We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

diptych dipstych

by Protein Window

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Purchasable with gift card

     

about

"the fag-end of an over-warm May weekend"

lyrics

On Castle Field we cast long shadows, chasing down
the last warm gasps of sun across the turf,
the fag-end of an over-warm May weekend,
smelling of burned meat and charcoal, tasting
like summer come early, dying on the vine.


We drink as much for protection as for
anything else, though we're not sure what from:
Monday, the truth, that annoying co-worker,
each other and our infidelities. A secret shared,
all but forgotten in the hours of daylight,
buried deep like its subject and object;
this memory of a memory binds us up
in knots of old string and copper-core bell cable,
cuts off circulation to the limbs of
our souls. Necrotic hearts twitch in
a hazy unrehearsed syncopation
and the ethanol thumps along sluggish veins;
we drink to remember, but we forget what for.

The museum through the trees takes a big slow bite
from the grapefruit of the sun, and
gooseflesh flashes across our legs and arms,
a premonition of the cold and final sleep;
we laid her down in that lonely bed
so long ago – but not that long ago –
and still we're haunted by her sudden
leaving, slipping from the party long before
the kitchen knives come out, the gas goes on.
That's how she always left, I guess, but can't
remember clearly, and we can't discuss it, won't discuss it,
let it fester there in plain sight, eyes averted,
stinking out the place
like a racist joke told drunk and loudly
in an Albert Road curryhouse
by a good friend with a lot on his plate.

Maybe it's the old old fear
that we mustn't speak ill of the dead, and -
not knowing what the dead would think were ill -
we say nothing, emotion locked up, hunchbacked,
gnarled and twisted by the wind like the Castle Field trees
as they bow with sly deference to
the concrete hulk of the Pyramids, painted bright
with the last rouge smears of the sun.
Our make-up is slipping from our faces,
the masks are chafing hard and all we can blame
is each other, the setting sun, nothing at all.
The bottles clink empty notes from a tied-up Waitrose bag;
cicada flywheels tick and whirr across the grass;
inside the barbecue bin, the embers shake themselves awake
and vomit surly smoke into the dusk.

credits

released September 6, 2011
Rusty Sheriff, Paul Graham Raven, David Garibaldi

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Protein Window image

Protein Window UK

contact / help

Contact Protein Window

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Protein Window, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Saxophonist Isaiah Collier chats about his new LP and the influence of Pharoah Sanders.
listen now