Anticipate

you are subtle as a window pane standing in my view, but i will wait for it to rain so that i can see you. you call me up at night when there's no light passing through, and you think that i don't understand, but i do. we don't say everything that we could. so that we can say later "oh, you misunderstood." i hold my cards up close to my chest. i say what i have to and i hold back the rest. 'cause someone you don't know is someone you don't know. get a firm grip, girl before you let go. for every hand extended another lies in wait. keep your eye on that one. anticipate. dress down, get out there. pick a fight with the police. we will get it all on film for the new release. seems like everyone's an actor or they're an actor's best friend. i wonder what was wrong to begin with that they should all have to pretend. we lost sight of everything when we have to keep checking our backs. i think we should all just smile. come clean and relax. if there's anything i've learned, all these years on my own, it's how to find my own way there and how to find my own way back home.

Rockabye

tending the garden of noise when i grow. the traffic and the church bells and the neighborhood boys. singing to myself as the solitude sets in tune with the symphony of south brooklyn. i sing. rockabye, rockabye baby, rockabye, the baby that is me. rockabye, rockabye baby, rockabye, 'til i'm fast asleep. the tunnel is train torn. the tracks are worn and sore. i can feel the rattle riding up through the floor. she jumped the turnstile. he paid for his ride. i am the echo in the station where their footfalls collide. i left her at the epicenter. we were trembling dutifully. i left him too. i left parts of me. i said today i am leaving in every sense of the word. but i'm in love with your memory. already everything i've seen and heard. and i will go singing as the solitude sets in time with the rhythm of everywhere i have been. it sounds like rockabye, rockabye baby, rockabye, the baby that is me. rockabye, rockabye baby, rockabye, 'til i'm fast asleep.

Not So Soft

in a forest of stone, underneath the corporate canopy, where the sun rarely filters down the ground is not so soft, not so soft. they build buildings to house people making money or they build buildings to make money off of housing people. it's true, like a lot of things are true. i am foraging for a phone booth on the forest floor that is not so soft. i look up it looks like the buildings are burning but it's just the sun setting. the solar system calling an end to another business day. eternally circling, signaling the rhythmic clicking on and off of computers. the pulse of the american machine. the pulse that draws death dancing out of anonymous side streets. you know the ones that always get dumped on and never get plowed. it draws death dancing out of little countries with funny languages where the ground is getting harder and it was not that soft before. those who call the shots are never in the line of fire, why? where? there's life for hire out there. if a flag of truth were raised, we could watch every liar rise to wave it. here we learn america like a script. playwright, birthright, same thing. we bring ourselves to the role. we're all rehearsing for the presidency. i always wanted to be commander in chief of my one woman army. but i can envision the mediocrity of my finest hour. it's the failed america in me. it's the fear that lives in a forest of stone underneath the corporate canopy where the sun rarely filters down and the ground is not so soft.

Roll With It

she says, "my ass hurts when i sit down." she says, "my feet hurt from just standing around. i think my body is as restless as my mind and i don't know if i can roll with it this time." packed his uniforms and drove him to the base. she was crying all the way. the world looked her in the face and said, "roll with it, baby. make it your career. keep the home fires burning till america is in the clear." the mainstream is so polluted with lies. once you get wet, it's so hard to get dry. we're all taught how to justify history as it passes by, and it's your world that comes crashing down when the big boys decide to throw their weight around. but just roll with it, baby. make it your career. keep the home fires burning till america is in the clear. what if the enemy isn't in a distant land? what if the enemy lies behind the voice of command? the sound of war is a child's cry behind tinted windows. they just drive by. all i know is that those who are going to be killed aren't those who preside on capitol hill. i told him, "don't fill the front lines of their war. those assholes aren't worth dying for." but he said, "roll with it, baby. make it your career. keep the home fires burning till america is in the clear." she says, "my ass hurts when i sit down." she says, "my feet hurt from just standing around." i think my body is as restless as my mind and i'm not gonna roll with it this time. no, i'm not gonna roll with it this time.

Work Your Way Out

lying on the floor four stories high. in the corridor between the asphalt and the sky. i am caught like bottled water, the light daughter. i wonder what you look like under your t-shirt. i wonder what you sound like when you're not wearing words. i wonder what we have when we're not pretending. it's never-ending, haven't you heard? i don't need to tell you what this is about. you just start on the inside and work your way out. we are all polylingual but some of us pretend there's virtue in relying, on not trying to understand. we're all citizens of the womb before we subdivide into sexes and shades. this side that side, and i don't need to tell you what this is about. you just start on the inside and work your way out, undressing for the fan like it was a man. wondering about all the things that i'll never understand. there are some things that you can't know, unless you've been there. but oh how far we could go if we started to share. i don't need to tell you what it is about. you just start on the inside. you just start on the inside and work your way out.

