'Tis of Thee

caught the last poor man on a poor man's vacation. and they cuffed him and they confiscated stuff, they dragged his black ass down to the station. and they said okay the streets are safe now, all you pretty white children can come out and see spot run. and they all came out of their houses and they looked around but they didn't see no one. and my country 'tis of thee to take swings at each other on talk show tv. why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun because we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done to you, undo everything they've done to you. above 96th street they're handing out small pox blankets so people don't freeze. the old dogs got a new trick, it's called criminalize the symptoms while you spread the disease. and i hold on hard to something between my teeth when i'm sleeping. and i wake up and my jaw aches and the earth is full of earthquakes. and my country 'tis of thee take shots at each other on prime time tv. and why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun because we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done to you... to undo everything they've done to you. they caught the last poor man flying away in a shiny red cape and they dragged him down to the station. and they said, "boy, you should have known better to try to escape". and i ran away with the circus because there's still some honest work left for bearded ladies. but it's not the same going town to town now that they put everyone in jail except the cleavers and the bradys. and my country 'tis of thee to take swings at each other on the talk show tv. why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun because we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done to you. to undo everything they've done to you.

Virtue

virtue is relative at best. there's nothing worse than a sunset when you're driving to the west. and i'm afraid that my love is gonna come up short. there is no there where i sound scared. i want to have good news to report every time when i come up for air now i'm cruising through a crumbcake of a blue sky. but i know that in an an hour or three something's gonna be in my eye. i know that sometimes all i can see is how i feel. like the whole world is on the other side of a dirty windshield and i am trying to see through the glare. yeah, i'm struggling just to see what is there. the one person who really knows me best says i'm like a cat. yeah, the kind of cat that you just can't pick up and throw into your lap. the kind that doesn't mind being held only when its her idea. yeah, the kind that feels what she decides to feel she is good and ready to feel. and now i am crawling through the backyard. i am hiding under the car. i have gotten out of everything i've gotten into so far. i eat when i am hungry and i travel alone just outside all of the houses where i feel most at home. but in the window you sometimes appear and your music is faint in my ear.

Come Away From It

come, come away, come away from... next to the glass ashtray in the little plastic baggies is a little rock remedy, really good stuff. well, i take offense to the fact that you're so hell bent. you try to tell me this world just isn't beautiful enough. do you wanna get off? is this your stop? do you have to have a triple decker super fudge sundae with a goddamn cherry on top? what makes you so lavish that you can afford to spend every sorry moment feeling angry and bored? why don't you come, come away, come away from? why don't you come, come away, come away from? yeah, we used to hold hands down those unfamiliar streets. yeah, you used to take me diving in the watery blue deep. now you're trying to find every tiny treasure, every shiny penny of pleasure. satisfy every selfish purpose before you swim back up to the surface. and i just want you to come, come away, come away from it. i want you to come, come away, come away from it. you think that i just don't like it anymore, but i'll tell you what i don't like. i don't like that i have to put the training wheels back on your bike. and i don't like the extravagance of the way you taste when i kiss you. i don't like being left alone, baby don't you think i miss you. why don't you come, come away, come away from it...

Jukebox

in the jukebox of her memory the list of names flips by and stops. then she closes her eyes and smiles as the record drops. then she drinks herself up and out of the kitchen chair and she dances out of time. as long as she can say, as long as she can say this dance is mine. this dance is mine. her hair bears silent witness to the passing of time. tattoos like mile markers map the distance she has gone... winning some... losing some... she says my sister still calls every sunday night. after the rates come down and i still can't manage to say anything right. and my whole life blew up and now it's all coming down. and she says leave me alone. she fills the the pot with water. and she drops in the phone. she says tonight i just want to stay home. she says leave me alone. it's a darkness that i have to feed. i got a sadness that grows up around me like a weed. i'm not hurting anyone, i'm just spiraling in. and then she closes her eyes and hears the song begin, again. she appreciates the phone calls, the consoling cards and such. she appreciates all the people who come by and try to pull her back in touch. they try to hold the lid down tightly and they try to shake it well. but the oil and the water, they just wanna separate themselves. yeah she drinks herself up and outta the kitchen chair and she dances out of time. as slow as she can say, as long as she can say this dance is mine. this dance is mine...

Angel Food

the mattress was a table top and the bed sheet was a page... we'd be written out like a couple of question marks -- my convex to your concave. we'd be lying here to be under the sunset. are you ready now? are you going to glow in the dark? are you going to show me how? do you like to watch when water misbehaves? do you like waves? as the wind shifts and shifts again the sails smile, and then he slaps around the mast. the mattress was a table top, the bed sheet was a page. we'd be lying here -- my convex to your concave. you come to me with cake in your pocket. you come to me nicely, like that soft kinda cake that's mostly icing. you come to me ready and we'll bring the angel food. bring the angel food...

