Standing Eight Count - Jakob Dylan

In which direction are we going?

How many runaways are we stowing?

Over the black sea with your arms around me

In whose honor have we gone missing?

I am too hungry to imagine

A different ending to this famine

In the building chaos of calendars and clocks

I missed a mark somewhere and I got us lost

It’s a standing eight count

Out on the darker shore less waters

Comrade do you think we’ll go under?

On which horizon is my lover waking up?

You pass this bottle and then I think too much

I lean your body up against me

And make believe that you still want me

The swell of white caps and a silver streak of light

Here on the bowline we pay dearly for our size

It’s a standing eight count

Lessons will come, wisdom will wait

Whatever it does, it’s too late

What good are we now?

Our backs on the ground

Our faces both bloodied and bowed

When we oughta know better by now

The flat and troubled, shapeless earth

It stretches further then you’ve heard

There’s no love like our love

And none older, none as cursed

You hurt the ones you love

And we couldn’t do much worse

How many fingers am I showing?

How many tears are you withholding?

There’s beads of sweat pouring in our eyes

If it were blood, we wouldn’t know it

It’s a stand, it’s standing eight count