Physical CD 19.99

Poison Against Poison (Recordings 1990-2003)

Released 2005

Poison Against Poison (Recordings 1990-2003) is not available for download, as it is intended only as a collection of physical CDs with a booklet. The collection contains 3 discs, 63 songs, is 3 hrs. 55 min in length, and was digitally remastered from the best available sources. It is, you might say, a hand-made box-set of Bill Foreman's music up through 2003. Each booklet is uniquely assembled, signed, with a different loteria card on the cover. It is mean to be held. It contains original songs from the following albums:

• Bill & Pete, La Petite Orange (1992)
• Bill & Pete, ¡Hey Rhumbahead! (1993)
• The House Carpenters, In the Choir of Primates (1995)
• The Little Band (1997)
• Bill Foreman, The Bathroom Mirror (1997)
• Bill Foreman, Tangerine (1997)
• Bill Foreman, The Duck Hunter (1998)
• Bill Foreman, Building St. Petersburg (1999)
• Bill Foreman, Seventeen Miles Past Indio (2002)

Audio samples available on the CD Baby page.

Tracks:

Total Time: 3 hrs., 55 min., 48 sec.

Lyrics:

Full Tank of Gas

I got a full tank of gas
Got a full tank of gas
Got a body of metal
Got windows of glass
Got my foot on the pedal
It moves so fast
Take you out of my present
Put you into my past
Goodbye to your streetlights,
Cement and your grass
I'm leaving you, babe,
I got a full tank of gas

I got an engine of flame
Got an engine of flame
Call me a misfit
But don't call me tame
I don't remember this highway
They all look the same
I don't remember your face
I forgot your first name
Goodbye to your causes,
Your books, and your games
I'm leaving you, babe,
I got an engine of flame

I got the wind in my face
Got the wind in my face
I can open the sunroof
And stare into space
I can run myself wild
I can go anyplace
I got all my money
I've packed my suitcase
Goodbye to your earrings,
Your bells, and your lace
I'm leaving you, babe,
I got the wind in my face

I got my head in the sky
Got my head in the sky
You can ask me what happened
But don't ask me why
Tell me you're hurt, girl,
But don't start to cry
I've sprouted my wings
And now I'm going to fly
Goodbye to your movies,
Your dreams, and your lies
I'm leaving you babe,
I got my head in the sky

Bad and Good

When you walked in the room last night
Everything grew too intense
All the people talked too quickly
And nothing made any sense
I tried to listen, I tried to understand
But one word piled upon another
And nothing happened like I planned
You made it look easy
But that really wasn't true
It was just another way to please me
With the things that you do
And you know as well as I do
That sometimes it's hard to try
But don't say I didn't care for you
That's one thing you can't deny

Baby, I know that you and me
We both do bad and good
It just comes naturally
We shouldn't take ourselves too seriously
We're only what we are
Not what we're meant to be

Step a little closer
Step a little near
Because I can see your lips move
But you're too far away to hear
It's easy to steal
Just take what you can get
Without a thought of anyone else
Or a moment of regret
What is it you're trying to tell me?
What is it you're trying to say?
Are you dissatisfied with what you get
For the prices that you pay
Don't you know that everything changes
All the people that you know
The times in which we live
And all the places that we go

Baby, I know that you and me
We both do bad and good
It just comes naturally
We shouldn't take ourselves too seriously
We're only what we are
Not what we're meant to be

When you walked in the room last night
Everything grew kind of strange
And though I didn't know it at the time
Something had been changed
And all the people talking,
Let the speak until they're through
Their words are interchangeable:
They've got nothing to do with you

What Would Ever

I treat her like a princess
You know I treat her kind
Although that's something you might not believe
And I can't understand it
But she's got me by the mind
What would ever make my baby lie to me?

Did I accidentally hurt her
Or be unconsciously cruel
Did I hold her when I should have set her free
Am I only behaving like a paranoid fool
What would ever make my baby lie to me?

It stings and it hurts
I sit and rail and curse
These bitter things can never happen naturally
I'm filled with anger and shame
My heart's been beaten and maimed
What would ever make my baby lie to me?

These things can't be forgotten
These thoughts can't be misplaced
I can't hide it 'cause it's just too plain to see
And all of this will leave me with an unbearable taste
What would ever make my baby lie to me?

Oh baby, what does it mean,
the things I've heard and I've seen?
Is it true my love's no longer a monopoly?
Are we no longer alone
In a sweet place of our own?
And what would ever make you want to lie to me?
I got my head in the sky

One of the Lucky Ones

I've been bred to be buried
And that's easy enough to see
By a look at a glance of my eye
Can you feel a similar headache?
Air, bread, and water
Like me that's what you need
But the things that spring up in our minds
They couldn't be less the same
I believe what they tell me
That I'm one of the lucky ones
But sometimes that's just so hard to take
That I'm one of the lucky ones

Your screams and your hollers
Should send shivers down my skin
But though you're cold like the night
It makes no difference to me
And the things that you tell me,
Must you give me all the blame?
I couldn't cause these things to happen
They just happen this way
I believe what they tell me
That I'm one of the lucky ones
But sometimes that's just so hard to take
That I'm one of the lucky ones

They say that I'm lucky
And it's true I can't deny
But ask them about the unlucky ones
And see what they say
They'll say they got hope
But hope's impossible to eat
And their dreams are cheaper than pennies
In a world made of steel
Though they're only the losers
There were times when I had lost
There were times when I was empty
In the pain of defeat
You tell me I'm lucky
But you forget what it's for
I can't be harder than metal
I can't be colder than ice
I believe what they tell me
That I'm one of the lucky ones
But sometimes that's just so hard to take
That I'm one of the lucky ones

Footsteps

Whose quiet voice do I hear?
Whose footsteps still linger in the hall?
Whose shadow graces the corridor
And leans itself up on the opposite wall?
Is it you calling me from my corner
Who keeps drawing me onward and outward?
Do you call from the in or the outside
Or from some other place of which I've never heard?
Because it's here you must stay
Or be blown by the breeze to some strange circumstances.

You walk on the streets. You use the telephone.
You engage in conversation like everyone.
I'm familiar with all of these rituals.
It's society's hammer that pounds on and on.
I can see that you're not my enemy.
I can convince myself of your good intentions.
But is it really you who calls for me
Or is it just another victim of social conventions?
Don't be driven away.
Don't fall to the piercing of poisonous glances.
Because it's here you must stay
Or be blown by the breeze to some strange circumstances.

It's a very hard balance to maintain.
It's a very fine line that on which you now linger.
It's in each of the cells of your brain
And the tiniest touch of the tip of your finger.
Whose voice echoes 'round the hall?
Whose shadow still draws me and enthralls me completely?
Will that difficult balance not fall
Or is it only beginning its slipping discreetly?

Imagine You're Flying

Late at night, when the sun goes down
And the evening spreads its wings,
I'm sitting down upon the shoreline
Just a-changin' my guitar strings.
I play, oh I play to the seagulls
Though they can't know what I say.
It does not begin to bother me.
It doesn't really matter anyway.
I left from the place where I came from
And I settled in the West.
It just happened like an accident.
It ain't the worst and it ain't the best.
The world, oh the world is a wheel
And it spun me 'round and 'round.
When I returned into my senses,
This was the place that I had found.

Back at home, I'm a poor, poor boy
And I play for all the passers by.
When they tossed to me their empty pennies
I didn't stop to even blink an eye.
My heart, oh my heart's now a window,
My mind a hall of crystal mirrors
Because I live among the reeds and rushes
Where the city disappears.
I left from the place where I came from.
I try to tear it from my mind.
Today, nobody tosses me pennies.
It always seemed to me a bit unkind.
My name, oh my name is now useless.
For it is just another sound
Like my hand across my instrument,
Like the rain that falls upon the ground.

