Frontier Ruckus - Granduncles of St. Lawrence County Lyrics
Papa’s standing sort of bovineIn the shrine of his brother’s room, the priestRecently deceased in this North Country heatLunch meat on the kitchen counterMary’s counting bug bites on a sunburned shoulderI’m counting sacramental rites and old crucifixesAll my great-uncles’ nights of *****tail mixesAre overThen we encounterAccidental modern radio hitsSpits his brother’s boom-boxFrom the room walks Papa and then sitsAnd then it’sTimeWhere the handicap tourist-trap putt-putt coursesAnd trailers patched with corrugated scrap metal and divorcesStandWell, I got a granduncle and he lives inlandWhere the pure manure summer vapors get fannedBy electric fence whir and a wave of the handOf the Amish infants standing barefoot in the sandWhile the gas-station kids hang out idle and blandAt the SubwayWell, him and Anne died down in some dim townWhere he built a swimming pool into the swampy farm groundWhere the accumulation of the dimming pounds downSince the 70sThe poolHas a cool blue aqua shadeLike the Gatorade that my dad likes to drinkWhere you’ll peer into the pump-house, dearOr the diving board where you laid on the brinkBut please don’t freeze or fadeLike the bottles of boozeThat snooze beneath the sinkAnd if my reasoning gets frayedIt’ll cauterize us tauter ties somedayI thinkWhen the roofers jump in the seawayAt midday in their jean-shorts to cool downWe’ll go down to MorristownAnd bask there in the decayAnd ask where our summer glories drownWith the subtle carnage of the bloated rock bassSucking in the bright sky summer boat gasFloating thereAs we boated pastSlinking through the stony Thousand IslandsThat go sinking in the water with the slickest absence of violenceButIn the musty attic loftI knew your young sore ecstatic softBodyThe waitress’ language was blaring out, “Can youBear the despair of the typos on the menu?”I wheeled you through the field with the billboardsYou wheeled the Ford to the sordid Price ChopperWhere every shopper was leaning in the struggle to standLike the green copper-stained gravestones that sink into the landThat nightEarthworms were squirming their way through my dark feelSome sermons found permanence on ancient-burned reel-to-reelIf permanence is arbitraryWho decides the summers where we willBe forever?I’d like to meet that thingIt’s a dimming thing
