Length of a Minute

from Behold and Begone by Hovering Shrikes

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

lyrics

Porch light on and ice all gone and crane flies at the jamb,
she pulled the door behind her hard and lit the hallway lamp.
Like a single blood cell lingering in an artery’s mesh stent,
she shambled to the bathroom, moving barely inch by inch.
She flipped a switch. The filament hissed lonely as the rest.
It was dim and dimly orange, and she unzipped her dress,
which, somehow, in the eventide, was beaming iris blue.
There would be no parties from now on for him not to come to.

But dancing is desperate with no one to see,
so she leaves dreams of leaping to inchoacy.
A forkful of cake with the icing turned stiff
and it’s off to her bedroom, all in and adrift.

The length of a minute:
awake or asleep,
which side of the door,
who’s needed, who needs,
how trapped is the stomach,
how awful the pause,
how bitter the extract,
how certain the lungs, the lungs?

And where was he while she watched for his framework to emerge
from amidst the listing willows where her reveries converged?
He was home and holding only to the safety in his fist
and the foam he motioned over himself as all onanists.
As a clay-worker must draw a scalpeled line to build a face,
so he must cut away the excess for something real to take its place.
He was pulling the blade head to toe in calculated strokes,
lingering for hours at the meat, his begging throat.

But who is a watch hand to tell a man’s wrist
when to quicken its pulse, when to widen its slit?
The redshift, the blueshift, dilations of time —
these slip through his fingers like rippling chimes.

The length of a minute:
awake or asleep,
which side of the door,
who’s needed, who needs,
how trapped is the stomach,
how awful the pause,
how bitter the extract,
how certain the lungs, the lungs?

credits

from Behold and Begone, released November 4, 2022

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Hovering Shrikes image

Hovering Shrikes Portland, Oregon

Lyric-driven post-punk from Portland.

contact / help

Contact Hovering Shrikes

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Hovering Shrikes, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featured guests are the golden-voiced Baby Rose and psyche soulsters Brainstory.
listen now