Vandalized

Well, it's late at night.
There's nobody around.
Just the sounds of the cars
Upon the asphalt ground.
It's the waiting time,
When the hours grow still.
I gaze on through the glass
Inside my windowsill.
Though I know that you must be
Somewhere in this world,
In this place where, at birth,
You and I were both hurled,
To think that we once were relating
Is a thing that has almost grown foreign to me.

It's a bad sight,
Such a terrible waste,
To spend your time talking
In such bad taste.
It's the same old line,
Though it's not you I blame.
It's your teachers and television
That you put to shame.
The night's lasting longer
Because I've filled my head
With the things I could have done
And the words I could have said.
But, in truth, I was only spectating
And that's a permanent part of reality.

So many rude lines,
So many petty crimes
And you don't feel a need
To apologize.
Tonight is the time
That you stick in my mind,
But from now on I won't become
Vandalized.

Now the room's started filling
With the dawn's early light
And the end has arrived
Of this long night.
I turn off the television
And I hit the bed
While your shade is still haunting
My ever-vulnerable head.
And there's no use
In trying to compromise
When the kindest things we say
But it's time I should quit my complaining
And behave with a little more dignity.

So many rude lines,
So many petty crimes
And you don't feel a need
To apologize.
Tonight is the time
That you stick in my mind,
But from now on I won't become
Vandalized.

Can't Wait to be Free

"I've grown so tired of waiting,"
I heard a voice behind me say.
"Don't spend your life procrastinating
And we might meet again some other day."
I threw the phone right through the window,
Turned around and began to curse.
"Who do you think you're becoming?" she said.
"Your mouth has gone from bad to worse.
You've grown worthless," she said
While her face turned bright red.
Her eyes glowed like fiery embers.
"You're so ruthless and rash, and your mind's filled with trash.
You're a person I'd hate to remember."

"When did you become Miss Morality?"
I asked, "is that you my dear?
Why don't you just look the other way
Into the depths of that shining, silver mirror.
Yes, it's you that you see,
Not your mother or me.
Your own hatred is there, and it's shining."
And I said, with a smile,
"Your heart's brimming with bile.
I can't wait to be free from your whining."

She ran from the room in that instant.
She left without closing the door.
But these words she left, as a present:
"Don't expect me to come back for more."

Rare & True

"She's so fair and so fine
And one day she'll be mine."
With those words, I began
My pursuit of you.
Through persistence and time
I won both your heart and mind.
And I loved you with a passion
That was rare as it was true.
But suddenly, you turned the key.
Rejoined the outside world without me.
But, can't you see, you can't be free.
We'll be locked inside our hearts for eternity.

We lived inside these walls.
Read no papers, took no calls.
Left behind the outer world
Of indifference.
There were some who called us lost.
Said, "love always has its cost."
You said their hearts were only filled
With violence.
But suddenly, you turned the key.
Rejoined the outside world without me.
But, can't you see, you can't be free.
We'll be locked inside our hearts for eternity.

You said, "our love's become a lie.
The day has come to say good-bye."
You didn't ask for my opinion
Or for what I had to say.
You said, "our hearts were made to bleed.
Love's a potent, painful seed."
You'd been knowing all along
That it would have to be this way.
But suddenly, you turned the key.
Rejoined the outside world without me.
But, can't you see, you can't be free.
We'll be locked inside our hearts for eternity.

A Cat's Eye

When you walk on by
When you're smooth like the silent sky
When you move like the trace of a cat's eye
When you feel everything's rectified
Is that when you think of me?
Is that when you want to drink of me?
Or is that when you start to feel free
Of the codes given out by society?
You bounce around without beliefs
Just the same, you have no time for griefs
No teary eyes, no worn-out handkerchiefs
You have no need of anyone's reliefs
You've grown much faster than your age
You're not a prisoner of a chronologic cage
Like thyme and parsley and rosemary mixed with sage
You're an unfinished poem on a never-ending page

When you slip between the lines
Between the twisted words that intertwine
Can you hear me ask you to be mine?
Do you think these words are sounding fine?
When you're strong enough to stand
Close your eyes and open up your hand
It'll hold you like a wrapping rubber band
Feel the whisper of the breeze
Watch it rushing through the hair behind my knees
Let it push you over here with ease
Because, don't you know, my heart will never freeze
Have you ever dreamed this way?
Have you ever seemed to feel this way?
At any time, on any given day?
Well, if you have, don't be afraid to say

September

Now she's gone
And the summer's ending.
Soon, the leaves will descend
From the sky.
Now she's gone.
There's no pretending.
Sometimes, in our lives
We must all have to fly.

Speak to me,
But speak directly,
For words are so wasted
These days.
Speak to me.
You can't upset me,
For my heart is with her
And with her it is going to stay.

Now she's gone
And my mind is bending.
Yes, heartbreak is all
That remains.
Now she's gone.
There's no pretending.
September is here.  Soon the leaves
Will start falling like rain.

I Know & You Know

I see you walking with Mister So-and-So
And baby, it just breaks my heart
I never thought you'd sink so low
That this would be the way we'd part
We used to talk on the telephone
And all the guys would envy the way you were mine
But these days you pretend you're not at home
And you leave me dangling on that telephone line
There's no way that I can take it
I can't roll on over and try to fake it
I'll make it plain so you can't mistake it
That I know and you know
That you keep yourself looking so very fine
But there's only one place you'll go
And you won't catch me walking that crooked line

It's a flying fluke, a freak of fate
That we ended up opposing factions
But baby, it's grown too late
To blame your life's story on chemical reactions
I used to run around and say
About how it was that you really knew the score
But things are different today, baby
Your old tricks just can't cut it any more
There's no way that I can take it
I won't make like one of your leaves and let you rake it
I'll make it plain so you can't mistake it
That I know and you know
That your kisses are tasting sweet like wine
But there's only one place you'll go
And you won't catch me walking that crooked line

Understand, I got a right to share
All these points I keep pounding into the ground
But how can you compare me, baby,
To all those other boys with whom you run around?
You used to show me your fancy clothes
And the way that they clung to your physique
But these days you just turn up your nose
And you expect me to just sit here and turn my cheek
There's no way that I can take it
I can't roll on over and watch you break it
I'll make it plain so you can't mistake it
That I know and you know
I could invent a reason to keep on trying
But there's only one place you'll go
And you won't catch me walking that crooked line

Have You Seen My Baby?

She was mixing her metaphors
I mixed pitchers of poison
It was the way that her glance was dancing
That said, "bring all the boys in."
She made eyes at a hairy ape
And she turned toward the exit
This monkey was made of muscle
And he proceeded to flex it
Have you seen my baby
Or with whom she been sleeping?
I got a nasty feeling
Up my shoulder it's creeping
Could you tell me the place she been
Or the place she been leaving?
Have you seen my baby?
It's for her I've been grieving

It's around about midnight
I can tell by my watchband
I've been stalking these city streets
Like I'm Muddy with a mojo hand
The clouds cover the moonlight
And I cover the waterfront
I see shadows in streetlights
When I'm making my witch hunt
Have you seen my baby
Or with whom she been sleeping?
I got a nasty feeling
Up my shoulder it's creeping
Could you tell me the place she been
Or the place she been leaving?
Have you seen my baby?
It's for her I've been grieving

She's a gypsy queen
She red hot like a flaming flare
Like the girl in the magazine
A true American nightmare
She make my head grow heavy
Turn my eyesight blurry
She was a slow train coming
But she left in a hurry
Have you seen my baby
Or with whom she been sleeping?
I got a nasty feeling
Up my shoulder it's creeping
Could you tell me the place she been
Or the place she been leaving?
Have you seen my baby?
It's for her I've been grieving
As the Night Goes By
Well, I've had a pleasant stay here with the inmates
At the wild water-hole, where the Burgundy's cut-rate
But every week or so, I take something that sends me
And I sing a tuneless song in the name of your memory.
I've got a medicated mind
And my memory unwinds
My tired eyes are blind
As the night goes by.

