Blueprints & Bibelots
by A.p. Harbor
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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital AlbumCompact disc in a sturdy jewel case featuring artwork from Rachel Craft and Leanna Price.
Includes unlimited streaming of Blueprints & Bibelots via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.ships out within 3 days$12 USD or more
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1. |
Numbers On Lemons
03:01
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I've sold numbers on lemons,
but all the people want is a little bit of lemonade.
All they really want is a better day.
Taking longer breaks- AKA the art of calculation.
Time cards on the sympathy racks are stealing our vacations.
Pie charts full of poison apples,
overbaked and overpriced,
catching flies like trophies to beat the bigger guys.
Grocery store gurus behind conveyor belts-
they are the outcomes for which the scientists account.
I've done my fair share of that shit-
punching numbers to fill the baskets.
Fruit trees in endless orchards-
we're starving just to try and graph them.
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2. |
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I can only write when it rains these days.
There are letters on the pages, but I don't know what they say.
Ballads tend to bloom in the dark of the mountains.
I can only write when it rains these days.
I can only dance by the light of the moon.
I can only sing to the weathervane on a gloomy afternoon.
I'll sprout fiction up like vines if a raincloud is my muse.
I can only write when it rains, it's true.
There's a quiet humility in confusing
my tears for the rain. It bemuses me
when a pretty script blossoms like carnations in the sky
and I look upon a dreary day with a poem in my eye.
I can only write when it rains these days.
I can only shine when the sun has gone away.
My words will bloom in time if they rest their weary eyes,
because I can only write when it rains these days.
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3. |
Brushstroke Rifles
03:27
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Men in regalia wielding brushstroke rifles
secure with delight my canvas cloaked eyes
and paint the world’s colors a thousand red hues.
I thought for a minute I saw red white and blue.
Come all marching men, pay no mind to the clocks.
They're foolhardy, my friends. You best burn the watches.
Everyone knows the holy alarm
hangs in the golden wristwatch of God.
I lifted my blindfold with glee
and I caught a glimpse of the colors of heat.
Orange and scarlet- the colors of passion,
the colors of blood, and the colors of greed.
Gather ye men for a monochrome earth,
scavenge the clay to make room for the dirt.
Mow it all down to a simpler palette.
The profit of artistry is well worth the work.
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4. |
Wishing Well
02:48
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I've wasted all my pennies on wishing to be free.
I'm tossing back my wishes now to try and wave the fee.
I'd coat myself in copper if I had any sense,
and throw myself in the wishing well.
That's all I've got to spend.
Down, down, down.
Can't touch the bottom with your toes.
Nobody knows how deep the wishing well goes.
My mother told me long ago, we were born down deep inside.
I used to try and climb back out, but progress tends to lie.
I should have saved some pennies up to buy some answered prayers.
I'm trading change for chances to come back up for air.
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5. |
The Left Cat
02:17
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The cat on the left
is no better than the cat on the right,
and the cat in the west
knows that west is just a spatially relative side.
There are North cats, East cats,
cats down South,
and in the center? Cats.
And they all just meow the same.
It's a cat kind of game.
I have a friend (she's a cat),
and she told me, "we do not wonder if we're doing good,
if we're behaving the way cats should.
We're just chasing the pigeons in the park
when they're playing by the woods."
And when I turn the corner, oh, I know
there's the left cat. The left cat.
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6. |
Delancey Park
03:35
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I saw a black bear snapping photographs of Delancey Park.
He's a history buff, documenting the anthropology of old ideas.
They turn like wagon wheels, drifting through the windowsills of the schoolhouse again and again.
The boys in the gazebo singing love songs through the windblown rain as the storm comes in.
I saw a black bear snapping photographs of Delancey Park,
of the red-painted church like a strawberry with seedlings all stuck inside.
They'll never get out of there, but that's okay. They're just there for the ride.
There's an old storehouse, well-versed in the art of investment and vines.
