so much undecided and even more at stake when the place where you resided gets caught under the wake as sentimental values go you can’t insure what’s caught below so rock on it’s a tender situation when your walk home is filled with dread & don’t walk by that station sugar there’s an alley you can take instead some blocks cry live and some live not while city sunlight keeps them hot so rock on so much riding on fixed and steady stuff that’s when i say i’ve had enough but the masters make it tough for you to to I watch em run their hustle the candyman counts his beans from tenements to subdivisions they live outside their means friday nights they dance until those saturday steppers foot the bill rock on a thousand mink distractions to coil around her crooked neck profound is her attraction to its smothering but soft effect superstitions all laid bare, there’s far less competition there as beasts pile in their burdens grow it’s easier just to let em go

quacks of ducks rise up from the south the wind retracts its chill scores of bugs bite back fighting out from that forgotten hill twilight in the dining hall a feast prepared for one and all though they have not slain a bird at all they eat their fill silent figure there in the shadows though he means no harm hides his deviant wicked methods underneath his charm light is shined a crowd will glance toward him, but they have no chance to see him and his mystic dance it would cause alarm every time i stand in line waiting for a fix of security to keep my woes at bay i can catch the signs something in me picks up the truths about the universe they don’t intend to say the sacred whisper out from the savage and profane the revolution springs from the common and mundane the space between them is life in all its joy and pain what’s the outcome? i think we all can answer that what’s our duty it’s who we are and where we’re at love the one that holds your hand when times get tough across the land and there ain’t no food to meet demand so you can’t grow fat but in these times of plenty when your thoughts are free to roam outside of food and shelter and the sanctity of home a place where we can choose our meal there was duck, now there’s beef and veal so how can we know how we feel about what goes on inside our little dome? days impatient wait for no man they saw his trail a ‘quack’ of ducks was flying southward through the sky so pale spring is here, we meet again i never new him as a friend but who he was and what he said there’s no escape frommit •

nat fly was a wild guy, got smashed in every corner of every dive but the pusher paid him to take a fall poured shots for peace and he drank them all now he’s just another fly on the wall and thekiller some said walks the streets dressed in red to blend in with that light we all know it’s seated at the top and most times makes men stop but it takes a special kind of man to go one who can’t resist the killer in the mist jennie pearl was a fine girl with the rarest milky shimmer in the world but the cop man walkin’ the crooked beat wrapped up her life on the yellow sheet scattered her remains on the street and the killer some knew had to be the boys in blue to blend in with that song poor men sing they aim their David’s snare at Goliath in the air but this time Goliath doesn’t feel a thing don’t know how they missed their killer in the midst fat dan is a quiet man, helps out with cookin dinner when he can but the boss man sold his job away to skinny steve who works for a lot less pay dan’s cookin up a gumbo today and the killer most have seen has to be the almighty green casting shadows over all of man’s domain clouds of worry and of doubt hover over lands of drought teasing peasants with the promise of rain or merely mist cos the killer’s in our midst

oh mother drop me on the wild wet shore & let me run along the ocean floor oh father teach me how to make war with the waves oh boy show me all the shells you’ve found there’s more to find under the sandy ground girl confound us with the way that you behave the night told a story that we read by the fire, which led us all to rest cos we had to lie to get our eyes to where they could read it best and while gemini saw us close our eyes taurus tucked us in and we’re waiting on aquarius to bring the tide in oh son show me how to do your walk your speech is silly but i’ll hear you talk i’m floating still from the words your mother said and daughter don’t let the stars grow dim behind your eyelids as you wait for him he’ll kiss you awake and then only tears of joy you’ll shed and though scorpio and cancer lie in wait beneath the sand and sagittarius suffers arrows for the virgo’s hand where pisces swims to calm his nerves libra weighs his deeds and aries scampers on the hills where capricorn feeds and though leo roars every time we cross swords, taurus tucks us in

i wake up in the morning with my arm around someone I hardly know I go out to the balcony to have a smoke and watch the town below there goes the airport there’s the airplanes there’s the graveyard for the ones that kept their flight it’s all fenced in so we can’t commune with dead people at night when time is running out and i figure that’s when they need us most more so when busy lives go on so close but rather than whizzing above your head i’ll come into your busy life once before we’re both dead i walk the darkened corridors arriving just in time to go to bed and though i need the sleep i’d rather find someone to share it with instead what good’s your fortune or your culture or your doorman if he sees not who you sneak out of your room with a kiss and a whisper i’ll see you next week, and time is running out into days now, minutes and seconds flat carved in the fence where busy lives once sat happy with those excuses that they’re fed until you busted down my fence and said good morning my love no matter how far downhill my days & nights might go, the morning’s above cos you’re by my side and i can share everything that i wanna share before my turn to hide & play by other’s rules cause i figure that’s how they now me best by my results in busy life’s contest they’ll take the score and mourn and pass me by and find the others who gave it a try and call the game unfair cos the others won it so easily marking their name off busy life’s trophy I can’t pretend to watch you play for long, my lover’s singing me a sweeter song I lie down in the evening but my feet wake up and wander to the floor They slowly set to standing and to walking sending me right out the door the graveyard’s open but there’s business to attend to as my plane prepares for flight into the busy atmosphere, i rocket out of sight