Well, I'd have another glass but I can't find the purpose.
Every time I drown my sorrows, they rise to the surface
And the words I'm shouting louare confusing and random,
But if you're hearing the tone of my voice, you'll soon understand them.
I've got a medicated mind
And my memory unwinds
My tired eyes are blind
As the night goes by.

When you start to sing in the choir of primates
Remember my face and my hands and the thump of my heart-rate.
When the world's talking loud and you're tired of listening,
Bring to mind how I screech and I whine and your thoughts will start glistening.
I've got a medicated mind
And my memory unwinds
My tired eyes are blind
As the night goes by.

12 O'Clock Sharp

It was 12 O'Clock Sharp
And my patience was waning
I'd been out on a mean drunk
And I wanted some more.
The teahouse was loaded.
Nasty Lucy was singing.
With her metal voice ringing
I broke down the door.
I was tossing out smiles.
Rabbithead gave his greeting.
When I got to the cheap seats,
I pulled out my chair.
Rabbithead groomed himself
And let his fangs dangle.
When his capillaries swelled,
A new scent hit the air.

The drum rolls and the band strikes a tune!
Enter Darling Melina, the Blooming Red Rose of Cancun!
Just as if dropped from Heaven above,
When she walks down the stairwell,
Her face fills the room with her love.
Shouts, gasps and screams fill the room to the rafters.
Enter the Pit Bull: he knows who he's after.
I see hips with the curve of a bow.
Hail Darling Melina, her gaze like the eyes of a doe.
I raise up my glass of vermouth.
My heart starts to race.
I relive the lost days of my youth.
I haven't had this much fun since that night in Milwaukee
When my plane was delayed and I drank 'til I saw the sun rise.

With the hands of a hound
And the head of the Rat-God,
My friend howled and snorted
And I called back in kind:
"Hold your peace!  I'm too droll and too dashing
To accept this tongue-lashing!"
Seconds later Conan mangled my mind.
I was hit with a hammer.
My jaw lost its integrity.
My teeth struck my palate
To Melina's shrill screams.
I was shoved down the stairwell
And the floor shot up at me.
As my nose started pouring,
My mind drifted in dreams.

While soft strings follow Sweet Lucy's fingers,
The candle-lamps light warmly glows with the moon.
And the local folk sing in the streets
As I dance through the night with the Rose of Cancun.
I haven't had this much fun since late '47
On that long Autumn night when I kissed Apollonia good-bye.

Rabbithead's laughing.
I look up from this gutter
While the wide Revolucion
Is met by the dawn.
I thank all the locals
For their kind hospitality
Though my Spanish is shaky
And my wallet is gone.

Across the Windy Distance

In the gutter, where the rivers flow
My shoe soaked up the water
Simon's mind is cracking now
And he's laying in the flowers
"My love lives across the windy distance."

Sour grass is waving now
And the milk-clouds all are blowing
Simon says the gale's gone wild
And the gale's where she's going
"My love lives across the windy distance,
But her name lives inside me."

Simon let her go away
In you mind, let her peacefully
She's slipping in the gentle void
And her spirit's floating freely
"My love lives across the windy distance,
But her name lives inside me."

In the gutter where the river flows
In the evening when I'm sleeping
Simon feels the night-winds rise
And the dew drops mark his weeping.

For Good Measure

"Let me empty my head"
Were the words that she said
A look of cold dread
Was upon her
"Please sit yourself down.
Let me buy you a brown.
When you're finished you're bound
To be fonder."
I ordered a round
And we swallowed it down.
She smiled as I clowned
For her pleasure.
I offered a toast
"To the love I love most."
And I ordered again
For good measure.

When this one had came
We did nearly the same
But she called my name,
Grabbed my attention
My head felt a rush
As she spoke in a hush:
"There's a thing I've been
Meaning to mention.

I'm filled up with fear."
I said, "You're battered with beer.
You can't see things too clear
And you know it.
Get it all off your chest
And you let your mind rest.
It'll be for the best
So don't blow it."

"The room's grown a blur."
To this I had to concur
And I wasn't so sure
Of her feelings.
Her voice became weak
As if trying to speak
Of a bitter thing
She'd been concealing.

"It's a sham, it's a lie."
All these words she did cry
And I couldn't deny
It had ended
I finished my drink
And though I tried not to think
I lamented the love
We pretended.

Like the Wild Irish Heather

My eyelids open like a new day rising
Like the preacher shouting loud I'm busy proselytizing
My head's heated with a dose of sweet fever
The world's on the radio
And I'm the receiver
My limbs are lighter than an ostrich feather
I got rubber bands holding me together
My eyesight's hazy like some storm cloud weather
My brain's breezy like the wild Irish heather

I got lucky like a pair down underneath
Like a mojo and a pocket full of black teeth
My head's gone higher than a flying flock of gulls
Every word I want to say would be spelled out in bold capitals
My limbs are lighter than an ostrich feather
I got rubber bands holding me together
My eyesight's hazy like some storm cloud weather
My brain's breezy like the wild Irish heather

My mind's riding in a long, black limousine
Down the boulevard of visions, springing sweet dreams
I'm drinking sherry from an overflown crystal cup
And when it's finished then it starts back filling up
My limbs are lighter than an ostrich feather
I got rubber bands holding me together
My eyesight's hazy like some storm cloud weather
My brain's breezy like the wild Irish heather

St. Louis

In January, I shot a stranger
In a routine robbery.
He reached under the register
And my mind flashed white.
His eyes pushed out from his head
And his lips stilled.
My next memory's the highway
And your face at the door.

My mother told me I was crazy,
And I hear the same thing from Marie:
That I could sail to Christchurch
And some joker would chase me.

When you left St. Louis
Did you think you would find me
In that puddle on Sunset
When I shot too much?
When your sister passed on that April
And your father started speaking to God,
Did you think you would marry me
Or marry at all?

My mother told me I was crazy,
And I hear the same thing from Marie:
That I could sail to Christchurch
And some joker would chase me.

If your blood's become tainted,
I won't run to Mexico,
Because I'm not a killer at heart
And I'm yours.
Take my whiskey and drink it.
In a minute I'll join you.
Though I watched a stranger die,
It's not clear I can take this.

My mother told me I was crazy,
And I hear the same thing from Marie:
That I could sail to Christchurch
And some joker would chase me.
I could sail to Christchurch
And some joker would chase me.

You!

You!
By the swimming pool.
You!

You!
By the bay.
You!

Sleeping by the floating sky.

You!
By the blue hill.
You!

You!
By the lily pond.
You!

Sleeping by the floating sky.

These Pictures on My Walls

I sit by the window.
I read in the den.
I tend to the garden
And I sit back down again.
Last month, my health failed me.
My powers of speech have left my self.
But I'm well-versed in ancient literature
And I collect it on my shelf.
How long a time it's been
Since my friends have come to call.
But I see them in their pictures
Which still decorate my hall.
My head has grown heavy.
Thoughts have filled it to the brim.
My body's drifting in my living room.
And the daylight's getting dim.

When I looked at those headlights
And they looked right back at me,
How the bloodveins in my head swelled
And then violently released.
I still feel the cold asphalt
And the rush of pouring rain.
I still hear my doctors wonder
How these memories remained.
I know that happiness is the highest good
Towards which proper action strives
And though my actions have been hindered,
I should be happy I survived.
With my memories, I'm surrounded
And when evening comes, they call
But if I could speak my mind I'd shout it
At these pictures on my wall.

The Candlelight Crept through the Air

When we kissed on the docks and the various sea-birds were singing
The vapors rose up from the bay with the silver air ringing.
In the still wind, our cheeks touched in a lingering instance
With the blue of the ice rising up in the thickening distance.

