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Boy in a Well

by The Yawpers

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    Includes the comic book written by Nate Cook and illustrated by J.D. Wilkes.
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  • Transparent blue & black swirl LP (ltd. edition of 500)
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1.
Open up the eyes the ground is bruised and colored in blood. The heart hides in darkness. Obscured by loss and war, By the mask of the fire. . . .the liar. In a swirl of smoke and breath of spring A shock white man starts digging trenches home again. Her body built for hunger like welling need. She lights the hearth of agony’s end. . . .the fire. She’s the water breaking out drowning the stone. He’s done and then it’s run, oh my lord. The boy now begun a dream alive from liars and desire. Child of War on Armistice Day.
2.
A bulge in my belly is what everyone knows A life that’s breathing, a primitive glow. A life that’s moving and stretching under my skin, Outward hand, another reaching within. A heart moves blood in tandem with mine. Me, myself, by extension, divine. Two children, one body, one girl, one son, What live could I give you when mine’s barely begun. Your life will be no rich reward. A (my) mirror that sings a genuine chord. This is a world that remains not awake, So here is a child that I must forsake. You draw my eyes with trembling tears, Swell my bosom, describe my fears, Toll nine times with the armistice bell Before momma gives my (the) baby to the well. Papa doesn’t want me and stands to condemn And momma’s convinced I’m an insult to them. I’m not gonna name you, decision is mine, I bear the same, I’ll repeat it, divine. We hide ourselves, you prodigal whore, You slanderous girl, you fester of war. Even in your center, your womb carries void, An apocalyptic child that should be destroyed. Call the doctor in to induce correction, Clean the sin, abort insurrection. With the morning light he’ll poison the seed, He’ll smother the blight; he’ll sickle the weed. The spasms come as I lay awake. This issue is mine, and mine only to take. Toll twelve times with the armistice bell, Momma, I take my body to the well. A rush of blood pours on the stone. A startled cry, flesh and bone. Her feet set wide across the ring. Three meters down he’s hanging from a string. C-C-C-C-CUT IT He’s falling.
3.
In the light from overhead A visitation comes Higher than the highest hand can touch. It lowers within reach. It knows not what it is. It know what is contained, Things that warm, things that taste, Things that move the dark away. Sight alone falls up. Something other, something tall. The visitor is all, and is gone. It is a path she’s walked before With a basket in each hand. An offering to the sacrificial lamb. The chalice in the ground. The lord’s celestial straw . . . My echoes reach the ear of god. Bread and butter, fruit and milk, Robes and bedding made of silk For the north star in the ground. A manger set alone. Frankincense and myrrh for the child in the stone, For the boy in the well.
4.
Sunrise, the calves are lowing in the field. A young man’s eye open to reveal To reveal the stone Waiting, picture floats down to the ground, Faces from a larger world . . . What is future, what is past Every cry returns to him. A room with an echo, a room with one wall, A well of hunger, consumes them all. A room with a view. . .of blue. Shuddering, he wipes the moisture from his brow Holds his knees and moans out loud, Moans out loud. Awaken, traveling from side to side, The wall of life, the sunlight’s tide. In the circle what way can be found. What is future, what is past Every cry returns to him. A room with an echo, a room with one wall, A well of hunger, consumes them all. A room with a view. . .of blue.
5.
Mon Dieu 03:53
The day is fading now and all the shadows swell. Twilight of the afternoon, something moves atop the well. Ears like fingers (Feet and fingers) (Something changes) It stops and lingers (and rearranges) Loses footing (purchase) Face down (falls) into the abyss. (Abyss, face meet halfway down.) A falling body bends (A fallen body soars Wide open as it descends Wide open as it ignores Where every future ends. Where rain and futures pour.) (Where rain is evermore) In the darkness all is swallowed up. (down) This child of the world above, Arriving in a stranger land. Figment of a greater (vaster) love In a cold unholy hand. Tiny body in joyous wake The point where waters break The line between bliss and pain. In the darkness nothing else remains. To hear, to feel, to touch is innocence undoing. A want, a hole too large will smother any breath. These roots and stones, and earth tied bones Exist alone, mon dieu. In the left hand The heart stops beating (Ah) In the right hand A fist is raised to god. A servant of original sin Knows death is there where love begins. He rises like a howl of wind. In the darkness someone will escape. To hear, to feel, to touch is innocence undoing. A want, a hole too large will smother any breath. These roots and stones, and earth tied bones Exist alone, mon dieu. He’s rising
6.
