Okkervil River Lyrics
Okkervil River Song
Down by Okkervil River slow silent thick and black, I stared into the water, and
the water it stared back. The night it fell from tangles of the branches on the
shore as it had on Okkervil River before. Down by Okkervil River's cigarettes
and rusty tires, we made ourselves an altar, we lit our nightly fires. And the
smoke lay thick and smothered all the skunk cabbage and vines where Gods were
born and Gods lay down to die. With your hand inside my pocket, you whispered in
my ear “We have come from ugliness to find some refuge here. With this bracken
for a blanket, where these limbs stick out like bones, we have found a place
where we can be alone.” And I tried to tell you, as I kissed your hard dry lips,
all the things I dreamed about. I touched your bone white hips. Far away our
parents slept in while we watched our fire burn. They dreamed of nothing and got
nothing in return. And the water slipped on slowly past our bodies in the weeds,
pulling plastic wrap and razors on its current through the reeds. Then I woke up
one cold morning, felt an absence at my back, and I searched and stared but only
the river stared back.