November – Story Thieves
“Story Thieves”, by Jane McArthur
……..There was a time when I thought it was worth the crime. But then things shifted on a dime, and everything save for the trying was vaporised like mystery and all the love I used to see, the colours that I used to be, held weight of an infinity when revealed as unreality.
It’s not how it was meant to be.
……..no, It’s not OK; the countless poison lies we say to keep our hungry minds at bay and curiosity won’t stay buried, still. I’m losing sight more each day and every night of everything I thought was right and all my allies in this plight are gone and then one said to me:”The treasure is fantasy!” – the dream they sold – a fallacy, like trying to hold onto the sea, like so much smoke run through your hands. So why seek answers in foreign lands, or run for days through yielding sands, or weather seas not made for man in leaky boats? Go and make your peace because there’s nothing here that you can’t see – a fiction, or reality. For the price you pay it comes for free and as for your God in whom you pride, your Lucifer’s the other side so every due you think you’ve paid the truth is that it pays both ways, and all that’s left of you and me is a story told by story thieves, or the softly fall of dying leaves, the icy drip from wintered eaves, or a dream dreamt by a child one night escaped across the rooftops bright as witnessed by the laughing moon, who knows the end comes all too soon and knows the end comes all too real to all that’s dust and corporeal. The answer’s never meaningless, the question’s where the meaning’s lost. The question’s where the meaning’s lost. It’s not how it was meant to be.
……. bow to your puppeteer; the spirits shouting in your ear – sound tempered by ten thousand years – who shout so loud you cannot hear and still you tell yourself you know the reasons why you stop and go, why you leap and duck so low, the reasons why those tears they flow like tiny rivers down your face – they echo of a different place, a sorrow blind but not removed, a hurt eternally unsoothed by mother’s hands, and so on it goes; sons and daughters carry the show un-seeking answers that no-one knows, cause Eve already took that blow. But are you made of stronger stuff? Does your heart beat loud enough to hear above the emptiness of all the chaos born of bliss constructed by a hungriness. 10 billion souls made meaningless. Escape the deadly drowning mire trying to ignore the fire burning closer everyday. Don’t listen to the lies they say. Don’t listen to the lies we say. Don’t listen to the lies I say. Don’t listen to the lies you say. Don’t listen to the lies you say. Don’t listen to the lies you say. The lies you say.
Written, vocals and banjo by: Jane McArthur
Cello: Melanie Robinson
Samples: Rob McPherson
Produced, Mixed and Recorded: Rob McPherson (Tintern Studios)
Mastered: Adam Dempsey (Jack The Bear Deluxe Mastering)
