“Hart Crane Pike” by forgetters lyrics

“Hart Crane Pike” (Live Studio Performance, Nov 2010) Hit It or Quit It #19 @ YouTube.com

“. . . how do you introduce yourself to the darkness in the world, and how do you walk away from it and have something other than despair and grief to speak of? . . . you know, we have a way of talking about beauty as though beauty were only skin deep, but real beauty is so deep you have to move into darkness in order to understand what beauty is . . .”

In the city, in the summer of the city: record weather; the war is everywhere unsaid

On the outskirts at the railing, we lean in: it’s no postcard; you’ve seen the shadows in the tower

I hold your arm like warm marble; holding on dead center; your world is knocking on the air

Are you coastal? Are you wayward? Mid-Atlantic, unstated; we seek the uncommon era

And we can go there in a Hart Crane Pike in a fugitive moment

Black glass and white metal tied up in yellow ribbon; the less we say the more it gathers

Tunnel vision and blood libel; holy rollers (holy drugs) and show trials; I see the angel in the tower

And we can go there in a Hart Crane Pike in a fugitive moment

We’ve seen the night lifted in your arms; you’re still as stone

Into the eye of darkness made visible; and we’re lost at home

Can you concede there is danger in your innocence?

And can you believe in someone else’s?

Can you believe? . . . Can you believe? . . . Can you believe!? . . . Can you believe?

“. . . if you try to separate these two things, you’re in trouble. What you must do is build a system of civilization that is as aware of darkness as it is of beauty. I would feel on thin ice if the world were nothing but beauty . . .”

Transcript of Barry Lopez’s interview on the Apr 2010 finale of Bill Moyers Journal @ PBS.org

Hit It or Quit It #19 @ WBEZ.org

“Hart Crane Pike” (Live, Jan 2011) @ YouTube.com

“I Think About War” (Live, Mar 2013) @ YouTube.com

Sep 2024

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