The townsfolk have put their all stock into bluebirds and time
and old fashioned peanut butter candy.
They have the old recipe-
the sweetest kind you'll ever eat-
at Delancey Park.
Everybody's been here,
to the marketplaces sprouting up
at old train stations getting stuck with nowhere to go.
Everybody's been here,
but nobody's been here
like the people that live near.
I saw a black bear snapping photographs of Delancey Park.
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7. |
Preservation
02:04
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Preservation.
The gnats who'd beleaguered us had been all the wiser-
patient little carpenters trading their time for yours.
We found your body, still warm in the night-
a garden of afterlife abloom behind glass-
a warning signal, a waning nocturne.
Nothing lasts forever.
You were gone in the night
and vanished by morning.
Lined with the pages of history books,
you outlived the clocks,
acting the elder in all that you taught-
to shut stubborn doors
to practice prudence in filling your spaces,
to tell time in temperatures.
Preservation is a tricky thing.
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8. |
I Hugged Felt
00:17
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I hugged felt, and I liked the way it felt.
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9. |
Yard Sailing
02:39
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I was born and raised yard sailing,
for string bands born from a wandering dime.
My mother loved to hear me play out of time,
on old guitars through dusty speakers,
fiddle strings that squeak will please her.
Hand-me-down harmonies are all I've ever known.
Oh, I think she knew that with a roving bow,
I could play the tune that would carry her home.
I was born and raised yard sailing,
for melodies no good at staying,
and I will bring them home
I was born and raised yard sailing,
for swing beats born in an early dream.
My mother loved to hear me play out of key,
but these days my hands will toil and teeter
so singing strings won't cease to greet her,
yard sailing on the long way home.
The sellers of symphonies left behind
will someday find all the memories of she and I,
because I was born and raised yard sailing,
for melodies no good at staying,
and I will bring them home.
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10. |
Greenbrook Square
03:55
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It was an ordinary stroll on a ordinary morning,
that my usual route took a curious turn,
The bareness of dogwood trees ushered a warning
of a trial ahead, of which I would endure.
In the axis of a concrete cross
near Greenbrook Square, I was soon to be caught.
On the northern end was a man in a suit.
On the eastern side was a man just the same.
On the western path was another man, too.
Three travelers with Bibles in hand.
Three men stood there on Greenbrook Square.
With a cocksure grin and a gleam in his eye,
the northernmost man beckoned me to his side.
“We're selling the good word on this special day.”
I said, “No thank you, sir, I haven't much pay.”
He said, “No need, son, ain't too hefty a price.”
“Just a couple of nothings and a clean pair of eyes.”
I looked to the east and I looked to the west.
I looked and I looked for to heed their behest.
I briefly looked backed- couldn't hide my surprise
at the fourth Bible salesman on the southernmost side.
So I gave them my nothings and I gave them my eyes
and I opened their book and I thumbed through a while.
When I reached my destination, the sun was so bright,
reflecting in my vision a fiery white light,
but I was blessed to have given my eyesight away.
In exchange for my nothings, I had surely been saved.
The trial adjourned with the death of my sight,
so I buried my eyes in my Bible that night.
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11. |
Mother's Maple Flute
03:12
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Mother's maple flute-
she plays it just for you, my baby.
Mother's maple flute-
crafted from the roots of trees.
She'll pick her teeth with the bones of bears
and brittle needles from prickly pears.
She's got a thirst for freedom.
She carves her instruments from cedarwood.
The scent drives ants away,
but they'll be back another day.
She's led an expedition
to teach the menfolk how to listen - really listen.
Do you want to be the next one
piping notes coated in dextrose?
Lost in the song-
ants in a honeycomb.
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12. |
Ghost Pipe
01:13
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Am I as empty as the hollowed arteries of trees?
Milky as a moon- a tableau oft unseen.
