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The Means of Grace

from Too Posh for Gavroche by Le Bas-fond

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about

This is about NAGPRA. (You should look it up). For Clay Dumont and Kathy Wallace

lyrics

Humble beginnings of an
Official film of the war department;
A meagerly successful endeavor

And it will break the world open
And from its lips come forth the songs
Of the whales
As their bones shine
Through their skin
And in their sorrows
Of deepest sorrows
They beach themselves.

Damned right out of the gate
Bleached bones articulate
What we’ll call “the means of grace”

And the words both written
And proclaimed
From those credible sources
Those incredible sources
All too posh for Gavroche
Which I take or leave as I please
Pretty words
Don’t mean nothing
Carrying the whale bones
In my breast pocket
Close to my heart

So now I must leave you
I’ve previous engagements
Check off all the sacraments
In form of a floor
Littered with old magazines

Hugo said, to paraphrase,
“All religion in this world
Must die and end
In order that God may
Live again.”

Let there be no confusion:
Gimme that old time Religion,
With shells and spirits
And the feathers and the sage

Don’t mistake my
Inability to articulate
My own rendition
Of
“the means of grace”

Bones in a box
That you plan to deface
With catalog serial numbers
And as my Ancestors ache
And my poor heart to break
As your try to save face
And tell me, dismissively,
About “absolution” as a step in the process to
the means of grace

and as my burning tears stream
through my terrible screams
you dismiss my claims
by telling me the ill-got bones
were done so through permissible means
and remind me it’s never too late,
though I make such a face,
to become well-informed
of what they call “the means’s of grace”

credits

from Too Posh for Gavroche, released July 14, 2014
Violin (a variation on Sinner, Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass, traditional) by Stephen Yogi

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Le Bas-fond San Francisco, California

Soprano, composer, cute animal enthusiast, synesthete. Aspiring werewolf. Graveyard girl. Like Snow White, only more maudlin. Reina Indígena. "tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties!"CREAG AN TUIRC.

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