searing color temperatures rising cast a shade of blue on my head hearing duller amateurs asking what could have made it red no particular neutral density blocks the sun turning up the light shining from everyone and gaudy reflection is allowed to pass through by the halfwit receptionist seeing everything at once through a lens that takes it in frame by frame hearing idiots and extremists finding out they’re the same sometimes my call gets transferred to the wrong party other times i’m put on hold for an eternity the switchboard is scrambled and appointments get lost important and light conversations get crossed the company budget can scarce pay the cost of the halfwit receptionist he sits at a desk in celestial poise huffing fumes as the phones ring away his responses are weakened by chattering noise getting blown all about by the things we might say his boss is away and He’s not coming back his grip on the earth falls increasingly slack he’s spilling raw light on what used to be black turning night into crystalline day if we’re all in this together why do we need a filter at all why do idiots invade screaming, tearing down every wall people like to own things and that’s okay but just to be alive now you have to pay and people get owned more and more every day while the halfwit receptionist with your share walks away

she never has to worry cos she knows her train’s on time she freshens up cachaça with a squeeze of her lime puts the peels inside a bottle and she casts it out to sea she’s rollin’ into rio as high as she can be but she never lets it faze her as she saunters down the street she’s a carefree carioca movin to the bossa beat she’s quick to throw her money in a street musician’s case they’ve pleaded her so many but she never loses face the sun’s sinking low where does she go her hotel room is empty oh miss rio if someone’s gonna break her spirits i won’t be the one i’m gonna let her have her fun in rio de janeiro, it’s a bit like déjà vu when the river that you’re floating down flows right back into you

I tore myself away from another idle day To walk down to that lost apartment in the rain Said hello and walked around there Ate some dinner, found a place where We could buy a fifth of Jack and cheap champagne Sure enough, that’s what we bought Took it home and drank a lot As we laughed and played a card game on your floor Getting rowdy, loud, and frisky poured myself another whiskey As your roommate looked around for weed to score I’d rather not, you said Rather get a job instead If my piss test came back dirty I would die Said I knew how you were feelin’ No one’s hiring in this steel- and Sweat-soaked city, Chicago Works, shit, what a lie I held your hand under the early summer moon And I felt rich despite my poverty My sweet & sexy blue-eyed buxom two-flat tycoon Smoking gold-packs off her wooden balcony Had to rest & clear my head so I lay down in your bed And you felt just fine to lie right next to me Pretty soon we made like bunnies though I thought it kind of funny That it was your roommate who I’d come to see, c’est la vie Shared my taste in music and art, turned me on to Mr. Banhart Who brightened up my summer like the Venezuela sun Other men you were seeing, our relationship was fleeting But despite its overheating we had fun I looked upon you as you wore just sheets So lovely sleeping next to me Wherever I might wind up in these bitter, broken streets I hope it has a wooden balcony Wherever you might wind up in these bitter, broken streets I hope you get to smoke whatever you want to off your balcony

I’d feel her coming from down the square Cos something would change in the midsummer air And though I never even saw the tip of her hair, she was there Friends will consult in the season of wine About some words said that never were mine But the way that they shimmer, and the way that they shine They’re fine Don’t be a martyr for a cause trapped in the blue You’ll make it harder for the good light to shine through Just take the essence of the trees In with the incandescent breezes Then the fields explode in red What a day to be sonic dead (summer shining fish ribbon echo the horse canyon flower to the wall and a sable I sees ya getting anxious in the cold watermelon taste caramel apple fringe on the gulf sway bawl in the factory ticket) I’m running late but I have to report Back to the fool’s gate, where jesters hold court And though I’m trying hard not to relate to the sort Life’s short So give a wave as I wander below I’ll surface someday when much softer winds blow The breeze from your bones and your fossils feels the glow

I don’t want answers, I don’t want to forget I just want my eyes open to the sunset Because among all the beauty and light in the sky There’s a beauty inside you that’s waiting to die that’s not showing The beauty inside you you were willing to share And I thought that I had found something precious and rare Iand so I kept it beside me, and let you run free All that time I was beside myself, I could not see you were growing Up past the places I’ve lived all my life Where I learn the same lessons forever I’d rather you find your own way in the world Instead of living and wandering lost together You made me no promise, but my heart broke the same When I heard you were playing my least favorite game I told you you’d never win, but I’d never played So they don’t really matter, the choices I made in your name, see I told you all truth in the message I sent About how I found sorrow in your excitement And that’s the way it must be now, I don’t know why I’ve tried to look past it, God knows I try, can you blame me?

you’ve got to give it while you can, there’s no other way to let em know don’t gotta have a plan, don’t cost nothin just to let it flow, just love there are days when you don’t care, days when you don’t think it’s there for you. Days when you’re not aware just how great this big world is to you so love. Funny how most days can put you on. They just don’t stick around for too long. But a day when you love will stay with you until you’re gone you’ve got to give yourself away to know what it’s like for others to take from you give yourself today, you can’t make others wait for you, just love

i’ve been there before and i’ve seen every door and i know what’s behind them what’s hidden when all’s said and through your life echoes to you, even paths where you traced the forbidden life as a cloud, drifting onward, about, cycling through every wave and emotion why feel itspain when you could feel its rain sending waves that cascade to the ocean? fade away this clouded glass & remember this too shall pass when sweet lady welcome scatters from the bells and her ship disappears in the offing one wanders the sands north to rockier lands where the chill of her absence brings coughing fierce are the clouds that work also to shroud your demise from the callous horizons take me this way if you won’t let me stay i couldn’t bear more of you rising spreading out clearing all leaving just glass bear witness we too have passed