Natheless, I divulge myself a limpid bell that tolls
a sallow song beneath the beeches; wax and blood and bone.
In the hinterlands of Zion, where God is born, I'll grow.
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13. |
Hollow Hills
03:37
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Why don't you feel at home out of those hollow hills?
I've heard rumors of strangers with pen-knife poems,
notching memoirs in holes,
peeking out through curtains of hills-
eyes glowing like the moon.
Lovers sharing the dirt, but splitting their headstones.
We all need our space.
I've heard it too many times.
Gas station gatekeepers always say,
"why don't you feel at home out of those hollow hills?"
Old vans growing in meadows,
matching shades with the milkweed.
Tire tracks merge into veins of the leaves.
I love when nature coordinates.
Sleepy houses with art deco doorways.
They say you can't build a life out of that,
but I don't care anymore.
There are holes in the hills and I'm digging for patches.
Have you ever seen the moon flicker like a candle,
lighting the way through hollow hills?
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14. |
End of Time
02:32
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I have heard you in the keys of a New York bar piano,
and lulled myself to sleep like the crooners did.
I have woken to the neon lights above Times Square,
where your voice invited Van Lear nights to the city.
I have felt you in the wind that blows across Lake Erie,
and in the misting of a quiet Irish tide.
There are places that I've gone to when that wild wind called me,
but it always seemed to lead me home to you.
I have seen you in the embers of the Chinese moon.
The mountains there echo us like those at home do.
We burned up like old stars across the sea.
When a Kentucky wind blows the ashes back, where will you be?
We have lived within the pages of books of French poems.
We would have written ourselves in lines of the Grand Canyon's walls.
You say it's the end of time, I know,
but time is just another place that you and I will go.
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credits
released July 20, 2021
Musicians:
Denise Barbee - shouts
Melissa Caskey - vocals
Derek Easterling - euphonium
Jordan Fickel - additional arrangement and production
Megan Gregory - fiddle
Matt Holleran - drums, vocals
Michael Jarvi - electric guitar, electric bass, classical guitar
Raymond McLain - fiddle
Mary Morris - vocals
Anna Nichols - shouts
Andrew Preston - acoustic guitar, piano, synthesizer, accordion, ukulele, tin flute, mellotron, drum machine, autoharp, melodica, Otamatone, B. Toys Meowsic, harmonica, dulcimer, music box, vocals
Leanna Price - fiddle
Wyatt Smith - vocals
Artists:
Rachel Craft - painting / crayon
Leanna Price - pen / pencil
Mary Morris - package design / layout
Anna Nichols - photography
Recorded at CoffeeTree Books
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Andrew Preston and Michael Jarvi
Music and words written by Andrew Preston
Published Woodsheep Music (BMI)
Musicians:
Denise Barbee - shouts
Melissa Caskey - vocals
Derek Easterling - euphonium
Jordan Fickel - additional arrangement and production
Megan Gregory - fiddle
Matt Holleran - drums, vocals
Michael Jarvi - electric guitar, electric bass, classical guitar
Raymond McLain - fiddle
Mary Morris - vocals
Anna Nichols - shouts
Andrew Preston - acoustic guitar, piano, synthesizer, accordion, ukulele, tin flute, mellotron, drum machine, autoharp, melodica, Otamatone, B. Toys Meowsic, harmonica, dulcimer, music box, vocals
Leanna Price - fiddle
Wyatt Smith - vocals
Artists:
Rachel Craft - painting / crayon
Leanna Price - pen / pencil
Mary Morris - package design / layout
Anna Nichols - photography
Recorded at CoffeeTree Books
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Andrew Preston and Michael Jarvi
Music and words written by Andrew Preston
Published Woodsheep Music (BMI)
license
all rights reserved
tags
discography
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Mar 2024 -
Dec 2023 -
Aug 2023 -
Jun 2023 -
Jan 2023 -
Apr 2022 -
Jul 2021 -
Jul 2021
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