Fire Door

i opened the fire door to four lips. none of which were mine kissing. tightened my belt around my hips where your hands were missing, and stepped out into the cold. collar high under the slate grey sky, the air was smoking and the streets were dry. and i wasn't joking when i said goodbye. magazine quality men talking on the corner. french, no less, much less of them then us. so why do i feel like something's been rearranged? you know, taken out of context i must seem so strange. killed a cockroach so big it left a puddle of pus on the wall. when you and i are lying in bed you don't seem so tall. i'm singing now because my tear ducts are too tired, and my brain is disconnected but my heart is wired. i make such a good statistic someone should study me now. somebody's got to be interested in how i feel just 'cause i'm here and i'm real. oh, how i miss substituting the conclusion to confrontation with a kiss. and oh, how i miss walking up to the edge and jumping in like i could feel the future on your skin. i opened the fire door to four lips. none of which were mine kissing.

Gratitude

thank you for letting me stay here. thank you for taking me in. thank you for the beer and the food. thank you for loaning me bus fare. thank you for showing me around, that was a very kind thing to do. thank you for the use of the clean towel. thank you for half of your bed. we can sleep here like brother and sister, you said. but you changed the rules in an hour or two. and i don't know what you and your sisters do, but please don't. please stop. this is not my obligation. what does my body have to do with my gratitude? look at you. little white lying for the purpose of justifying what you're trying to do. i know that you feel my resistance. i know that you heard what i said. otherwise, you wouldn't need the excuse. thank you for letting me stay here. thank you for taking me in. i don't know where else i would have turned. but i don't come and go like a pop song that you can play incessantly and then forget when it's gone. you can't write me off and you don't turn me on. so don't change the rules in an hour or two. i don't know what you and your sisters do, but please don't. please stop. this is not my obligation. what does my body have to do with my gratitude?

The Whole Night

we can touch, touch our girl cheeks and we can hold hands like paper dolls. we can try. try each other on in the privacy within new york city's walls. we can kiss, kiss goodnight and we can go home wondering what would it be like if, if i did not have a boyfriend. we could spend the whole night. i am waking up in her bed. i sing 1st avenue. the open window said always late to sleep, late to rise. lying here watching the day go by. in the living room there are people on the carpet having stupid conversations just to hear themselves talk. and i am drifting through. i am heading for the kitchen i am thinking of her fingers as i walk...

Both Hands

i am walking out in the rain, and i am listening to the low moan of the dial tone again. and i am getting nowhere with you, and i can't let it go, and i can't get through... the old woman behind the pink curtains and the closed door on the first floor, she's listening through the air shaft to see how long our swan song can last. and both hands, now use both hands. oh, no don't close your eyes. i am writing graffiti on your body. i am drawing the story of how hard we tried. i am watching your chest rise and fall like the tides of my life, and the rest of it all. and your bones have been my bedframe, and your flesh has been my pillow. i am waiting for sleep to offer up the deep with both hands. in each other's shadows we grew less and less tall and eventually our theories couldn't explain it all. and i'm recording our history now on the bedroom wall, and eventually the landlord will come and paint over it all. and i am walking out in the rain, and i am listening to the low moan of the dial tone again. and i am getting nowhere with you, and i can't let it go, and i can't get though. so now use both hands. please use both hands. oh, no don't close your eyes. i am writing graffiti on your body. i am drawing the story of how hard we tried. hard we tried, how hard we tried.

She Says

she says, "forget what you have to do. pretend there is nothing outside this room." and like an idea she came to me, but she came too late or maybe too soon. i said, "please try not to love me. close your eyes, i'm turning on the light. you know i have no vacancy and it's awfully cold outside tonight." the rain stains the brick a darker red. slowly i'm rolling out of her bed. the rain stains the streets a darker black. i dress my face in stone because i can't go back. i feel her eyes watching me from behind the curtain of her hair. and she says, "i'm sorry i didn't mean to stare." i say, "i think i really have to go now, but oh baby, maybe someday, maybe somehow."