When the moist wind sighed
With the lane-lines streaming
And our hands held.
When the cars cried
In the pale, green gleaming
As the night fell.

In the room with the sheets and the lengths of our limbs intertwining,
The red of the dim and the flush of your face were combining.
In a sleep spin, when the wind in the window was creaking,
We reached with the whole of our hands and our fingers were speaking.

With the wind in your face
And the sky in your glasses
And the skin on your hand.
By the white waves
And the rushing razor grasses
On the cool sand.

Last night I drank wine and I watched the sky set into violet.
The candlelight crept through the air and the trees became silent.
I saw stars tumble down and connect to the glowing, blue blossoms
With a picture of you welling up from the watery macrocosm.

Where the Wind Blows

He went down the stair
Past the dining room chair.
"Do your best to take care,"
And the door closed.
She picked up the phone.
"Let's not spend this night alone.
For a week he's bound to roam
Where the wind blows."

Soon she gazed upon his face
And her heart began to race.
As she imagined how he'd taste
She closed the front door.
He said, "I waited for your call.
Now, take the phone from out the wall
So we might let our hearts recall
What they were made for."

He thought, "I lied about my trip
But now I've finally seen her slip.
I can't wait to hear her flip
When I call her.
I'll go to a phone booth
And present her with the proof.
Just a taste of the truth
Will appall her."

He paid both his dimes
But got no answer on the line.
A vision filled his mind:
"My God, they're screwing!"
He burst in through the door--
"My love, you've turned into a whore.
I'll beat you both on to the floor
For what you're doing."

She said: "if you cut me I may bleed.
If you punch me I may plead,
But I never will concede
I still love you.
With this I wash my hands.
I've grown deaf to your demands.
I don't even have to stand
To rise above you."

When these words shot through his ear
His stomach swooned like something queer
And so the neighbors wouldn't hear
He closed the window.
He said: "this house was once my home
But tonight has more than shown
How our hearts are bound to roam
Where the wind blows."

Crazy

If you should see me
Swinging from a tree
You'll know that I love you.
If I jump off the ground
And never come down,
You'll know my heart's flying.
It's been such a time
Since you've been on my mind
And I'm falling behind in my rent.
I've started to go crazy all about you,
So take me by the arms and carry me away.

If I lie in the river
Until my toes start to shiver
I'll be thinking of you.
If I cry at the moon
Until my heart starts to swoon,
You'll know that I care.
When I see you pass by
My thoughts start to fly
Through the window and hit the cement.
I've started to go crazy all about you,
So take me by the arms and carry me away.

If I break into song
In the midst of a throng,
You'll know of my feelings.
If I shout of this love
From the tower above
You'll hear my heart cry.
I wait out the day
For when you walk my way
And I smile as you're passing right by.
I've started to go crazy all about you,
So take me by the arms and carry me away.

The Bathroom Mirror

All night long
I've been watching the door.
I've heard footsteps go by
And I looked at the empty floor.
Down on Second Ave.
I hear sirens whine.
In the glass in my window
Your face mixes with mine.

I can't close my mind off.
I've been left without choice.
Am I hearing the radio
Or the sound of your voice?
The apartment is hollow
And I know you're not here
But it's your eyes I see crying
When I look in the bathroom mirror.

You're still a part of me.
You're still a part of me
And you're lost somewhere
In the city.
You're still a part of me.
You left your beating heart in me
And you're walking alone
On the sidewalks and taking the subway.

"Body & Soul"

I smell my pillow and I hear a sound.
My eyelids open and I'm earthward bound.
Pretty soon the sisters wheel me around.
"Body & Soul".

It's Tuesday morning so they wash my hair.
The interns greet me as I pass the stair.
I start to mumble and the sisters hear a prayer.
"Body & Soul".

I hear the Father's footsteps up and down the hall.
He'll take all morning but he'll see us all.
I hear him whisper and I hear him call.
"Body & Soul".

The dishes break and then a rolling train goes by.
My head jerks backward and I shut my eye.
My head sees Heaven and the swirling angels sigh.
"Body & Soul".

The sunburnt courtyard.  The dusty hill.
The metal grating on my windowsill.
The wooden beads and all these crushed-up pills.
"Body & Soul".
The Snowbank's a Feather Bed
The radio played, "it's been more than just a while--"
When the bell rang, her cup finished filling.
He stepped in the fray.  A voice spoke through a smile:
"My sweet gullet's both ready and willing!"
She went in the din.  The sound bubbled and rised up.
From the back crept an ill-hushed-up moaning.
He looked at her skin.  It filled both his eyes up.
The pump fell.  The tap spat out, foaming.
A hand cupped an ear.  A slur whispered two names:
"They're both tangled, entwined, and together."
When the coast became clear, a bowl swallowed up flames.
His nose noticed a change in the weather.

From the yard came a heave.  A voice spoke through a tooth-glow:
"Here's the last of a dusted endeavor!"
Smoke curled and weaved.  She let in the wind-blow.
Through the mist, the song asked: "have you ever?"
A voice burst aloud.  The shot grabbed her attention.
"You can choose between me and what's fuming!"
From a shape in the crowd, a call cracked the dissention:
"With some help, we'll continue consuming."
A glass ditched a grip.  The goods gushed with the shatter.
Through the breaking he heard someone holler.
A voice left her lip: "there's a bloat in my bladder."
A cup passed.  A hand put in a dollar.

A throat choked and fried.  A lung burned, caterwauling.
The song sang: "the love we pretended."
His gut squealed and cried--it heard the can calling.
A croak wailed, "our dry throats must be mended!"
He pushed through the swarm.  It hissed expectation.
From the head the line streamed to the distance.
Her eyes saw his form.  It rushed her location.
Through the gate rolled a dose of deliverance.
The mob lunged the flow.  The punch poured out in splashes.
A brain bathed in the flooding contently.
His hand arose slow.  She let fall her lashes.
In the darkness, he brushed her hair gently.

Walls

Hear the walls around you crumble
Let them fall away to dust
See the bones of winter breaking
As you open up your eyes
And every word you start to mumble
Each lament of broken trust
Each new step you've started taking
Steps away from hollow lies.

Peel away your bitterness
And bathe inside your sleep
There's nothing left to hold you back
You begin to slip away.
You always acted out of tenderness
Unlike the company you'd keep
But you always knew you were on the right track
And it's on that track you'll stay.

So you've picked a path of loneliness
And you move along your way
But don't forget the ones you leave behind
Or the ones you left alone.
They can't hold you in your homliness
Or decide the things you say
But they never will escape your mind
So accept them as your own.

Time Slowed to a Crawl

Some people walk on tightropes
Other people take more difficult chance
There's some who no matter how much they think and hope
Always end up the victim of someone else's circumstances
But me, I'm just sitting in the sunshine
And you know, this makes me rather pleased.
Because I know no matter how much I bitch and whine
At least I haven't contracted some kind of mysterious disease.
Made a long distance call
Heard the wind through my window
Saw an aeroplane shoot through the sky
Time slowed to a crawl
I don't mind it a bit, though
And I don't stop to ask myself why.

Like a king surveys the land around him,
So my eyes wander up and down the street.
There's the parking meters and the car horns like trumpets sounding.
Of course, the ever-present shuffling of passers-by's feet.
Some of these people are hitting rock-bottom.
Just the same, some of them are flying high, like birds.
And troubles, well, everyone's got them
It's just that some make them worse by trying to fix them with words.
I cleaned up the hall
And the dog threw a fit
So it took him and locked him outside
Time slowed to a crawl
I don't mind it a bit, though
And I don't stop to ask myself why.

