The Lyric Poetry of Greg Greenway "I gave them the heart of a fugitive fleeing himself"

G tuning (DGDGBD) Capo on 2
In the back of the paper was an old photograph
from a century ago
of a young pony soldier mounted on guard
with blankets strewn across the snow.
It was a time whose time had come
Through the years of the picture
through the look of a soldier
I see somebody’s son
Somewhere inside him were the words that divided
his heart from his gun
It was a time whose time had come
Hidden from the camera, underneath the blankets
were somebody’s sons

When there is no hope, there is only hope
When there is no dream to carry through.
It is all for a moment of twisted romance
It is only a ghost dance they do.

From the vision of a holy man whose race was clinging
to its place in this world
He gave to them a Ghost Dance, he knew that our lives
are just a shadow of the real.
lt was a time whose time had come.
Hidden from the camera
underneath the blankets
were somebody’s sons.

Chorus

That was so long ago
the world is so much different now

ln the middle of a no-mans land on the side of a building
‘in a desert of concrete
was a small graffiti tombstone for a disconnected life
that barely made it to nineteen.
lt is a time whose time has come
They leave for us a ghost dance
a world that needs more blankets
and doesn’t need its sans.

Chorus

G/C tuning (CGDGBD) capo on 4
I took up the cause, two for the road
as far as we got we still never got close
to the hole in the center, down to the urgency,
the cries in the darkness, the darkness.

I am not a child, I don’t want the moon
but it echoes so loudly in this vacant room
a light in the distance, down to the urgency
the weight on my shoulders, holding me, holding me.

I carried it for so long
I took it with all my faith
I’m gonna lay down this weight
and walk away

The more that I laugh, the more l’m immune.
It’s always the laughter that touches the truth,
under the surface, down to the urgency,
beyond my intention
saving, saving me

Chorus

Gm/C tuning (CGDGBflatD) Capo on 4
ls it as clear as it shows on your face.
So sure, with no reservation
while I’m afraid of some shadow in my head.
The faintest uncertainty,
when someone else’s love depends on me.
I was born on the wrong side ol the sun
drawn to the darkness
in love with the horizon.
Always off, always all on some crusade
the safest place to hide
I could not ever bear to make you cry.

Il I could pray. If I could fly
If I could find a god up in the sky,
then I would fall on my knees, its true,
and bear a hundred years of solitude.

Who can say always, who knows enough
When I say always, it’s always off
always off on come crusade
the safest place to hide.
I could not ever bear to make you cry.

Chorus

G/C tuning (CGDGBD) Capo on 2
When I came to this green country
I knew a part of me would stay
with the castles in the mist
on cliffs above an ocean’s rage
against an island too beautiful to be
so poor and divided
its children born to leave.

It is a legacy of longing,
a hole that’s never filled,
it’s an overwhelming friction
that gives poets to the world,
that speak to the unspoken,
to the demons of their sleep,
to the barbed wire baracades,
and the history
of singing for the landlord
and starving.

I never heard so clearly
until I had to go back home
with a plane full of visions
to a country of my own,
to all of the dark faces
in the pressed clean uniforms.
I realized my ears were opened
they’d heard it all before,
singing for the landlord and starving.

If I ever had a dollar to throw away.
If I ever had a wish, a wish that I could
waste on sheer desire
maybe then l’d understand
how the deaf become so mighty,
the mighty keep the land
singing for the landlord and starving.

G tuning, no Capo
I just met my long-time friend,
who showed me life through a broken lens.
He left a shambles in his wake,
and all the time he wore my face.
The face I never saw as me
through the cold caprice of chemistry.
The hardest part for me to take
is he put that face on your heartbreak.

Oh, my love, I have been betrayed
by the thoughts I think, by the words I say
Oh, my love, I have been deceived
by the war raging inside of me.

The fewest atoms out of place
the smallest ghost In a vast machine
have cast me in this life long role
of a problem man with an angry soul.
The bitter twist is at the end
they can mend this broken lens
and give my life a chance to heal
but you and I, we never will.
Never will

Chorus

C9 tuning (CGDGCD) Capo on 2
Boys from the city
don’t leave their backs exposed.
The lesson comes early,
you keep only what you can hold.
Keep out of your head
what you watch through windows.

Last in the line, you make do
you make things last.
Until making do
is the natural part of the mask,
Laughter in hallways
echoing out of grasp.

People who gave me their love
they gave me themselves.
I gave them the heart
of a fugitive fleeing himself,
one doorway away from
a night forever falling.

Through windows, down hallways,
behind a door, my life would be
through windows, down hallways,
behind a door, my life would be
under a night forever falling.

This was all I knew was true,
til the night fell filled with you.

Out in the dark in the sand
with my back to the sky.
Naked and breathing your breath
I give you my life.
The sea and the stars and the moon
travel up through my spine.

