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how many whales there are in this world (feat. Izzy Payero​-​Cabral)

from how many whales there are in this world by Ghost Dads

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lyrics

(Postcards from Nova Scotia

Four walls of fog
rubbing

against two sides
of the boat;

the diesel engine
shutdown leaving us,

twenty empty
vessels in one full one,

bobbing blindly in the
Atlantic.

“Try listening,” a voice,
the guide’s

out of
nowhere, says.

Whale listening, then—
we’ve paid

to listen to whales….
Like pyramid

smelling or
symphony seeing,

not a trade wind,
generally,

to tourist
satisfaction. But

make do
we must,

and so lean
into the soupy silence

like figureheads on sinking
expectations.

But all I hear is
the slop

of water
in the bilge,

a furtive potato
chip,

a man farting somewhere
on a fishing boat,

until a child
finally asks,

“What are
we listening for, anyway?

A splash? Some kind
of song?”

“For something large
and genuine,”

that voice again
replies.

“And like anything
large

and genuine,”
it says,

“you’ll
know it when

you don’t
hear it.”

Ah! Like death, then,
and love,

mercy and sacrifice,
too;

like deceit, grace
and denial;

what fathers don’t
say, all that

Basho didn’t write,
the only thing

Beethoven, finally,
could hear. Oh,

Dear Mother,
I think

you told me, though
I never heard,

how many
whales there are in this world.)

(Fishermen wait
Vessels bob
The ocean is, content to
just be as it always has.
as it should

We know this

But what is it to be its
breathing face?
Its cleansing teeth?
That thing we cling to when
we forget that dinosaurs are real?
The feeling of sated
unknowledge that comes;

that holds

The only god we can see,
and so we scramble onto boats,
praying to just maybe be in the
vicinity of
something
we can't believe

The thing that keeps marine
biologists awake as they
drive back through
the dark to their homes
every night,
counting on their fingers,
again,
and again,
and
again.)

(Light
bends and leans against me

Fingers
trace underneath and between my eyes

These contours
we question and create

Our center
we detach and displace)

credits

from how many whales there are in this world, released December 31, 2014
Spoken Word Voice #1 (Postcards from Nova Scotia): Barbara Keenlyside, written by Christopher Kingsley
Spoken Word Voice #2: Liam Kingsley, written by Liam Kingsley
Spoken Word Voice #3: Eddie Maurer, written by Eddie Maurer
Acoustic Guitar, Banjo - Ghost Dads
Upright Bass - Israel Payero-Cabral

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Ghost Dads New Hamburg, New York

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