Well, every day that comes and goes is just a day gone by
And for everyone I know it's just the same.
Just because you live the occasional lie,
That doesn't mean you should live your whole life hanging your head in shame.
I just hope to let it slide, you know, that's how I hoped it would happen.
I'm never one to make a matter pressed.
When I turn on my radio, I hope to be hearing one hand clapping
And a voice that says, "stay calm, it's just a test."
I painted the wall,
Saw the street, heard the wind blow
And some strangers just passed me right by.
Time slowed to a crawl
I don't mind it a bit, though
And I don't stop to ask myself why.

Tangerine

I'm a sight and a sound in the down part of town
Where the green, green grass disappears from the swollen ground
I steal and I speak and I stumble around
And I await for the date when my mind is unwound
In unnatural heat, I stalk the city streets
Play the pawn and await an unkind defeat
I remain in my brain to regain the sweet
While I kneel and I keel at an empire's feet.
It's a sorry thing to say
It's the dimming of the day
Soon this descendant of decay
Will reap the damage of delay
Come whatever may not or whatever may.

It's both ruthless and cruel playing a stranger's own rule
I've been brainwashed from birth in the public school
I've played the scholar and played the fool
I've bayed like a hound dog and worked like a mule
The most common of crimes cheap like nickels and dimes
Seeped inside my surroundings and made me blind
Never leaving but fading like passing time
Building up in the backstreets of everyone's mind
It's a sorry thing to say
It's the dimming of the day
Soon this descendant of decay
Will reap the damage of delay
Come whatever may not or whatever may.

I feel anger and grief to make it pointed and brief
So I stand of the sidewalk and shout my belief
I await for the date when I'll find the thief
Who has stolen this city and removed my relief
All the bits of my brain, the parts and pieces of pain
Dreams that dance in the darkness then drip down the drain
It's seeming that soon nothing will remain
How can I keep my composure in the face of the insane?
It's a sorry thing to say
It's the dimming of the day
Soon this descendant of decay
Will reap the damage of delay
Come whatever may not or whatever may.

Trouble

Oh, here comes trouble
He struts with a swagger
That looks like he lives for his tool
He's looking your way
Yes, he's traveled this distance
To ask you to drink Œtil you drool
He tries hard to smile
But his teeth crack and crumble
His face falls to pieces
He stands there to speak
And the words start to tumble
His jawbone releases
His words are all hollow like lies
But you know that he thinks you believe that they're true
You can't bear to look in his eyes
Because there's nothing looking back at you.

He tells you it's love
He wouldn't know that emotion
If it came up and pissed upon him
Says he'll pay for your drinks
And when morning has risen
You can watch him work out at the gym
You block out the sound
Because it's more than annoying,
It's mildly insulting
He can't sense your reaction
But he shuts his mouth randomly
There's a silence resulting
His gaze wanders off of your face
And it stops right below where your neck begins
You know that his head's filled with space
And his vacuousness is the least of his sins

His eyes bulge
Bursting with vanity
And bitterness
The world that he sees
Is filled with nonentities
A desolate wilderness
He's looking your way
And you're staring right back
This he hadn't expected
He can't look at you straight
All his words were mistaken
His mind misdirected
You're looking for something to say
But it can't be said politely
Not to gaze on a sight so unsightly.

The Dance of Electricity

The hounds stopped their howling
Replaced by the wailing of machinery
The calls of the crows and the mockingbirds
Gone silent, subsiding away
The sailors now sailed to foreign places
Leave no traces, no memories behind
The urchins of alleyways
Forever now fleeting, they're drifting away
The water of wishing wells
The dust of the dreaming that's disappeared
The shining of sundown
Superseding's the dance of electricity

The trace of the outline of industry
Has permanent placed itself on the old skyline
The smoke of the twilight horizon
Has, shrouding, descended and siezed the day
The feeling of four-letter fingerprints
Impressed itself onto the outside.  It's crying out,
"Wait!"  Now the whole price has pushed itself
Inside of each and of all of the hollows.
The shelter of solitude
The noise of the numbers of metal days
The brightness of moonlight
In the dark of the dance of electricity

The leaves and the laughing of lily-roses
Who now can suppose who can speak in their way?
The tempo has taken its trampling
To the tears of the hallowed of higher places
The shadows of new-orphaned faces
See the spaces of lifetimes now leaved behind
In the shaking and stealing simplicity
In the trance of the dance of electricity

No Cause for Grieving

Her footsteps move quiet like stealing
Her scent rose like smoke to the ceiling
Her dress was just barely revealing
And it captured my wandering eyes
She leaves here, her memory lingers
Feel the touch of her ice cube fingers
I've been caught by her claws and her stingers
It's as if I've been hypnotized

Her hands move, two butterflies dancing
So controlled yet so casually entrancing
I saw them last night, I was glancing
Struck dumb, waiting for a word
Smooth like a mirror reflecting
Her eyes hide her secrets protecting
One word, now she speaks.  She's rejecting
The ones that would care for her.
She's stepping away
And I watch, she's leaving
She never can stay
But it's no cause for grieving

She could never pretend to be homely
Not alone, only ever so lonely
And this I could cancel if only
She'd let me get close to her
She cuts me without blades or violence
But her lips can speak nothing but silence
It's been more than just a while since
She's stepping away
And I watch, she's leaving
She never can stay
But it's no cause for grieving

The Apocalyptic Traveler

Here he comes,
It's the Apocalyptic Traveler
The mind bender, the word twister
The dream unraveler
He's brought all his belief
And all his truths
He's torn off all their price tags
He gives them to underprivileged youths
A wedding bell, a car horn,
A cry of joy from somebody's roof
The sound echoes in his eardrum
But still he stays aloof
"But if I had my choice," he says,
"I'd have none of these things.
I'd forget my worthless pennies
And hear the silence sing.
Don't throw me away, don't tell me good-bye.
Don't put me in the fire and watch me fry.
The words that I say have started running dry.
I don't want to be a liar when my life comes running by."

There's a crack in the heavens
Can't you see it for Heaven's sake?
The mind-bender's mind is bending
He hopes to God it doesn't break
He sits upon a park bench
Like the arc of a wilted rose
Feel it in your fingers;
Catch the bouquet with your nose
"Don't throw me away, don't tell me good-bye.
Don't put me in the fire and watch me fry.
The words that I say have started running dry.
I don't want to be a liar when my life comes running by."

The Apocalyptic Traveler's thinking,
"Is all I do for the best?
If I disappeared this moment,
Would I have passed the test?"
First he's slipping, then he's clinging,
Then he starts to slip again
He knows someday something will happen
But he could not tell you when.
"Don't throw me away, don't tell me good-bye.
Don't put me in the fire and watch me fry.
The words that I say have started running dry.
I don't want to be a liar when my life comes running by."

Queens

I'm the man who just left the asylum
I've got $24 and a Yankee cap
I've got splinters underneath my fingernails
And the city is stretched out before me

I can't wait for my next greasy meal
Or when I find some receptive company
When I married Maureen, I was green and untutored
And I think I remember what she looked like

The Hare Krishnas have swarmed upon Washington Square
And they asked me to join their singing
In the corner, the chess men are venting their spleen
And the echo of their windpipes is ringing

In my cup, someone tossed me a token
And the wind's rushing up from the tunnel
I'll flee far away from Manhattan
Maybe Queens, where I once raised a family

The Blue Desert Hills

I'm seventeen miles past Indio
And the wind's blowing tumbleweeds aimlessly
With the blue desert hills in my window
And my car rushing east without purpose.
When the sun had dipped down to the crystal sea
And I poured out a hard-earned aperitif,
Her voice pierced the room and it said to me,
"You're a dear, but you've brought my mind restlessness."
In the instant that passed, my grip tensed on the glass
And a drop of sweet port hit the tabletop.
She said, "you're a find. I'm in love with your mind,
But the depths of your heart are unfathomable."