Rush Hour

rush hour and the day's dawning. the rain came and pushed me under the awning. the puddles grew and threw themselves at me with every passing car i'm shielding my guitar. and there were some things that i did not tell him. there were certain things he did not need to know. and there were some days when i did not love him. he didn't understand me and i don't know why i didn't go. he said, "change the channel. i've got problems of my own. i'm so sick of hearing about drugs and aids and people without homes." and i said, "well, i'd like to sympathize with that, but if you don't understand, then how can you act i expected summer to be there?" in the morning i woke to the alarm, but she was out of arms. reach, sneaking out on silent thighs that were spent and sore from the hot nights that came before. he said, "i looked for you. i don't know why." i said, "i was wearing black so you could see me against the sky." take your big leather boots and your buckles and your chains, put them on a downtown train. i expected he would be there in the morning. i awoke to the alarm. he was still in arm's reach, but his body was just a disguise. his mind had wandered off long ago. you see in his eyes, love isn't over when the sheets are stained. in my head there remains so much left to be said. make me laugh, make me cry, enrage me, but just don't try to disengage me.

Out Of Habit

the butter melts out of habit. the toast isn't even warm. the waitress and the man in the plaid shirt play out a scene they've played so many times before. i am watching the sun stumble home in the morning from a bar on the east side of town. and the coffee is just water dressed in brown. beautiful but boring, he visited me yesterday. he noticed my fingers and asked me if i would play. i didn't really care a lot, but i couldn't think of a reason why not. i said, "if you don't come any closer, i don't mind if you stay." my thighs have been involved in many accidents and now i can't get insured, and i don't need to be lured by you. my cunt is built like a wound that won't heal. and now you don't have to ask because you know how i feel. you know how i feel. art is why i get up in the morning, but my definition ends there. and it doesn't seem fair that i'm living for something i can't even define. there you are, right there in the meantime. i don't want to play for you anymore. show me what you can do. tell me what are you here for. i want my old friends. i want my old face. i want my old mind. fuck this time and place. the butter melts out of habit. you know, the toast isn't even warm.

Lost Woman Song

i opened a bank account when i was nine years old. i closed it when i was eighteen. i gave them every penny that i'd saved, and they gave my blood and my urine, a number. now i'm sitting in this waiting room playing with the toys. and i am here to exercise my freedom of choice. i passed their handheld signs. went through their picket lines. they gathered when they saw me coming. they shouted when they saw me cross. i said why don't you go home, just leave me alone. i'm just another woman lost. you are like fish in the water who don't know that they are wet. as far as i can tell the world isn't perfect yet. his bored eyes were obscene. on his denim thighs a magazine. i wish he'd never come here with me. in fact, i wish he'd never come near me. i wish his shoulder wasn't touching mine. i am growing older waiting in this line. some of life's best lessons are learned at the worst times. under the fierce fluorescent, she offered her hand for me to hold. she offered stability and calm and i was crushing her palm. through the pinch pull wincing, my smile unconvincing. on that sterile battlefield that sees only casualties, never heroes. my heart hit absolute zero. lucille, your voice still sounds in me. mine was a relatively easy tragedy. now the profile of our country looks a little less hard nosed. but that picket line persisted, and that clinic's since been closed. they keep pounding their fists on reality hoping it will break. but i don't think there's a one of us, leads a life free of mistakes.

Talk To Me Now

he said ani, "you've gotten tough." 'cause my tone was curt. yeah, and when i'm approached in a dark alley, i don't lift my skirt. in this city, self-preservation is a full time occupation. i'm determined to survive on this shore. you know, i don't avert my eyes anymore. in a man's world, i am a woman by birth. and after nineteen times around, i have found they will stop at nothing once they know what you are worth. talk to me now. i played the powerless in too many dark scenes, and i was blessed with a birth and a death, and i guess i just want some say in between. don't you understand in the day to day and the face to face, i have to act just as strong as i can just to preserve a place where i can be who i am. so if you still know how talk to me now.

The Slant

a building settling around me. my figure female, framed crookedly in the threshold of the room. door scraping floorboards with every opening, carving a rough history of bedroom scenes. the plot hard to follow. the text obscured in the fields of sheets slowly gathering the stains of seasons spent lying there red and brown like leaves fallen the colors of an eternal cycle. fading with the wash cycle and the rinse cycle. again an unfamiliar smell like my name misspelled or misspoken. a cycle broken. the sound of them strong. stalking, talking about their prey like the way hammer meets nail. pounding, they say pounding out the rhythms of attraction like a woman was a drum. like a body was a weapon. like there was something more they wanted than the journey. like it was owed to them. steel toed they walk. and i'm wondering why this fear of men. maybe it's because i'm hungry and like a baby. i'm dependent on them to feed me. i am a work in progress, dressed in the fabric of a world unfolding. offering me intricate patterns of questions rhythms that never come clean and strengths that you still haven't seen.