Get all 11 Pete Davis releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Hapax Legomena, False Friends EP, Commiato (a cappella), The Pottsville Conglomerate, Grace EP (demo), Emergency Response (demo), Algorithms and Anaerobics (demo), The Waterworks (demo), and 3 more.
1. |
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Wait for something
Wait for snowfall
Wait for something to change without shaping,
Bait our escaping,
Wave out your window
Wave at your house as you go,
As you drive on
Cold glow cresting mountains in the distance,
Owed no fulcrum of a sunrise
Felt like if we just kept going…
Waited for something
But nothing was different
You thought it was hardest
Just watching your breath
So you waited for sunlight
But nothing was different
You thought it was hardest
Just fearing regret
So you settled on nothing
But nothing was different
You thought it was hardest
To sit in the darkness
So night after night
After night after night
You would dream of the sidewalk
And dream of the oak tree
And dream of the parking garage
Where you whisper
And wait for an echo
Wait by the table
Stalled fragile footsteps
I tried to stop it
Backs to each other
Sealed attic window
So glad you called
Hurried indices, off sincerity
Air on your shoulders
View from the top floor
Study the ceiling
Stayed by the front door
How we'd never see there was nothing
Each time we freeze
I started "I...I...
(wait there for someone)
I mean, I don't..."
Soft it fell
Out our window
Anvil swallow to hide a need
Waited, but there wasn't any
Cold glow cresting over
To grant us our shadows
(I've tried to reach you)
Tethered to a light
On which we can't rely
(but I just dreamt of going)
(waited for nothing, waited for nothing
Thought it was hardest
Just to keep thinking
Just to keep focus
Keep us from sinking
Thought it was hardest
Just to keep drifting
Keep us from focus
Keep us from thinking
Found it was hardest
Just to keep waking
Just to keep waking
Just keep decaying
Waiting for nothing
Waiting to come apart)
Fulcrum stitch seam
Float beneath us
Grow between us
Apart
Apart
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2. |
Idler Gear
03:32
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The buzzing in the trees
Made you feel less lonely
Until you thought how the cicadas had each other to sing
And you didn’t have anything
Now I know,
Nothing I’ve ever done has turned out right
Nothing we’ve ever wished for came true
Nothing you’ve ever lost ever turned up again
You said it’s best
To let us pretend
The empty shells by the leaves
Made you feel less guilty
Observing motion all around you
Shadowing the idler gear
Until you thought how the cicadas only had a few days
And how much they could achieve anyway
Its body grew
The wrong way
The molting strained
Bestowed its grave
And we can’t ask the rain
Our spiracles to inundate
And long for cover when it comes
We thought we wanted what was best for us
But nothing we ever learned we used again
Nothing I ever penciled in
Could be seen underneath so many drafts of pen
I guess I could try
To write it again
And again
And again
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3. |
Two Moths
03:57
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Fake rock to hide the key
Feign subtle secrecy
We couldn't help wishing to be
In places we shouldn't be
You set with me
Two leaves from the same tree
Hundred eighty degrees
Growing apart from each other
Fake smile to cover my teeth
Bed sheets to hide from me
An ill we could not wish away
The last message left on the tape
I saved it always
Two moths circling the flame
Two moths patterned the same
Stayed where the other could see
Stayed where the other could reach me
One moth entered the flame
Returned to dust again
Cover your wings with me
And the flicker of light was all that made
Your memory
Don't think of us below
Don't think of carried stone
Don't think of what you left
Don't think of what was unsaid
Don't think of how hard you tried
Only to let it out
Don't think how things would have changed if you did
Don't think of everything you said you'd save
Don't think of how you said you'd never feel
I felt it always
Fake props to sell the scene
Farewell synecdoche
It wouldn't, what you wished you'd say,
Have mattered anyway
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4. |
Suitable Strata
03:51
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Dead fall
Out your window
We all saw it go
You said you tried to stop
You calloused your skin
Purposeful
And you swallow your voice
And you swallow your protest
And you swallow your blood
Street cleaner jumped the curb
Started buffing the sidewalk
Tore up the road verge
Displacing a mess of the earth
It left worse than before
Went searching for suitable strata
To bury your body cozy and close,
Decompose to eternally better view
I regret that it wasn't much use
I regret not all that I said,
But what I said that wasn't to you
I regret it's all I can do
I guess there's something off about
What's underneath us, I don't know
I guess there's something else
I could have done or left alone
I guess there was some surface that
We left perfectly still and when
You saw our odd reflection,
I guess that was the hardest part, I don't know
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5. |
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If I just sit here out of focus,
Can we at least still-frame our aging?
Error in mindset, err in motion
Listen how those raised in their cage won’t sing
If you look past my attention span
Will you recall where we used to stare
Where we used to give our focus
There must be somewhere else you dream of
Authored in reverse,
Our waking signaled a now unresolved
Skew of stature
Our walls grew ever nearer
Nothing was there when you
Asked of its nature, you asked of its ire
You asked of us open, open, open but
There was nothing
Underneath our capture
We saw light bend through the surface
As we sank, as we dove deeper
Howl, oh the wind tore over
As we lied frozen on the hill we climbed
To watch our houses shrink in darkness
(bringing in the ill in darkness)
Lied still and there recalled
The sapling sprouting through the earth
And steel and stone, so gradual
It grew through anything
(bringing in the ill through anything)
We came to believe if we set there,
If we stayed there
Enough for it to have sprouted through
The dirt, the earth,
The skin under our shirt, our tissue
Through our muscles through our
Ribcage before our organs or
Our spinal cord
And all the way through it grew, it grew
And it protruded
Several feet high as there we lied,
So there we lie
It came to come true, we fed its roots,
We bore its fruit
From then there was nothing we could do
Except to have just moved
Move
Apart, apart
Nearer, nearer
What grew
In us
In us
You knew
You knew
You knew
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