Tarot · Track 55 · middle
Six of Swords
RWS: a ferryman poling a flat boat carrying a cloaked woman and a child, six swords stuck upright through the hull, the water rough behind them and glassy ahead. Keywords: passage, leaving for somewhere better, sorrow brought along in the luggage, the quiet crossing.
No audio yet — generation pending.
Lyrics
[Intro] [Verse 1] The wake is a serrated edge on the stern, A chop and a churn in the black. The ferryman pushes his weight on the pole, And nobody here's looking back. I bundled you into the oversized cloak, Your head on my knee in the cold. We paid for the passage at 4:10 AM, With three duffel bags in the hold. The wind on the eastern bank howls like a lung, A bitter and battery air, But look at the water ahead of the bow— It’s quiet. It’s totally bare. [Chorus] We’re crossing the glass, we’re cutting the line, Leaving the turbulence out of the mind. But look at the floorboards, look at the deck— The steel that we took from the wreck. Six heavy blades driven right through the hull, A picket of iron and pride. We made our escape, but we brought the sharp things For the ride. [Verse 2] I thought we would leave all the logic behind, The tactical strikes of the tongue. But here they are standing up straight in the wood, The songs that the anger had sung. Six silver points piercing down through the flat, They rattle whenever we roll. I sit with my hand on the hilt of the third, And measure the depth of the bowl. My brain wants a pattern, it calculates draft, It measures our speed by the spray, We're floating on top of the weapons we used To finally cut us away. [Chorus] And we’re crossing the glass, we’re cutting the line, Leaving the turbulence out of the mind. But look at the floorboards, look at the deck— The steel that we took from the wreck. Six heavy blades driven right through the hull, A picket of iron and pride. We made our escape, but we brought the sharp things For the ride. [Bridge] The chop is receding, the water is flat, A mirror of mercury, heavy and fat. The kid is asleep and the ferryman rows, But the hull is admitting the cold through the toes. If I pull out a sword, then the river comes in, If I leave it alone, I remember the spin. The structure is built out of everything said, The grief is the keel and the bed. [Outro] So leave them stood up in the grain. The hilt in the hand and the wire in the brain. The shore is approaching, a sliver of gray. The water is smooth. We didn't sink. But the luggage is in the way.