Will Oldham: Black Dissimulation

(in parentheses are lines where the live version on the Boxhead Ensemble disc differs)

sweet ill health has hidden from me,
events about which one has no memory.
whether it is to protect or deny
one is not told and one asks not why.

the noise near the trees gathers into a block.
one drinks just to where one is able to talk.
tries to confuse things that surely occurred, (tries to accuse things that really weren't there)
by stretching and acting like one hasn't heard. (by shrugging and acting like one doesn't care)

blank indiscretion and testing of lines
at the end of a farm there to kick it.
to find a young dog, swollen and bald (to find a dead dog swollen and bald)
and to giggle and poke it and stick it.

to sit in the drive and pull a head down,
or to push in the way of an oncoming blow.
to take wine on holidays when no-one's in town
to dislike someone and let them so know.

let it burn out this morning at home. (well, I let it burn out this morning at home)
the stove and the kitchen; the howl and the steam.
and lay on the couch sometimes resting alone
in order to utter a decorative scream

discussed and disgust, and a pretense of light.
persistent denial, waylaid in the night.
ignoring the stupid and hating the silence
disliking the prurient, disdaining the violence.

denying the rice and accepting the drink.
however it comes at the start of a fall.
take it whenever you get it; you think
you're unlucky ever to get it all.

you're rude to the relatives; cold to the friends
unpleasant to god when he comes by the house
one tries to look cross (?) as the storm it begins
and goes to the inlet to see things out