If I'd have been smart, I'd have bit back or more.
I'd have said, "it's yourself you're describing."
But my head rushed and reeled: I ran for the door,
But if I'd have been clever, I'd have stayed there.
The atrium reeked of her rosemary
And I tread on the petals of her lily-bed.
With a slam, I was shut up in sanctuary
In the metal cocoon of my automobile.
I stepped on the gas and in the instant that passed
I flew miles away from that horror show.
I heard a soft cry from the cold, purple sky
When the dim, painted desert shot at me.

I'm twenty-one miles past Indio,
Underneath the full moon and the Pleiades.
My mind's overtaken with memories
And the physical world's insubstantial.

I've Maintained My Advantage

Although I'm blissfully alone,
I'm drawn to the phone
And I can almost hear it ring. 
Just behind the front door
There's one shrill voice or more
With my name loudly echoing. 
The lipstick stains and my dirty hands:
How I keep searching the sheets for hair-strands. 
It won't be long until I hear these demands
That I'm sure are there waiting. 
So dress me down and classify me as vile. 
Confine my dwellings to a garbage pile. 
I have my prizes and my face can still smile. 
I've maintained my advantage.

My reactions are automatic
And my expression stays static
When I'm held up to the grill. 
I'm giving proof to my belief
That as I'm given this grief
I further strengthen my iron will. 
There have been times that I've found myself caught,
But after all of these things that I've bought,
To bring this total to a deafening nought
Would just leave me chagrined. 
So shoot my head up with your slings and your needles. 
Lay my dead body on a heap of dung beetles. 
I am much smarter than the average bipedal. 
I've maintained my advantage.

I'll surely slip through their sight
And with each passing night
Their suspicions will keep unconfirmed. 
That nasty thought in their brains
Is surely sure to remain
An unreproductive, though vicious, germ. 
So box my face or cut me up with your claws
And then recite that long list of your laws. 
I can retort without the slightest of pause
That I'm all but immune. 
So call the cops or throw me into the deep,
But don't call me an example of sheep. 
Though I have hideous dreams when I sleep,
I've maintained my advantage.

The Animal Shelter

My scar's started bleeding and my heart can't go on.
My eyes have grown dim and my brain starts to swim
My fortune's gone grim and I'm gone.

Then I pick up the scent
And my body's unbound from society and government.
Can't distinguish the breed
But any one of the above can fulfil my particular need.
Then there's a shock to my skull and I see it--
How that door opens wide.
The white coat reaches out and gets me
And I'm going outside.
There's that scent coming down the hallway
And my feet get free.
I'm led straight to the room where my senses swoon
And then the door shuts behind me.

Back in the streets I'm in miserable pain.
It's five minutes gone by since that smell passed.
I got that white tile room getting stuck in my brain
I'm halfway to insane at long last.
Female hairs filled that room and they spoke of a foul plan
Because I felt, in my gut, a cold cut from a hairy, white hand.
But although they were men they could not kill me then.
I left two of them bleeding and with my heartbeat still beating I ran.

But there's the patter of paws!
So thank God I'm not governed by the Mosaic moral law.
I'll chase that sweet little tail
And I'll run 'til I drop. I won't stop until they throw me in jail.
Just one look and I'm hooked and I see her
And she's gray as a gray can be.
By that truck tearing up the sidewalk
And I'm crying with glee.
I put my face in her fur and I greet her
And I'm flying off the street.
While my little heart pounds my paws touch ground
And then a hand grips my feet.

I look straight in her face. Her scent's now more than a trace
And that steel door shuts on my free days.
Though they'll cut me unkind, it's shot far from my mind.
In a friendlier fashion, I'm blinded by a passionate haze.

The Duck Hunter

By the paddies and trees,
My chin rests on my knees and I'm dreaming.
My mind sees you smile,
And for a tenth of a while, my heart's beaming.
But in my sullen case,
Fortune acts as unkind as it can.
It's time for you to make up your mind
Between me and your man.

Now my captors have brough me my rice,
And it's swarming with vermin.
My mouth howls broken sounds at the clouds
Just as if I were German.
If I'd been shot dead that day
In the city of Hue, I'd be clean.
But I see hungry children slaughtering pigs
In my strange, vivid dreams.

Gone are those sweetest of times.
I continue to pay for my crimes
But when you open up my prose and my rhymes
I know your heart still keeps me.
As I gather my new point of view
My broken spirit slowly learns to be true.
My memory wanders to you
And how we once loved sweetly.

I'd forego my cigarettes and my meals
To sense the way your curvature feels
But in this world of bamboo and steel,
I need a solemn promise.
I'll take any old token you find.
Send it care of the Cong, they won't mind
And if you've chosen to leave me behind,
Send me some farewell kisses.

I remember that cool autumn night
When your husband went hunting.
How we shut all the doors
And the house filled with gasps and with grunting.
Love has taken me time,
But now it's something that I understand.
It's time for you to make up your mind
Between me and your man.

A New, Nameless Beach Town

I had a board. I had a red car.
I had a place inside the neighborhood bar.
But last Tuesday, I took it too far
And I'll relate it straight away.
Bring to mind a wood floor and blaring baseball games.
Feel the coursing of booze in your blood veins.
Then you'll have sensed my condition of brain
Which stretched out all that long night.
I wandered around.
I'd come to inside the strangest of places.
A new, nameless beach town
With a truckload of unfamiliar faces.

Despite calls from the crowd and a bill to pay,
I resolved to call that long night a done day.
I was sure I'd stumble off the right way
While the moon shined behind me.
As I recalled an old dream filled with moss hills
And the scent of the sea reached my nostrils
My feet traveled by their own random will
And my memory went dim.
I wandered around.
I'd come to inside the strangest of places.
A new, nameless beach town
With a truckload of unfamiliar faces.

With my five-day old beard and my bare feet
And my skin getting burned in this dry heat,
I've since stopped trying to remember that street
That I traveled that long night.
Now I'm off to the brush on that hillside.
I'll chase the rabbits and I'll steal their hides.
By the night I'll hear the incoming tide
Which breaks off in the distance.
I wandered around.
I'd come to inside the strangest of places.
A new, nameless beach town
With a truckload of unfamiliar faces.

The Long Retreat

The pine trees abound.
There's snow on the ground.
My feet make no sound
When I'm walking.
There's pressure on my eyes.
I'm getting weak in my thighs.
Beneath these frigid, gray skies,
I'm flooded with memories.
Almost three years ago,
As my former in-laws know,
My mind drifted to and fro
And I left here.
One summer morning I ran,
Or, rather, took my old van.
To then become a full man
Was my resolution.

When I came to the retreat
In the August heat.
I quickly learned it was sweet
To cry on shoulders.
I was wrapped in warm arms
Away from sources of harm
We spoke of fishing and farms
To connect to the earth.
As the months drifted by,
I continued to cry.
I'd been trained in my eye
To respond so.
As new faces arrived,
The long retreat still thrived.
We thanked God we were alive
For another two years.

One night I lay in my bed.
I seemed healed in the head,
Or, rather, something had fled
From my motivation
And the thought grew within
As I examined my bretheren:
Our type of patter was akin
To highway robbery.
There's my house on the lake.
I made a terrible mistake.
I took a much-needed break
But the wrong one.
And if I had knew then
About the company of men,
I'd have taken my penAnd written it off.

The Czech Philologist

I landed a lecture when they opened back up Olomuc
Although I'd done my degree out in Mainz with the Germans in jackboots.
In the 23 times my sad case has come up for review
Each year the cold verdict came down there was writing I needed to do.
So when my eyes came across that old vellum in a convent near Warsaw,
How my heart palpitated and I tingled from my toes to my jaw.
In that lone, musty room it slipped into my satchel to hide.
With the footsteps of my colleagues from Prague in the hallway outside.