Anywhere, these fingers will bear. I’m just looking above. On stone, hands leave home. Maybe we’re headed to heaven. (Who is) I am all of these: the rung. I am all of these: the tongue. I am all of these: the sun. I am all of these. Blind light, end of the night. Is this the burden of love? Unseen in grasses so green, In the awe and anguish, now. I am all of these: the blood. I am all of these: the mud. I am all of these: the flood. I am all of these. In the awe and anguish now. Maybe we’re headed to heaven, boy.
7.
Mon Nom 03:56
Do you see a survivor? Do you see redemption’s end, Being here in a violent world making a violent man? Do you covet an angel? Do you reach with seeking hands? Do you hear a failure now whisper out another failed demand? Refrain: I am next to your wishes, I am close to your fears. I am the one that is here. Not me a freak of nature. Not me a grand mistake. Not me when a vision of neglected desire is coming back to shake the world awake. So I bear peculiar words. So I spread my arms out like wings. So I dress in beauty, and echo back every time beauty sings. Refrain: I am the pale surrender. I am the pale contender. I am the one you see. Come answer dark with refusal. Come see a promise kept. Come see the empty left hand, when nothing’s all that you got left. Watch the fire consume it And cry a savage verse. Watch the better angels of nature take a dive for the earth. Refrain: I am the view from afar. I am the living bazaar. Je suis le second avenement.
8.
Follow the path As a lost dog on the trail till A familiar scent and A door a face, what place is this? I’m coming through the darkness, I’m coming through the weeds, I’m coming to find my likeness. Her face drops me to my knees. Who am I? (Howl) A mother and her child. A zealot and her idol. The divine and his disciple. The intentions of god hey appear to her now and are naked and cruel. She drops her shawl. The Madonna drawn in Tender curves and traces Of strange and wonderful places. It’s coming the prophesy. It’s coming the light. It’s coming revelation.. Who am I? (Who I am) (Howl) A mother and her child. A zealot and her idol. The divine and his disciple.
9.
Suddenly there is rushing, Flooding of deeper waters. Everything loses shape As it sits in bright light. Collision of these bodies, Violent, unknowing, Visceral congress that Goes Uh Huh Uh Huh No Going Back. Lying in all the stillness, Madonna now has left him, No breath escapes from her lips. Shaking his heart like fingers, Back in the other world he knew, A wretched plea – this isn’t mine. He stands on the edge, and he cuts A thin, thin line. He has severed the last path to heaven oh He buries the line, buries the line. No Going Back.
10.
God's Mercy 02:06
Walking away on this terrible day When the world has no use left for me. Leaving her there with a cold distant stare Has taught me what loneliness can be. The world is on fire, in golden attire And time travels slowly as it burns. A promise must be kept, another body for the pyre, Before god’s mercy can return. Bear me now to my childhood home, Relieve me of all that I’ve done. This is a loveless world that I roam. Deliver me from the judgment of the sun. To the coal and the dark, a lost believer’s leap – Silently, I descend to my rest. To all god’s children being wrestled to sleep – In the end I’m sure it’s for the best.
11.
There’s a girl in the dining room with her vision pinned up to the roof She hasn’t slipped a word to ear since the second one started to move Linen for the orphan Linen from the bed Linen for the orphan Wrap itself up around his head Mother’s gone, but the child remains The doctor has to balance the books In a sheet, a shroud, a curtain Pregnant with the body it took Linen for the orphan Linen from the bed Linen for the orphan Wrap itself up around his head Mother sleeps with the devils and angels in the field of the storm and drum It’s a mercy, no child should witness all the violence that’s sure to come Linen for the orphan Linen from the bed Linen for the orphan Wrap itself up around his head Doctor, help this child close his eyes Bye bye baby Linen for the orphan Linen from the bed Linen for the orphan Wrap itself up around his head
12.
Reunion 04:04
A life is released, given to from whom he came In death reunion, father and son end the same Say farewell to all of these things What can you do? From a circle of blue over his head Another joins him in his sleep Celestial bed, quiet and honest, safe and deep Black becomes red, and the night becomes the day Everything’s said, and the moment turns away These bodies mingle, two are single here And this mortal music spins for years and years and years and years What can you do? From a circle of blue over his head Another joins him in his sleep Celestial bed, quiet and honest, safe and deep Black becomes, red and the night becomes the day Everything’s said…

about

Recorded by Alex Hall at Reliable Recordings in Chicago, IL
Co-produced by Tommy Stinson

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released August 18, 2017

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The Yawpers Boulder, Colorado

The Yawpers formed 2011 when guitarist Jesse Parmet and singer/guitarist Nate Cook played together at the only speakeasy in Boulder, CO. In August 2018, the band announced that Alex Koshak would be stepping in on drums as they headed into the studio to record their next album. The band’s name is a nod to Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”: “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. ... more

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