Angry Anymore

growing up, it was just me and my mom against the world. and all my sympathies were with her when i was a little girl. and i've seen both my parents play out the hands that they were dealt. as each year goes by, i wonder how my father must have felt. i just want you to understand that i know what all the fighting was for, and i just want you to understand that i'm not angry anymore. no, i'm not angry anymore. and she taught me how to wage cold war with quiet charm, but i just want to walk through my life unarmed. to accept, not just get by like my father learned to do, but without all the acceptance of getting by that got my father through. i just want you to understand that i know what all the fighting was for, and i just want you to understand that i'm not angry anymore. no, i'm not angry anymore. light falls like people into love. we generate our own light to compensate for the lack of light from above. every time we fight, a cold wind blows our way, we can learn like the trees, how to bend, how to sway and say i just think i understand what all the fighting was for, and i just want you to understand i'm not angry anymore. no, i'm not angry anymore.

Everest

from the depth of the pacific to the height of everest. still the world is smoother than a shiny ball bearing. so take a few steps back and put on a wider lens. it changes your skin and your sex and what you're wearing. distance shows your silhouette to be a lot like mine, but a sphere is a sphere and all of us have been here all the time, been here all the time. you brought me to church. cinder blocks and fluorescent light. yeah, you brought me to church, 7 o'clock on a sunday night. and the band was rocking, and the floors were scrubbed clean, and everybody had a tambourine. so i took a deep breath and became the white girl with the hair. and you sat right beside me while everybody stared. and through the open window, i think the singing went outside and it floated up to to tell the stars not to hide. cause by the time church let out, the sky was much clearer. and the moon was so beautiful that the ocean held up a mirror. as we walked home, we spoke slowly. yeah, we spoke slow, and we spoke lowly. like it was taking more time than usual to chose. words to go with your squeaky sandaled shoes. like times not a thing that's ours to lose. from the height of the pacific to the depth of everest...

Up Up Up Up Up Up

up, up, up, up, up, up points the spire of the steeple, but god's work isn't done by god, it's done by people. up, up, up, up, up, up point the fingers of the trees. the lumberjacks with their bloody axes are on their knees. and just when you think you've got enough, enough grows, and everywhere that you've gone in life enough knows. up, up, up, up, up, up dances the steam from the sewer. she rounds the corner the brutal wind blows right through her. up, up, up, up, up, up raise the stakes of the game. each day sinks it's bootprint into her clay and she's not the same. and just when you think you've got enough, enough grows, and everywhere that you've gone in life enough knows. half of learning how to play is learning what not to play, and she's learning the spaces she leaves have their own things to say. she's trying to sing just enough so that the air around her moves and makes music like mercy that gives what is is and has nothing to prove. she crawls out on a limb and begins the to build her home. it's enough just to look around to know she's not alone. up, up, up, up, up, up points the spire of the steeple. but god's work isn't done by god it's done by people.

Know Now Then

it's not so much that we got closer, it's that her face just got bigger. and by the time it was filling up my whole room, i figured my face had got bigger too. so i used it to try and sway her. i used it to try to say something to her, make my case, lose my face, never let it show. all in all, it was the wrong song and then i was helpless, to her advances, to her retreat... backspace, delete... and it's not so much that we fell in love, it's that my life just seemed to compound to a slow walk, on a straight line between my lips, and her frown. maybe we were never as close as we should have been but i didn't know, what i know now, then.

Trickle Down

you cease to smell the steel plant after you've lived here for a while. smoke is snow or ash or leaves that blow through the air aloft and all the houses trim their siding to the same soot grey style. and we hang our laundry out on sundays when they turn the furnaces off and everybody’s daddy works up on the line. the steinbrenners and the wuchevskys have been here the longest time and everybody’s mommy squints into the sun sunday afternoon after all the laundry’s done. sometimes a distant siren can set a dog to barking late at night and then it dominoes on down til every dog is joining in. and the first tremors of the lay-off’s sing like a distant siren light and we all perked up our ears and paced the fence of the ensuing den. and every night we’re glued to the tv news at six o’clock, cuz it was hard to tell what was real and what was talk. and they explained about the cutbacks all with earnest frowns, but what they didn’t say was that the plant was slowly shutting down. this town is not the kind of place that money people rule, they make their jokes up on the tv about all the snow. and they’re building condos down river from where the plant had been, but nobody really lives here now that the air is clean. and the president assured us that it was all gonna trickle down like it would be raining so much money that we’d be sad to see the sun. mr. wuchevsky’s brother had some business out in denver, so they left town. everybody knows they were the lucky ones. you cease to smell the steel plant after you’ve lived here for a while.

Hat Shaped Hat

in walked a man in the shape of a man holding a hat-shaped hat he held up two fingers and said 'how many fingers?" and i said 'Peace man, that's where it's at" i said you are what you do in order to prevent becoming what you're busy not doing and if you do do it truly then you arrive at it newly then in the end you are absolved and the problem of heaven is solved and the man broke into a smile, like he was breaking into a song and he was broken and smiling and i was singing along and we agreed completely agreetly about most things 'til the sun set sweetly like it does in those paintings the ones they hang in hotel rooms the ones they bolt to the wall as though anyone would want to steal them at all we talked like children without breathing 'til i stopped this lady as she was leaving and i said 'excuse me, but do you know what time it would be if we were on mars ?' and she held up her hand like a crossing guard stopping the cars and she said five in the morning in walked a man in the shape of a man holding a hat shaped hat