My heart arrested at the sight
Of that page full of claws and a cat bite.
I called the culprit's name out as the night,
Like my future, grew blacker.
With that bottle in my sweating hand,
I was living the literature of the banned.
With the wind rushing in through my window
Like sounds like some firecrackers.

With leaflets left out on the streets rushing over the sidewalks,
I heard the fast, unintelligible blur of a Muscovite's talk.
Underneath the cold streetlamp, I stumbled to speak to the pair
And inquired if they'd seen a lost cat, and if so, would they please tell me where?
He put up his cold, metal pistol to the tip of my ear,
His hairy hand steady, though his breath smelled of vodka and East German beer.
His wrist turned to the right and I felt a breeze blow by my neck
And the world now shot at me in silence, like a slow-motion train wreck.

My vision blurred in the rising heat.
Nová Ulíce gave beneath my feet.
And with only the sound of my thundering heartbeat
To guide me
In a moment when I caught my breath,
I thought of that feline and death,
While the shards of my bottle shot out
In a circle beside me.

I'll find me a pistol and lay lead in that cat's ugly skull
And parade with his head on a stake through the province's capital.
My mind will careen down a stream and jot themes on my notecards
While Kalashnikovs gleam in the lights on the squares and the boulevards.

The Marine Corps Reject

I've had it to here in my days and my dreams.
My spine straightens up and it seems my body's going to burst.
I've been slipping from the bad to the worst.
And what's more, I've been found unfit to serve in the Corps.
After waiting for days in my wreck of a home,
I was downing a drink when I heard the phone was starting to ring.
It was then they told me everything.
Yes, it's true--and I've figured out what I'm going to do.

The sweat had started to pour from my paws
When I saw my future slip from the cause.
He listed off a few of my flaws
And his tone of voice lit me.
So I shouted back into the receiver
He was the bastard and I was the believer.
I could take him with a knife or a cleaver
If the mood up and bit me.

Minutes later, my mind got despondent and blue.
The whole of my life had got up and flew right into a ditch.
And then my eyelid started to twitch.
I couldn't think, so I swallowed down a powerful drink.
When I woke up again, my situation was clear.
A voice had spoke to me and told me to hear what it said.
It spoke bluntly of the phone and the dead.
I heeded the call--I threw the telephone right at the far wall.

I then proceeded following suit.
I crushed the dialer with my steel-toed boot.
It gave way as if a piece of old fruit
And I grabbed me a beer.
Through the window I saw thousands of wires
As if consumed inside their funeral pyres.
The poles lifted the flames even higher
And my mission was clear.

I'm sick in the head and my heart has grown bitter,
But I can picture these streets and they're littered up with telephone bells.
I take comfort in the smoke and the smell.
And it's true--I've figured out what I'm going to do.
Yes, I'm gonna take that old axe in my hand,
Kick open my door and I'll tear through this land in a rage
Until they lock me up in a cage.
You better run--I assure you that my will will be done.

I'll chop every last pole in this town.
Call out the riot squad to bring me on down.
If you want to stop this running around,
Just step forward and make me.
Take stock of all your iron and steel.
Fill up your shelters with unperishable meals.
I've stepped on to the scene and I'm real
Because the Corps couldn't break me.

San Diego

Gotta raise up my glass to this country
Because in every XX there's a voice calling me
And if I said a word I might get myself heard
Or I might get uncomprehended

I mark every face in this hovel
And each in his turn takes his time to mark me
In this dim and this haze I've spent seven nights and days
And it hasn't worn thin.

With the fronds in the trees and the salt scent in the breeze
I can still see your face when my eyes shut
I still have my need of both drink and of weed
And my money should hold out for a week or two

Carry me on my back all the way to San Diego
Leave my body on that other side
Because the sun's getting red and there's a hole in my head
Where my love used to be

Turn out that harsh light, take my hands and hold me tight
I'll be sure to reward you
If last month I could see where at this minute I might be
What would have occured to me?

Some Kind of Magic

If I could take back last night
I'd give my first born
I'd swear off the wine and the waifs
And grow forlorn
With every long week rushing past
It's growing much worse
Subtle tones of disapproval in voices
At the Chamber of Commerce

And since you took my darling daughter
I feel my lungs are filling up with salt water
A picture forms upon my ink blotter
And I can't seem to focus
It's far more worse than if I'd gone deaf and dumb
Or if my spine should make my legs feel numb
It's as if you've broken both of my thumbs
With some kind of magic

How could I still my weak hand
When she walked through that door
And her cigarette smoke filled the air
While my heartbeat roared
I heard her voice from when she spoke in my ear
As we sat on the pews
How she revealed to me she'd had a divorce
And her parents were Jews

Last week I stood upright as rain
But there's a virus caught inside my brain
In my neck I feel a certain sharp pain
And it's starting to show
It's as if my body's covered in crust
Left upon me by last night's pure lust
As if some imp's exposed this long-broken trust
With some kind of magic

I see the breaking orange of dawn
As I sit upon the neighbor's front lawn
Half my life has packed its things and got gone
And left empty bottles
I can see the pastor look in my eyes
With a look unfilled with grief or surprise
There's an ache inside my neck and my thighs
And I should get home

In the fading white stars straight above
I can see a bright cross
My muscles constrain in my neck
And my soul is lost
Never mention my name to the kid
So there's a chance she'll forget
In later years she won't recall my sick face
And fill with regret

Building St. Petersburg

My master sent me here
From Novgorod for half the year
I took with me some pelts and beer
When the harvest was done
All I see is wood and snow
The icebound boats shift to and fro
I work and watch the sky's deep glow
While the monks say a prayer
The Devil's come to walk these banks
His eyes are blind to birth and rank
My face becomes a flawless blank
When I see him pass by
How many men from Germany
Have traveled on the Baltic Sea
To vent their anger upon me
In a strange kind of language?

I awoke last Sunday night
Across the sky were flashing lights
My hut came into sight
And I walked for an hour
I saw the face of old Ivan
Who drank his kvass from dusk 'til dawn
The Devil took his soul beyond
And I heard his voice calling
I recalled the lovely time
We stole a keg of Master's wine
We went to fight after we'd dined
With the neighboring village
I further saw my Master's face
When he first told me of this place
I can recall the awful taste
That then came from my bile

A mental picture of my wife
Brought me more of my former life
I felt my fingers touch my knife
As I thought of the Swedes
I saw the fires in the trees
I felt the earth beneath my knees
The Swedes were riding on the breeze
And they took her away
I see the pictures on these plans
How on this swamp that statue stands
The engineer barks his commands
And I hear them translated
I count the days of this long year
They say the thaw is coming near
I run my fingers through my beard
And I look toward the forest

The Good Life

I see a long look on your face
In the dim light that spreads through my bedroom
The wind starts to pick up its pace
With the lightest of taps on the window pane
I put my thoughts on a paper today
And sent it up north to meet you
I rehearse in my head what I'd say
As I step of the airplane
I recall tiny things that we did
Making meals and discussing kids
I begin to lower my eyelids
And I think I hear hail
I imagine it would be a good life
With yourself as my wife
I sense a relative absence of strife
Though I can't see the details.

Your thoughts aren't in the things that you say
But I can sense an attachment in your voice's tones
I can feel your fingers find their way
Through the wires and out of the telephone
Though every third week of so I might grieve
On balance I am well I believe
But I'd be happy as not if I leave
All this dust and barbed wire
When it's time that you speak of your thoughts
If this thing's come to nought
It won't be that this climate's too hot
And loaded with brush fires.

