Hope's Beautiful Daughter - Lyrics

IRENA

I am a tiny particle of light

A lonely atom trembling in the night

I am multiplied by millions

Divided by two

Lives and lies and bitter skies

And memories of you.

I was born before I was delivered

Sung before I took first breath

Singing songs of earthly shadows

Crawling from the clutch of death.

 

I was burnt by the blazing Torah

Blinded by the yellow star

I heard the sound of your voice

Echoing in the jar.

Say my name ten thousand times

Until your lips run dry

And bury it beneath the tree

Where curlews come to cry.

 

Stow it safely, wrap it well

Just like a babe new born

Hide it underneath the cross

Where sinners come to mourn.

 

Maybe someday someone

Who knows where to start

Will carve my name upon this tree

Inside a little heart.

 

SKELETON WOMAN

 

Tangled in a coracle

Tossed by the sea

The fisher line catches

And pulls her free.

 

Shivering hands caress

Sedna’s kelp ribs

Who will sing lullabies

To our silent cribs?

 

If you won’t unravel

My coral white bones

When we will wake up

We’ll both turn to stones.

 

Tinkle and clank and crawl

Tinkle and clank and crawl

Tinkle and clank and crawl

Flesh to flesh, soul to soul.

 

Come shed a tear

To quench my thirst

Bang on the ticking drum

Once for the skin

That smells like a spring

Twice for a honeyed tongue

Three times for a body

Not shamed or dismayed

Four times for a mortal heart

Not crushed or betrayed.

 

Tinkle and clank and crawl

Tinkle and clank and crawl

Tinkle and clank and crawl

Hand to hand, soul to soul.

Hand to hand, soul to soul.

 

When your drum of life

Plays out my plea

Surrender to your wounds

And lay next to me.

 

Tinkle and clank and crawl

Tinkle and clank and crawl

Scar to scar, soul to soul.

Tinkle and clank.

 

FRIDA

 

Dark is the night in the belly of dreams

The cradle of death is as near as it seems

If rivers of tears would fill out the sea

I’d drown all my pain for you and for me.

 

May those arms gently rock me

Living waters wash away

Great black hole that swallows limbs

Of a body that no longer screams.

 

What grows from Eve’s rib will not stand alone

The power of life is written in stone

Who is willing to break it apart

Raven that pecks the drum of my heart.

 

May those arms gently rock me

Living waters wash away

Lips that can no longer tell

Who can break this earthly spell.

 

The curse of white hell is all that I fear

Night creeps in, the end it is near

Red are the sheets, red is my blood

Wild as a fire and quick as a flood.

 

May those arms gently rock me

Living waters wash away

Smell of earth and my last breath

A life that’s stronger still than death.

 

May those arms gently rock me

Living waters wash away

A cry for help so you can hear

The sound of my own uncried tear.

 

SISTER SUN

 

Cut me out in little stars

Carve me from your dark sway

Chisel me like a marble piece

You’re the sculptor and I’m your clay.

 

Steal the timbre from the singer

A coin from the tongue of the gallant dead

Mould my breath to ancient wisdom

Tuck the demons into bed.

 

But you cover me with lifeless kisses

Lay down on me like a heavy night

Slit my breast and feed your hunger

Let the darkness bear away the light!

 

I will burst in my solar wrath

In silver temple you will cower

I’m a priestess of the crescent moon

A fearless tamer of your power!

 

When the years do swallow all your tales

And the crowns they leave the trees

You will rise from your forsaken dream

And place a new dawn on my knees.

 

SVARILO JANEZU

 

Pr'jat’li jaz 'mam eno štor'jo

vam zdej jo povedala bom

na urgenco me zakon je spravu

dal potpludbe in dvojni zlom.

 

Pa bom šla in se fejst ga napila

da vso bolečino utopim

da zberem pogum in si rečem

Janez, jutr' te jaz zapustim.

 

Ko Janez pride iz šihta

pretepe me kot žival

If I say a word I get battered

From the kitchen right ben to the room.

 

So I’ll go and I’ll get blue bleezin’ blind drunk

da vso bolečino utopim

da zberem pogum in si rečem

Janez, jutr' te jaz zapustim.

 

Of whisky I've ne'er been a lover

But what can a poor woman do

zjutri spet treba vstat bo

in se delat, da vse lohk zdržim.

 

So I’ll go and I’ll get blue bleezin' blind drunk

Just to give you a warning

da zberem pogum in ti rečem

Janez, jutr' te jaz zapustim.

 

ROSA

 

An empty sound seals my mouth

This cherub’s wings are too fragile to fly

Wearing your nerves, tears and trifles

Painful bruises you do deny.

 

I will break you, bite you, terrorize you

My golden one, my child, my ape

I will grieve alone in my blue places

Hide the traces that bear no shape.

 

Why in this life I must suffer these loud, piercing, slashing impressions, when inside me, eternally, a longing for peace and harmony is crying?

 

Let the cages of the imprisoned rattle

And freedom flow through our veins

Those who don’t break their deathly stillness

Do not notice their heavy chains.

 

Carry your fight, rise up high

Like a raging storm on the sea

Hear the call of this little bird

I was, I am and I shall be!

 

(free…free…forever free!…free…free….forever free!)

 

To be a human being means to joyfully toss your entire life “on the giant scales of fate” if it must be so… it means to be firm and clear and cheerful in spite of everything and anything, because howling is the business of the weak!

 

…The most revolutionary thing is to always proclaim loudly what is happening!

(El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!)

The masses are always what they must be according to the circumstances of the times and they are always on the verge of becoming something totally different from what they seem to be.


I am at home in the entire world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears.

 

In the dark of night I smile at life

I dissolve in its shimmering splendor

I am the world; the world is mine

To its beauty I gently surrender.

 

In spite of the snow and frost and loneliness, we believe – the titmice and I – in the coming of spring! And if out of impatience I don’t live through it, then don’t forget that on my gravestone nothing is to appear except that “Tsvee-tsvee”…

 

 

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