josh ritter
thin blue flame
I became a thin blue flame Polished on a mountain range And over hills and fields I flew Wrapped up in a royal blue I flew over Royal City last night A bullfighter on the horns of a new moon's light Caesar's ghost I saw the war-time tides The prince of Denmark's father's still and quiet And the whole world was looking to get drowned Trees were a fist shaking themselves at the clouds I looked over curtains and it was then that I knew Only a full house gonna make it through  I became a thin blue wire That held the world above the fire And so it was I saw behind Heaven's just a thin blue line If God's up there he's in a cold dark room The heavenly host are just the cold dark moons He bent down and made the world in seven days And ever since he's been a'walking away Mixing with nitrogen in lonely holes Where neither seraphim or raindrops go I see an old man wandering the halls alone Only a full house gonna make a home  I became a thin blue stream The smoke between asleep and dreams And in that clear blue undertow I saw Royal City far below Borders soft with refugees Streets a'swimming with amputees  It's a Bible or a bullet they put over your heart It's getting harder and harder to tell them apart Days are nights and the nights are long Beating hearts blossom into walking bombs And those still looking in the clear blue sky for a sign Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine Now the wolves are howling at our door Singing bout vengeance like it's the joy of the Lord Bringing justice to the enemies not the other way round They're guilty when killed and they're killed where they're found If what's loosed on earth will be loosed up on high It's a Hell of a Heaven we must go to when we die Where even Laurel begs Hardy for vengeance please The fat man is crying on his hands and his knees Back in the peacetime he caught roses on the stage Now he twists indecision takes bourbon for rage Lead pellets peppering aluminum Halcyon, laudanum and Opium  Sings kiss thee hardy this poisoned cup His winding sheet is busy winding up  In darkness he looks for the light that has died But you need faith for the same reasons that it's so hard to find And this whole thing is headed for a terrible wreck And like good tragedy that's what we expect At night I make plans for a city laid down Like the hips of a girl on the spring covered ground Spirals and capitals like the twist of a script Streets named for heroes that could almost exist The fruit trees of Eden and the gardens that seem To float like the smoke from a lithium dream Cedar trees growing in the cool of the squares The young women walking in the portals of prayer And the future glass buildings and the past an address And the weddings in pollen and the wine bottomless And all wrongs forgotten and all vengeance made right The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night The future descending like a bright chandelier And the world just beginning and the guests in good cheer In Royal City I fell into a trance Oh it's hell to believe there ain't a hell of a chance  I woke beneath a clear blue sky The sun a shout the breeze a sigh  My old hometown and the streets I knew Were wrapped up in a royal blue  I heard my friends laughing out across the fields The girls in the gloaming and the birds on the wheel The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay Cicadas electric in the heat of the day A run of Three Sisters and the flush of the land And the lake was a diamond in the valley's hand The straight of the highway and the scattered out hearts They were coming together they pulling apart And angels everywhere were in my midst In the ones that I loved in the ones that I kissed I wondered what it was I'd been looking for up above Heaven is so big there ain't no need to look up So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air Only a full house gonna have a prayer