brothers
And sisters waiting

To sew your winter coat
To keep you warm and dry
The size of you to hold
Tender knots are tied

And over and over,
And over and even

How can the stars design it
To pull and move us?
We crave their waning light,
An ancient.

And draped in candlelight
We did outshine it
I miss your scent and sight
How can I write this?

And over and over,
And over and even

Not Over By Half

You've torn your shirt
You've outgrown this town
Your friends are all scattered and you're lonesome
But you're still searching for music in the sounds
It's a tame world would leave you unbroken.

Oh lady, oh Mother, bring your garden to me
Pull it around my body so the world cannot see
The blue of my veins and the tracks on my cheeks
But leave the tulips for when I go under.

But it's not over by half
There's a gold in your eyes blooming out through the black
And you're still standing, your hand on the map
No it's not over, not over by half

When that day comes and the lights go dim
The weight off your shoulders, the sun off your skin
And the ones who have known you,
Your lovers and friends,
Will be marked by the spark that was taken.

Here on the mountain I'm thinking of you
The birds are all singing, screaming of youth
And here I am holding, keeping a room
Just a place you can lay when you're older.

Ariadne's Gone

Lay down beside me
I want you to touch me
I know we're not friendly that way.

I walk the sands
Where your temple still stands
Now you've gone where you wanted to go.

I'm looking for signs of her
Left from your time with her
Proof that you've needed a woman.

Here on the land where she promised to stay
At your command, 'cause you want it that way
And she's plastic.

Love changes hands
He wears stars on his skin
And he's tall as your columns of marble
He says come take my hand now
I want you to stand now
For some things are greater than fiction.

I'll write my poems and letters for this
Pulled from the air are the words that you give
If you're willing.

Here give your hand to me
Come near and be with me
Friend, won't you stay here a while?
Friend, won't you stay here a while?

No More Shelter

Pull up the horses
And carry me back behind the lines
Back to the water,
Back with the gardens and the vines
Where two hands of ashen gold
Chase down my fever
And wash me with soap
When half of us were losing
And half of us were wrong,
A rose you planted.

Leather and rope,
Fire inside the rock
The heavens open
I am like a child on the spot
Asking god why'd you come?
Was it all for some glory,
Was it all for a song?
And my eyes are still searching
For a light in the fog
A sweetheart to sing for me

I was thrown from the center
Where I once so bravely spun
I was pulled through the colors
Through the colors did I run
And my eyes were wide and gleaming,
Though wind-whipped by the storm
There is no more shelter for the broken

I hear they still track me now
Dogs try to sniff out my home
I'll write you in the scars
Laid in trails by the jets headed home
How you mold me and move me still
I'm calling on your memory here alone in my cell
A time when you fed me, a time I was filled
But one of us must keep from crying.

Easy Now

Easy now,
It's almost over
The fever will run out
Now the nights are colder
Who will lift your face to see how the stars
Shine brighter when you're lonely?

The rains came down
Ran across the river
Sweet the sound
And the scent familiar
You pulled the clothes from the line and came in
You were needed at my side.

In the open my heart beats loudly
We're not broken, no we just are free again
Again

Easy now,
It's almost over
To the friends who stuck around
Go and hold them closer
The ones that watched you wander out on the rocks
When the light of day was fading.

In the open our hearts beat loudly
We're not broken no we just are free again
Again

Lure and Line

Lure and line
Lure and line
Loom of white
Hooks and winds

Pulled down now from the ether
Laid before our open eyes

Lure and line
Lure and line
Lure and line
Lure and line

Jenny come in

Heat of the city, a breeze cross his forehead
His hand on the windowsill rests
Waiting to hear it, her feet on the porch steps
Jenny come in, he says under his breath.

He says that two can make more than two
He says that two can push out the ghosts
He says I'm haunted by somebody lonely
I hear the voice at night when you're gone

Saying
You know what I'd do if I were you?
Break down the door and go after her running

And when she returns the things that she's borrowed
Coming to see what was made and what broke
Guilty, his eyes unraveled
The thread at her hem and the pearls at her throat.

Under the swaying, the floorboards are creaking
There's sweat down his new cotton clothes
While a song in the next room is playing
A voice from the radio calls

Saying,
You know what I'd do if I were you?
Break down the door and go after her running
You know what I'd do if I were you?
Set fire to the cords that bind you in longing

Jenny come in, there's food on the table
And though it is small, a bed that is clean
Music for playing and hands that are able
To hold a woman who's warm but mean.

Wine and Honey

Wine and honey
There'll be no more Sundays to confess and pray.

O rake, o wanderer
Did silence awaken a hunger in you?
When all the world was breaking
You sat there just humming something you made.

When like it or not, I am already home
I like when it rains but I'm unfriendly
And like it or not this whole world is full and hungry.

Light my room
My words with fuel laid kindly for me
Grown from the vines
That watched us in silence, suffering

For wine and honey,
The sight of the stars buzzing.

My Only Trouble

Once we stretched out so fair
My hand here, your mouth there
As the fog stepped around us
There was hay in your hair.

And the salt of our skin
Brined the clay there within
It was mine that would harden
And then cease to bend.

When my only trouble
When my only trouble
When my only trouble
Is you.

Now I stand at the wood
Where the wind bends the pines
And the place where you loved me
Wears the mark of our spines.

But when spring still shows
Brings the tulip and the rose
Well, then no one will pity
A girl in the throes.

When my only trouble...

Now I won't scorn the god
Who had thickened the fog,
He's the one that brings the thunder
When that's all I've got.

When my only trouble...

Subtle Love

Lost in memories that in your bed you found
Grass lay bent in warmth you gathered around
Your every dream the oceans heave
Unto the shore, they form and feed.

It's a subtle kind of love,
It's a simple kind of glory

By paved edge I saw you standing down
In the purple light the flag there on the ground
To be rocked and cradled by failed hands
Wounds where flesh is torn and mends.

It's a subtle kind of love,
It's a simple kind of glory

The day has scattered the light across you mouth
Keep your words but lend me your warmth a while
Then here I'll leave you here I'll go
And no one follows so no one knows.

It's a subtle kind of love,
It's a simple kind of glory
It's a mother's wet tongue,
It's a melody outpouring