My Mad Girl

I've had Newsom's 'In California' (from Have One on Me) in my head for the last week, and eventually I gave up and looked at lyrics (which are just as supple as the music). It's a kind of poetry that seems both embodied and fluid. Even if the words didn't string together - which they do - the pleasure of saying them would be enough. The words simultaneously portray and create longing.


My heart became a drunken runt
On the day I sunk in this shunt
To tap me clean
Of all the wonder
And the sorrow I have seen
Since I left my home

My home, on the old Milk Lake
Where the darkness does fall so fast
It feels like some kind of mistake
Just like they told you it would
Just like the Tulgeywood

When I came into my land
I did not understand
Neither dry rot, nor the burn pile
Nor the bark-beetle, nor the dry well
Nor the black bear

But there is another
Who is a little older
When I broke my bone
He carried me up from the riverside

To spend my life
In spitting-distance
Of the love that I have known
I must stay here, in an endless eventide

And if you come and see me
You will upset the order
You cannot come and see me
For I set myself apart
But when you come and see me
In California
You cross the border of my heart

Well, I have sown untidy furrows
Across my soul
But I am still a coward
Content to see my garden grow
So sweet and full
Of someone else's flowers

Sometimes I can almost feel the power
Sometimes I am so in love with you
Like a little clock that trembles on the edge of the hour
Only ever calling out "Cuckoo, cuckoo"

When I called you
You, little one
In a bad way
Did you love me
Do you spite me
Time will tell if I can be well
And rise to meet you rightly
While, moving across my land
Brandishing themselves
Like a burning branch
Advance the tallow-colored walleyed deer
Quiet as gondoliers
While I wait all night, for you in California
Watching the fox pick off my goldfish
From their sorry, golden state
And I am no longer
Afraid of anything
Save the life that, here, awaits

I don't belong to anyone
My heart is heavy as an oil drum
And I don't want to be alone
My heart is yellow as an ear of corn
And I have torn my soul apart
From pulling artlessly with fool commands
Some nights I just never go to sleep at all
And I stand
Shaking in my doorway like a sentinel
All alone
Bracing like the bow upon a ship
And fully abandoning
Any thought of anywhere
But home, my home
Sometimes I can almost feel the power
And I do love you
Is it only timing that has made it such a dark hour
Only ever chiming out "Cuckoo, cuckoo"

My heart, I wear you down
I know, gotta think straight
Keep a clean plate
Keep from wearing down
If I lose my head
Just where am I going to lay it

For it has half-ruined me to be hanging around
Here, among the daphne blooming out of the big brown
I am native to it, but I'm overgrown
I have choked my roots on the earth, as rich as roe
Here, down in California