FLINT IN GLASS
The "Old World" was a window, clear and wide and tall Until the sky got heavy and we watched the glass all fall Now the ditches are a-glitter with the spirits of the dead Whiskey jars and medicine for a fever in the head I found a thick-hipped bottle, settled in the red-clay mud I ain't lookin' for a drink, boys, I’m lookin' for some blood
It’s flint in the glass, it’s a bite in the bone Turnin' what they wasted into somethin' of my own Pressure on the edge 'til the fracture starts to sing A thousand little snappings for a jagged-tooth thing Sharper than a memory, harder than the rain Life is in the bottle once you take away the pain
I sat beneath the hemlock with a whitetail antler tip Pushin' at the shards upon that green-glass lip You gotta tease the fracture, you gotta wait your turn Survival is a lesson that the impatient never learn A flake falls in the dirt like a scale off a snake The sharpest bit of light that a man can ever make It’ll skin a buck in winter, it’ll cut a cord of hemp It don't look like much, but it’ll keep a soul exempt
It’s flint in the glass, it’s a bite in the bone Turnin' what they wasted into somethin' of my own Pressure on the edge 'til the fracture starts to sing A thousand little snappings for a jagged-tooth thing Sharper than a memory, harder than the rain Life is in the bottle once you take away the pain
They thought it was for holdin' gin They thought it was for holdin' sin But I see a blade where they saw a jar I see a light in a jagged scar
It’s flint in the glass, it’s a bite in the bone Turnin' what they wasted into somethin' of my own Pressure on the edge 'til the fracture starts to sing A thousand little snappings for a jagged-tooth thing Sharper than a memory, harder than the rain Life is in the bottle once you take away the pain
Watch your fingers, boys... The glass remembers everything.