The Grin in the Wreckage (Buster Keaton)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
The front
of a house
fell on you
in nineteen twenty-eight
and you lived
because you were standing
in the exact spot
where the attic window
passed over you
and the exact spot
had the cool
chalk-line precision
of a man
who has measured
the window
and measured
his own shoulders
and trusts
the measurement
more
than he trusts
the house.

[Verse 2]
You never smiled
on camera
and the not-smiling
had the dry
greasepaint weight
of a contract
between a face
and an audience —
the face
would do
impossible things
and the face
would not
acknowledge
that the things
were impossible
and the audience
would do
the smiling
for both of you
because the cerebellum
of a man
who can fall
down a flight
of stairs
without
tensing
a single
voluntary muscle
has renegotiated
its relationship
with gravity
and gravity
has agreed
to the terms.

[Chorus]
You broke
your neck
during a stunt
in nineteen twenty-four
and did not
find out
for years
because you
did not
go
to a doctor
because the neck
still worked
and the take
was good
and the take
had the warm
nitrate-silver smell
of a strip of film
that does not know
it contains
a miracle
and does not
need to know.

[Outro]
The talkies
came
and the studios
gave you
a script
and a voice
and took away
the face
and the staircase
and the window
and the neck
and you
drank
for twenty years
because the instrument
you had spent
your life
tuning
had been
asked
to do
a different job
and the instrument
did not
do the different job
and the instrument
was not wrong.

The house
is still falling.
The window
is still
the right size.
The face
is still
not smiling.
The audience
is still doing
the smiling
for both of you.

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