This was recorded live several years ago. Sorry about the little bit of noise in the recording. Poem and voice by me; original music by my partner Ron Walker, written on the fly.
What comes this way
is not given without pain
It is not given without
hard breathing and sweat
or a good swat on the head
What comes this way
bends until vertigo sets in
with night fevers and dreams
that awaken you in screams
and tremors and self-blames
What comes this way
costs more than your right arm
or all you could pinch
in a lifetime of flinching
or the jewel passed down
from great-grandmaman's dowry
or handwoven silk wound
round the world ten times
or the sunken wreck of
a pirate's laden ship
What comes this way
is always hungry and
tugs at your belly and
growls its demands until
you just can't stand it
What comes this way
is more illness than the
black plague visited upon us
every man, woman and child
carried away her slave
What comes this way
is never a bandage but rather
an opener for all your wounds
until you've bled to death and
stand white as the sands
What comes this way
even if you haven't asked
even if you hide yourself
in a deep mountain chasm
she will find you still
and you will have to ask then
you'll be made to demand
forgiveness for every major
or minor or unconscious sin
you have laden her with
For what comes this way
is brief and hard and
so full of longing that
even kings fall to the floor
in her terrible presence
She knows your heart
she knows every song your
tongue has sung and every
wish you've listed and
she's waiting to give you
that one last fell blow
to break your ego, to claim
your soul as her own
to remake you, reshape you
into almighty god
For what comes this way
may not be to your pleasing
but for the power of the
chord, you must be reborn
a flaming word
