August 6Th Cifras

[Verse]
Bm                                D
Aug. 6th, carved in desks with old knives:
                               A
“Back when our common cause was alive
                                          Bm
And--let’s say--the hyacinth fields were in bloom
                                        D
Children watched as the soldiers marched by
                                      A
All the birds fell like frogs from the sky
                                       Bm
Prostrate in the streets every crescent moon
                                   D
Lonesome offspring of which still resound
                                               A
With the victimless sins of their authors passed down
                                             Bm
And the remnants of loathsome, disjointed worlds
                                         D
Along the short path round the lily pad pond
                                     A
With off-white deerskin wedding dress on
                                             Bm
German songs, homemade bonnets like old-order, amish girls jilted by squirrels
                       D
In the parks of Sioux Falls haunted by church bells
               A
Like ghosts of applause and the earth deep down tire-stacked walls like
    Bm                                         D                                         A
New Mexico, peaceful as moth-bitten pincushion dolls making up myths about wounds without cause...”
                                                Bm
And sometimes when it’s quiet my heart feels like Guernica
                                              D
[scenes from old air raid] on screens in blue dusk
                                                       A
Perfumed neighborhoods/graveyards the breath feels like flies in my lungs, voice like ambulance
            Bm
Sirens whose light floods the ground
                                       D
(“praying mantis spreads arms” said the lines of whose palm?)
                                   A
Skyline shifting like clouds became “airplane descends”
                                    Bm
[fade to scenes on the ground] human foreheads all smashed
                                D
Foreign cars upside down, insect mouths open wide
                                   A
I stared down a huge insect, bright red-glowing eyes
                                        Bm
[does it feel wrong to say a thought “metastasized”?], legs on both highway sides
 
[Break]
F#m  A  G
 
(Said insect was mechanized!)
 
F#m  A  G  Em
F#m  A  G
 
(Said insect was mechanized!)
X