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| 1. |
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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 |
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| 2. |
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Tending the garden of noise
where i grow the traffic and the church bells and the neighborhood boys singing to myself when the solitude sets in in tune with the symphony of south brooklyn i sing rockabye, rockabye baby rockabye, the baby that is me rockabye, rockabye baby rockabye till 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 singing... rockabye, rockabye baby rockabye, the baby that is me rockabye, rockabye baby rockabye till i'm fast asleep (repeats) 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 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 till i'm fast asleep (repeats x3) tending the garden of noise where i grow the traffic and the church bells and the neighborhood boys singing to myself when the solitude sets in in tune with the symphony of south brooklyn. |
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| 3. |
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in a forest of stone underneath a corporate canopy
where the sun rarely filters down the ground is not so soft it is not so soft they build buildings to house people making money or they build buildings to make money housing people it's true, like a lot of things are true foraging from a phone booth on the forest floor that is not so soft i look up, it looks like the builidings are burning but it's just the sun, setting in the windows the solar system calling an end to another business day eternally circling, signalling the rythmic 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 but never get ploughed it draws death dancing out of little countries with funny languages where the ground is getting harder and it was not that soft before but those who call the shots are never in the line of fire why when there's life for hire out there if the flag of truth were raised we could watch every liar rise to wave it here we learn america like a script playright, 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 own 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...... |
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| 4. |
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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 |
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| 5. |
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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 |
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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 Good Bye 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 mind 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 I opened the fire door x 9 |
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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 gone 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? |
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
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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 graffitti 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 Oh! both hands And 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 when we leave 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 graffitti on your body I am drawing the story of how hard we tried hard we tried how hard we tried |
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| 10. |
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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. |
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| 11. |
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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 |
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| 12. |
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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 |
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| 13. |
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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 them leads a life free of mistakes |
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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 |
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| 15. |
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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 folds 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 intricte patterns of questions rhythms that never come clean and strengths that you still haven't seen |
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