"Reno"

She took off her stockings
I held 'em to my face
She had your ankles
I felt filled with grace

"Two hundred dollars straight in
Two-fifty up the ass" she smiled and said
She unbuckled my belt, pulled back her hair
And sat in front of me on the bed

She said, "Honey, how's that feel
Do you want me to go slow?"
My eyes drifted out the window
And down to the road below

I felt my stomach tighten
As the sun bloodied the sky
And sliced through hotel blinds
I closed my eyes

Sunlight on the Amatitlan
Sunlight streaming through your hair
In the Valle de dos Rios
The smell of mock orange filled the air

"Long Time Comin'"

Out where the creek turn shallow and sandy
And the moon comes skimmin' away the stars
When the mesquite comes rushin' over the hilltops
Straight into my arms
Straight into my arms

I'm ridin' hard carryin' a cache of roses
A fresh map that I made
Now I'm gonna get birth naked and bury my old soul
And dance on it's grave
And dance on it's grave

It's been a long time comin', my dear
It's been a long time comin', but now it's here
And now it's here

Well my daddy he was just a stranger
Lived in a hotel downtown
Well when I was a kid he was just somebody
Somebody I'd see around
Somebody I'd see around

Well now down below and pullin' on my shirt
Yeah I got some kids of my own
Well if I had one wish for you in this god forsaken worl

"Black Cowboys"

Raney William's playground was among Haven's streets
Where he ran past melted candles and flower wreaths
Names and photos of the young black faces
Whose death and blood consecrated these places

Raney's mother said Raney stay at my side
For you are my blessing, you are my pride
It's your love here that keeps my soul alive
I want you to come home from school and stay inside

Raney'd do his work and put his books away
There was a channel showed a Western movie everyday
And that brought him home books on the black cowboys of the Oklahoma range
The Seminole scouts that fought the tribes of the Great Plains

Summer come and the days grew long
Raney always had his mother's smile to depend on
Along the street of stray bullets he made his way
To the warmth of her arms at the end of each day

Come the Fall, the rain flooded these homes
In Ezekiel's valley of dry bones
It fell hard and dark to the ground
It fell without a sound

"Maria's Bed"

Been on a barbed wire highway 40 days and nights
I ain't complainin', it's my job and it suits me right
I got a sweet soft fever rushin' around my head
I'm gonna sleep tonight in Maria's bed

Got on a dead man suit and smilin' skull ring
Lucky graveyard boots and a song to sing
I keep my heart in my work but trouble's in my head
And I keep my soul in Maria's bed

I been up on sugar mountain, cross the sweet blue seas
I walked the valley of love and tears and mystery
I got run out'a luck and give myself up for dead
And I drank the cool clear waters from Maria's bed

She give me candy stick kisses 'neath a wolf dog moon
One sweet breath and she'll take you mister to the upper room
I was burned by the angels, sold wings of lead
Then I fell in the roses and sweet salvation of Maria's bed

I been out in the desert yeah doin' my time
Searchin' through the dust for fools gold, lookin' for a sign
Holy man said "hold on brother there's a light up ahead"
Ain't nothing like a light that shines on me in Maria's

"Silver Palomino"

(A mother dies leaving her young son
to come to terms with the loss.
In remembrance of Fiona Chappel,
for her sons Tyler and Oliver.)

I was barely 13 years old
She came out of the Guadalupe's on a night so cold
Her coat was frosted diamonds in the sallow moon's glow
My silver palomino
Sixteen hands from her withers to the ground
I lie in bed and listen to the sound
Of the west Texas thunder roll
My silver palomino
I track her into the mountains she loved
Watch her from the rocks above
She'd dip her neck and drink from the winter flows
My silver palomino
Our mustaneros were the very best, sir
But they could never lay a rope on her
No corral will ever hold
The silver palomino

In my dreams bareback I ride
Over the pradera low and wide
As the wind sweeps out the draw

"Jesus Was An Only Son"

Jesus was an only son
As he walked up Calvary Hill
His mother Mary walking beside him
In the path where his blood spilled
Jesus was an only son
In the hills of Nazareth
As he lay reading the Psalms of David
At his mother's feet

A mother prays, "Sleep tight, my child, sleep well
For I'll be at your side
That no shadow, no darkness, no tolling bell,
Shall pierce your dreams this night"

In the garden at Gethsemane
He prayed for the life he'd never live,
He beseeched his Heavenly Father to remove
The cup of death from his lips

Now there's a loss that can never be replaced,
A destination that can never be reached
A light you'll never find in another's face

"Leah"

I wanna build me a house, on higher ground
I wanna find me a world, where love's the only sound
High above this road, filled with shadow and doubt
I want to shoulder my load, and figure it all out
With Leah

I walk this road, with a hammer and a fiery lantern
With this hand I've built, and with this I've burned
I wanna live in the same house, beneath the same roof
Sleep in the same bed, search for the same proof
As Leah

I got somethin' in my heart, I been waitin' to give
I got a life I wanna start, one I been waitin' to live
No more waitin', tonight I feel the light I say the prayer
I open the door, I climb the stairs...

"The Hitter"

Come to the door, Ma, and unlock the chain
I was just passin' through and got caught in the rain
There's nothin' I want, nothin' that you need say
Just let me lie down for a while and then I'll be on my way

I was no more than a kid when you put me on the Southern Queen
With the police on my back I fled to New Orleans
I fought in the dockyards and with the money that I made
And the fight was my home and any blood was my trade

Baton Rouge, Ponchatoula, and La Fayette town
Well they paid me the moon, Ma, to knock the men down
I did what I did, when it come easily
Restraint and mercy were always strangers to me

I fought champion Jack Thompson in a field full of mud
Rain poured through the tent to the canvas and mixed with our blood
In the twelfth, I slipped my tongue over my broken jaw
And I stood over him, pounded his blooded body into the floor

Well the bell rang and rang, still I kept on
'Til I felt my glove leather slip 'tween his skin and bone
And the women and the money came fast, in the days I lost track
The women red, the money green, but the numbers were black
I fought for the men in their silk suits to lay down their bets

"All I'm Thinkin' About"

One, two, three, four

Blind man wavin' by the side of the road
In a flatbed Ford carryin' a heavy load
Sweet thing sipping on a blueberry wine
On a flat black highway down in Carolina
Black bird slipping in a sky of blue

All I'm thinkin' about is you, baby
All I'm thinkin' about is you, honey
All I'm thinkin' about is you, baby
All I'm thinkin' about is you
There ain't nothing in this world I can do about it
All I'm thinkin' about is you

Little boy carryin' a fishing pole
Little girl pickin' huckleberries from off of the vine
Brown bag filled with a little green toad
We hook him through the the lip and throw him off with a line
A sweet pair of legs got me feelin' so blue

And all I'm thinkin' about is you, baby
All I'm thinkin' about is you
All I'm thinkin' about is you, baby
All I'm thinkin' about is you

"Matamoras Banks"

(Each year many die crossing the deserts,
mountains and rivers of our southern border
in search of a better life. Here I follow the
journey backwards, from the body at the
river bottom, to the man walking across
the desert towards the banks of the Rio Grande.)

For two days the river keeps you down
Then you rise to the light without a sound
Past the playgrounds and empty switching yards
The turtles eat the skin from your eyes, so they lay open to the stars

Your clothes give way to the current and river stone
'Till every trace of who you ever were is gone
And the things of the earth they make their claim
That the things of heaven may do the same