It gets a little bit grayer each day
And it's seeming to cease when I think of you
I can feel you're not far away
And your picture's as clear as it ever was.
I'm awash in a dim light
In this stormy, purple night
I wonder if you think it's right
That you're somewhere away
I close my eyes and picture my hands
Slipping through your hair strands
As I dream of these fine, cool sands
By the sound of the tide

The Canadian Vacation

I got a terrible pain in my temple
And my stomach hasn't settled down
It's eleven o'clock in the morning
In this little undergraduate town
Five minutes ago I arrived here
But I almost didn't come at all
I made it down the steps to the station
After a trip to a stall.
Thank God that God has given me Canada
Where I can let go of my mind
Last night I hopped across the border
With some others of my kind
I'm losing my memory of your texture
I lost the color of your hair
And from the speakers there's a sound that is spilling
That's as harsh as I can bear.

I took a fairly strong dose
I went comatose
How heavenly I was feeling!
I put the keys in my car
Ringing electric guitar
And in a minute the engine was squealing.

I sped along the long, wooded highway
And the road began to curve
I could hear the shouts of people behind me
And I had a crisis of nerve
My eyesight saw a sheet of cold purple
Of alternating dim and sharper tones
I heard what seemed to me to be your whisper
As if spoken through a telephone
My eyelids arose and I looked back
There stretched out a streak of shooting white lines
My companions kept moving their fingers
And their voices intertwined
I turned myself to face myself forward
And the world stood still
The car slowed to a stop on the shoulder
And I was physically ill

My friend started to drive
My nausea showed me I was alive
The smell sauntered out of the window
I lost track of the time
Pictures flashed before my spinning mind
And when I next awoke we were home.

I've begun to sleep less than in high school
Since last year, when I arrived in Maine.
I can't bear to look inside a deep mirror
And I'm worried about my brain.
I would pen a little note to California
If I could still my shaking hand
And I'd recall to you the first time we'd spoke
After that practice of my former band.

The Stroke Victim

I awoke with a man's face before me
His eyes cried.
He began to implore me.
What's the meaning of my strange look of horror?
Did I not recall our wedding?
I saw his hair.  It was groomed to perfection.
In the mirror, I saw the strangest of reflections
I saw a room with a host of fine flowers
With me in the middle.
I saw his gold pen and I knew then
Whoever this was, he was comfortable.
My eyes grew dim and I could hear him
In hushed tones as he spoke to a doctor.

When I awoke, I was alone as a dead man.
I saw a bureau, drawn blinds, and a bedpan.
Familiar smells wafted in from the hallway
And a woman brought me breakfast.
I arose and wandered halfway to the door.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the spotless floor.
I took the stairs beneath a shining chandelier
And went out to the street.
I looked behind to do my best to remind me
Where it was I was leaving.
I heard the traffic roar. The woman's at the door
With a strange man in tow.

"Ask her back, we won't need to use force."
I heard her say in a voice filled with strange remorse.
"Darling dear, you've gone out of your element.
Let me take you by your fingers."

I awoke hearing voices raised in anger:
"You've become a wealthy man, Dr. Erlanger--
How many months will it take with your medicine
To get her faculties functioning again?
" I drifted down, came to, and began to look.
A shaved face, a gold pen, and a notebook.
The other man wandered off toward the window.
And a voice spoke."I wrote your full name, our address on the lane.
At all times you will carry this with you.
This must stop here.   Come doctor, have a beer."
And I flipped through the pages.

I saw the sunlight peeking in through the window.
A kissed cheek and a voice that said, "today you'll go.
Take a look at the message that I left you
On the first couple pages."
"I've discussed this tricky matter with the doctor.
You'll return to the department with Maria as your proctor.
I've arranged for some tasks to be completed--
And reread your identity."
So this is my house. The man must be my spouse.
A woman brought me down the stairwell.
I got into the car. "Are we driving far?"
For myself I recorded the directions.

I saw the building and I filled with hesitation
I was led by my wrist and his hand cut my circulation.
Strange eyes with a sad kind of bloodshot
While their mouths tried to smile.

Rise and shine this confused, early morning
Taped on the mirror large letters gave a warning:
"Don't dash off without a glance at your notebook."
So I flipped through the pages.
"You were born 50 years before this minute.
At 23 you made a marriage and you're still in it.
Your career was cut short by an injury.
But you'll die well off.
Your man's the money-maker. He pays the caretaker.
Furthermore, she cleans the windows.
He arranged your work as a file clerk.
And he writes your instructions."

Let me leave, I'll accept this as given.
If I can't drive, then let me be driven.
In the mirror I saw my face as if shining.
And I thought I looked good.
Put the book on my rosewood nightstand.
Stepped downstairs with a pill bottle in my hand.
My footsteps were silent on the carpet
And I looked at the door.
I saw her hand slip from his fingertips
Their eyes in a glance that lingers.
I turned around to see photographs before me
And I ran to my room.

My vision blurred and my chest became tight.
I felt around for my notebook by my reading light.
Tore the pages and began to write from scratch
And imagined my life.

I awoke this fine morning unconfused.
I sat and read as the man beside me snoozed.
I am 25 years old on this weekend In a sweet affair.
I seem to sense a tiny shard of a memory:
I am a Doctor of Philosophy from Emory.
I read again and dispel this suspicion.
I take a pill with bottle water.
I'm pricked by tiny fear--The room's devoid of mirrors.
Sounds arrive from the stairwell.
I close Venetian blinds. I leave the room behind
And a woman brings me breakfast.

The Governor and His Wife

If I had the chance
I'd take off my pants
And do a little ol' naked dance
For the governor and his wife.

Making the Papers

I spent six full years of my life, babe
Knocking off retail stores
Giving gray hairs to all kinds of clerks
And breaking so many plate glass doors
But through it all, I never lied to myself
And that's more than that judge can say
So throw back three more tequilas
And walk yourself back my way
I finally made the papers
Or rather the papers made me
But you shouldn't believe
Everything that you read in the Bee

I shot that 9-ball cowboy's shoulder
In a dive that posed as a pool hall
My head's still humming with pictures, babe
Of cue sticks and billiard balls
Red lights and whining sirens
In the shadow of the Capitol
With Channel 3 showing some footage
I could feel my future go null
I finally made the papers
Or rather the papers made me
But you shouldn't believe
Everything that you read in the Bee

You got legs, baby and I know it's true
When you're walking away from me
But it's been 30 long months my heart's been blue
And I'll sing it by the witness tree
And it's true I got my gentle side
But the officer shot the wrong profile
In prison I purchased my puppy-dog eyes
And what I'm told is a winning smile

I go from insult to injury, baby
In less that 5 seconds flat
I am equally dangerous when packing a pistol
Or wielding a baseball bat
I got nothing but time and someone else's money
Since I've been living it up on parole
Both my heart and my new Trans Am
Are bigger than that bullet hole
I finally made the papers
Or rather the papers made me
But you shouldn't believe
Everything that you read in the Bee

Well I've met many fine lawyers, it's true
In these, my misspended days
But not one of them can hold a candle to you
In so many important ways
Just give me your name or your license number
And we'll spend an evening of bliss
Bring a bottle of Jose Cuervo
And I'll bring this celebrity's kiss

On Every Step of Our Stair

There's glass in my hand
I'm spilling into the sand
My wife won't understand
When she hears this
I stumble back on the street
And our eyes meet
I get weak in the feet
And I'm down

I hear someone's words
They mix with calling birds
But from what think I have heard
They're getting distant
Now I wish I knew
If I were false or true
To whomever of you
I was meant for

In my wife's curling hair
On every step of our stairs
I think there's more there
Than I'd noticed
I recall that hotel
And your perfume's smell
Could my wife tell
I'd gone missing?

My hands grab the dirt
I imagine your skirt
And I think this must hurt
But I can't feel it
I see the world through a veil
As my eyesight fails
I feel I'm entering a jail
Without exit

I feel myself shift
And my body lifts
But I'm gone in some drift
And I'll stay here
If I could I'd shout:
I sold everything out
I've got nothing but doubt
From this miserable tryst