What Comes This Way (Words and Music)

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