King Magpie from Traveller's Moon by Adam McBride-Smith

King Magpie

Up from the lowlands with a railman’s smile
A blue flame burning at the bottom of the dial
Singing one for the rounders with their backs against the wall
King Magpie has come to call

You’d know that wounded gait at a glance
You’ve seen him spinning in a barroom dance
Talking like losing was the sweetest tune
And singing, “Fare thee well, Kentucky moon”

He’s seen the scrapyards and refinery fires
Heard starlings chatter like electric wires
A furl of black ash lifted by the heat
To settle aimless on the evening street

But he’s been up and down the broken coast
Rolled in the arms of the holy ghost
Followed the falling of a dying star
‘Till it was lost in the bright lights of the boulevard

He brings you colored glass and tinfoil flowers
Ornaments to brighten up your lonely hours
Penny postcards, kisses sweet as wine
King Magpie is on the line

He says, “You are my child, you are my darling one,
You are the chains I thought I could outrun
Whatever trinkets I have failed to fence
You may claim as your inheritance.”

So you go walking through the midnight air
Along those roads only the wild birds share
Through the static and the bare-faced shills
The whispered hush of all your nameless ills

Follow him out into the carnival night
Down past the dark end of the station lights
Where that wild unbounded country lies
Under the shelter of the starblown skies

The meadowlark sings sweetest psalms
Forsaken lovers all the mourning dove calms
And through the evening air the swallows fall
King magpie swallows them all

• Dirt Wave
• Folk
• folk
• singer-songwriter
• westcoast
• Portland