Chorus

G tuning (DGDGBD) Capo on 4
Sky’s so wide and the world’s so big.
How could it find the way
into so small a space under the sun.
Put in the air by a blind revenge,
she never would see the face
never would know the name of the one.

She was a young girl sitting on a mailbox,
a young girl, her friends were all smiling.
Then she was a headline, for being in the wrong place,
a headline for living in a senseless time gone wrong.
And now she’s iust gone.

Into the day without a trace
nothing she could have done.
It tells you when it is time,
your time has come.
You shake your head for the ones she loved,
feel for the ones she knew,
pray if you don’t find harm,
it won’t find you,

Chorus

If I go in the wink of an eye,
I would not change a thing,
that I was a singer with a chance to sing,
If I go in the wink of an eye,
my love, it would not erase
the mornings I watched the sun
warm you awake.

Chorus

D tuning (DADF#AD) No Capo
I went to my house, turned on the T.V.,
put on some CD’s, up loud in my face.
But it still could not drown out
the sound I was hearing,
the sounds from my windbw
from a far away place,

I’d forgotten all night, I’d‘forgotten all morning
in spite of the hate and the struggle forewarned.
What once was, now is changing
the sound at my window,
a country is born.

One man, one woman, one vote
One man, one woman, one vote,
One land, one country, one hope’
One man, one woman. One.

I saw the picture of a woman
who had waited forever,
whose whole life was taken
in the back of a truck
that pulled up at midnight
said there’s no time for thinking,
your family is moving, your Iand’s given up,
She waited in line, she waited all morning,
held up by her cane and her friends
and her pride. 
What once was, now is changing
She’s the only one left
to vote from her tribe.

Chorus

There was a man up in Boston
who was telling his story,
how he’d fled from his homeland,
fled under the gun.
How he never believed
he’d again see the sunshine,
how he never believed
he would see this day come.
He waited half the night,
he waiting all morning
to forgive the unforgettable
sins of the past.
For what once was, now is changing,
he waiting half the night
to be the first ballot cast.

Chorus

Gm/C tuning (CGDGBflatD) Capo on 3
One day I stood at the edge of the world.
I now know to call it September.
I learned from the sea how to hold such light
gently, lightly
Gently, lightly, I hold this light, gently, lightly

All of the forces that live in this world
meet at the edge af the ocean.
Brilliant and bursting, held in such light
gently, lightly.

Love exists in as many ways
as there are angles of the sun on the ocean.

All of the voices that never resolve
mirrored in urgent September.
Held for one moment, held in such light
gently, lightly

Chorus

All of the votces that never resolve
the forces that hold them forever.
I learned from this day how to hold this life,
gently, lightly

Chorus

(Why must I always keep hearing my name
as if somehow I could answer.
I have what I need and I need what I have.
How can I change the world?
I need a hand. When did you last ask?
Somehow, somewhere,
somebody changed the world)

a cappella
lf these walls were breathing,
if these walls could speak,
they’d betray the secrets
of the house on the shaded street.
Once these walls were shelter,
the rooms that framed our lives,
now they iust reflect the blue lights
flashing through the blinds.

There’s a crack in the wall where we live,
something broken in our own house.
There’s a crack in the wall where we live.
Something is getting aut.

Breathe the air electric
The pressure builds the heat.
The handed down tradition
of planting a bitter seed.
A seed that grows in anger,
that blooms in bleak decor
And hides behind these wall
implanted inside the boy next door

Chorus

The hand that’s raised in anger
is harvested in pain.
We give what we get, and then,

we give and we give, again and again

Chorus

Drop D (DADGBE) Capo on 3
Late at night, before I sleep, no lies remain.
It’s the deal I made long ago to keep me sane,
just sane enough that the truth is no place to be.
Don’t you go so far away from me.

There is no give to a mind made up to a test of pride.
The wall went up, in a silent stroke
and I was outside,
holding up walls of my own I could never see.
Don’t you go so .far away from me.

Don’t you go so far from me
No one remembers who is to blame.
What’s so wrong that it won’t fade.
Don’t you go so far from me.

In the light of day,
it’s an arrangement of tables and chairs,
and the vacant touch of the hands that once
had put them there.
left in a landscape of Iife that has ceased to be.
Don’t you go so far away from me.

Chorus

Drop D (DADGBD) Capo on 3
The sun came up down an old dirt road
saying, ‘ hello, new day, hello’.
It shone on my back like a father’s hand
saying, ‘my son, you have grown

Sun goes upfmqgn goes dawn
and you knew from the start,
the measure of all things
is still the heart.

The bum laid down in a rain wet street,
saying, ‘I don’t care, Idon’t carel’m far too deep in this cold dark well
of things that keep me here.”

Chorus

On wings of wax, he flew too high
until he fell into the sea.
The ship sailed on and the farmer plowed
and the day passed gracefully

Chorus