Jonathan Dowdle

Hometown Blues

It’s the hometown blues, With the weight of this night Calling dark and lonely From deep inside, And this big empty Doesn’t feel alright When I’m stuck with the image Of you tonight.

Through the city’s puddles I see fun house dreams I don’t know if I even Want to know what it means As the moon’s Luna Madness Whispers soft, below, I’m lost in the city That I used to know.

We used to paint the town red, each night, Now the lonely blues are all I have tonight, I don’t know how we pulled wrong from right, I’m just stuck with the Hometown blues tonight.

Waiting for a sign, Waiting for a call, To build me up When I feel so small. I don’t know how we pulled wrong from right, I’m just thinking of you tonight, I just have the hometown blues, tonight. I’m just lost in the image of you, tonight.

Out Of The Corner Of My Eye

Maybe out of the corner of my eye, Maybe out of the corner of a dream, Things will shake out and never be Quite what they first seem.

In the desperate struggle to believe In a world that is not undone, Maybe we can believe something good is coming In the belly of the burning sun.

And I know you want to give up, now, Yeah I know you want to quit, But what if there is something good coming At the end of all of this?

There has to be something still rising, There has to be a reason why, We trekked through the chaos and carnage That came with every falling sky.

Honey, maybe out of the corner of my eye, Maybe out of the corner of a dream, Things will shake out in the long run, If you still believe in me.

You Don't Know

On this lazy street corner Where the traffic flows Like the last heartbeat singing Out an old year, dried and dusted I think of you in your old black dress, The heels that caused you to slip Into the crack between your life That you split wider still

To rest, or to drown, To let yourself be undressed Beneath the weight of sound, To stop playing all the parts

You carried around In the trunk of your affection To beat back your affliction To beat the addiction of praise

And how do I fit into the story, these days? An old memory that might amaze, Or forgotten in some lonely grave? Does it even matter what we say?

Maybe you don’t know how it feels, To carry the weight of an aching heart, To put you back together, As you try to come apart. Are you winter now, falling like snow? Colder still, to the world you know? Lost in another fantastic dream, As you pull another stitch and seam?

Are you a wrecking ball To all you were, Breaking down the world To even the score?

Perhaps I should leave you alone To the bone, to the cold That you want to know, As you plagiarize another show. Maybe you don’t know how it feels, To carry the weight of an aching heart, To put you back together, As you fight to come apart.

And on the border of your tears, I watch your heartache sigh, As you stitch another excuse To write out the reason why

You barter and batter yourself Against each coming storm, Refusing to let yourself in, Or ever be truly warm.

Your smile lights up the fading night In an electric, plastic, hue, As you fidget off another stitch And slowly sink down through

The black depression of emptiness Written across your arms, and spine, As you tip your hat, with your heart in it, And say, softly: “I’ll be fine.”

Maybe you don’t know how it feels, To carry the weight of your aching dark, As you force a smile through another mile While I slowly come apart.

Grieving The Living

She’s a light still fighting to breathe Beneath the fading snow, And I’m ready to make peace, And I’m ready now, to go, I just want to know the wounds Are fading, steady, fast, And all of the weight Is something she’ll outlast.

It’s just one of those things That keeps breaking your heart, Tearing you up In the silence, in the dark, And maybe I’m just hoping Against every lost cause As I bleed out my faith Between the bars.

It was love, it was love But it was never right, And we’re still dancing the wrong way As we try to talk tonight, And she’s trying to drown, And she’s trying to rise above, And maybe it means nothing now, But, once, it was love.

And I’m grieving the living, It’s just another night, For all the wounds in battle, And all she had to fight, And I’m standing still in silence, And ready to walk away, It was love once upon a time, I don’t know what it is today.

And all the things we meant once, And all we tried to protect Are buried in the poems That pass on other breaths, And I still want to know she’s safe, I still want to know she’s well, As she tells me of the passages Through Dante’s hell

I no longer know what to say, Or how to cast the spell That brings people from the ashes Of their own hell, I just want to leave some peace Against the aching fight, And I’m searching for the word, Or goodbye, or goodnight