THE
MOMENT I.
THE SEA | He
looked out to the sea. He felt a spark. He knew where he wanted to be when the
sun left the world dark. He always felt the night came too soon and he cursed
the dying moon. Why does someone feel so much when the boat is like a tomb? He
walked along the docks. He saw where the waterline stops. He directed his eyes
to the sky. The birds overhead snuck by and it was in that moment, with the wind
whipping fast and his hand on his heart and breath warm upon the cold glass, that
he said he wouldn't settle. He would stand tall by the blue paintings and the
light throwing the shadow on the wall. |
II.
THE SHADOW | I
can always see your shadow following after you. I thought of what it meant and
you were worried, too. If you looked out to the hills, they seem like mountains.
You want to dance on the peaks, still. We've been apart and we'll be lonely again.
Even if we'd never met and we didn't have these feelings we'd have different regrets.
The lamp would cast it like a headline on the ceiling.. |
III.
THE PAST | Yesterday
I saw an old friend and I knew what it was like to be in love again. She was so
tall, so kind and the light cleared the cobwebs in my mind and it's frozen in
Rome and I wish I was home. The lake has iced over. It's not gonna stop. We won't
be able to rest. The problem is within you. You can try and do your best. But
it won't. This is it. You can either fight or resolve to quit. You say you feel
shattered. Don't act so helpless, babe. It was all that ever mattered but it never
was what you made. I can still hear your voice. I heard a knock on the door. I
didn't have a choice. I had to have more. The past is dead. I know what's in store.
|
RISK | Take
the risk, make it real. Act the way you want to feel. Driven by the basic need
to be the one who makes it bleed. You'll never get to where you want to go if
you play it safe. But be ready to get burned because when you gamble and win what
you have has not been earned. It's a catch 22. People sit in smoky rooms and debate
the purpose of why we are where we are. But no one knows for sure. Was there something
doled out at birth? We know for sure that it has something to do with your great
grandfather's net worth. As a child your perception
of the world was cleansed. You saw the infinity of possibility and you believed.
But now, as you succeed, you see that there is always an over-arching need and
always a necessity neglected. Perhaps you don't feel rejected or disrespected
but instead you don't feel connected. Love is a bitch. Misery is endless. Age
sets in fast and takes your innocence with it. And somewhere along the way you
begin to believe that the possibility is still there. Hidden, perhaps beneath
the stairs and you decide to chase it. You will never find what you are looking
for if you don't chase it. But once you've found it, you can't erase it. You are
stuck with the truth. |
REFLECTIONS
ON DESERTED DANCE HALLS | It
is cold and dark and I'm looking for the spark. Big buildings. Deserted dance
halls. Graffiti on bathroom stalls. Neon signs and burning designs. Where is the
reason? Such a simple question. It was once said to me that such questions of
the spirit, religion, hell and heaven, are things to keep you busy, similar to
playing basketball or trading stocks, no more or less important. Perhaps I should
toss the question aside. Knowing, at this moment, that love, fame, fortune, and
becoming eternally wise will not change this reality. I am willing to work, but
hard enough? Some things are attainable, some things are not. Depending on how
hard you work. But who can say? Shall we consult the statistics? We could, but
everyone is different than you and me, right? You
can never control your destiny. You think you do. You feel so free. But someone's
standing over you and me. A comet blazes brightly. Like a neon sign around midnight.
Don't desecrate infinity. You have no control. You must have faith. When you get
all the breaks. It's a great thing, baby. Looking over my shoulder. Waiting for
the next big thing. Saw you in a bar the other night. I thought for sure that
it was true. Got a new suede coat. But you are soft from success, as you can see.
Please don't let that rub off on me. You got drunk by the end of the night and
everything you ever felt started coming out. Well, I'm glad to see that you're
not as strong as I thought you were. Some things hook you when the timing is right.
At your cabin in the summer, where the moon was white. I said these are the days
when the photos will develop well. These are the days when the products are gonna
sell. I wish I could wrap it up and take it home. I wish we could wander through
the night forever. Explore and explore and see where it takes us.
|
NAPOLEON | Napoleon
had all he ever wanted. Then it was taken away. You live your life a victor but
honey there will come a day when the thoughts you had and the faith you won as
the most prominent politician, the 3rd savior, the 7th son of the 7th son. I guess
this is how it feels when wars are won. That was how it feels when you stare into
the setting sun and you imagine that time is playing chess with you. This is how
it feels when time and faith steals it. So long between meals. Oh, but soon it
heals. All wounds heal. You're going to the ivies
where the money is good. It all rolls down the line. Generation after generation.
Like you know it should. But are you a brighter man than me? There must be something
where we can agree. Those brick buildings, like Lady Chatterly. In the barroom
or the pool house in the courtyard breeze you feel invisible. But, love, it will
always be that way. Bang against the wall.
Through the halls where the chambermaids sleep. Those horns have no effect on
your days. You're still looking before you leap. To the bad brain Davies and the
piccolo sweep on a shattered night where the gravestones weep and shows you burlesque
creatures, they haunt you like a cannonball on the steep crimson hills, rolling
through the pale night. I am a loner with stage fright and I want for you to be
with me when the moon is white. Bathed in the backwoods by the spectral light.
|
FIVE WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE NIGHT | I.
I know that it doesn't hold water. Why should
I call your name in the night? Write songs about you, wanting you to leave. Are
there more novel things to write about? I obsess about love and I sing it. I have
love and I prove it. I think I'll go to dinner and order something nice with money
I don't possess, but it's a suitable price to pay for what you can't own with
what you don't have. II. I
saw a man walking on a cloud with a suit from London and a paper from Wall Street.
I wanted to follow. He dealt with problems, I'm sure, quickly and rationally.
An Italian tenor sang a melody so true that eased my soul and made me think of
who had held me in the moments when there was little I knew except for love and
it was you. III. You're
one of a kind. Don't be alarmed that I'm not to be trusted or lusted after for
my charms but if you should end up in someone else's arms I may have to do myself
some harm. You can't believe people can be so cruel. Neither can I, but I've seen
what I've seen and if what they say is true then what you put out into the world
comes back to you. IV. I
never saw your good side until you showed me the bad. I never knew that friendship
wasn't what I had. I never felt sober till I got good and drunk. I never felt
clean till I smelled like a skunk. I never knew my memories were like clouds and
rain till the past became a dream and today remained the same. And we seemed like
characters in a 1920s movie and I loved you more as you pulled away from me. I
know that I am older and I seem more resigned. I wouldn't have believed that I'd
become this way with time. V. I
can't help but remember those who believed in me. Was it my silence that made
them feel free? When they saw me slippin' they felt the world was full of misery
and if you feel that this love brings you harm and you end up in another man's
arms then I don't want to see it. I don't want to know that the world can stay
the same but the people become ghosts. I'm by the chapel and the swallows fly
slowly away. Can you blame someone for their misfortune? You always thought I
was a good man, didn't you? I want to get some coffee and some tea at 5. I will
know when you love me that I'm still alive. |
THESE STREETS DON'T UNDERSTAND | These
streets don't understand what trouble makes the man. Each street light whimpers.
A man isn't supposed to whimper, unless maybe there was no one to see him on an
empty, winding street. I'm so lost, so lost and I hate the sound of lost footsteps
on rising ground. Ground that rises like an abrasive, battle-call and falls with
a prevailing fall. Seeing that it is 5 o'clock on Sunday morning and the woman,
she has come on without warning, the smallest motion leaves an indelible impression.
The woman says she does not like arguments reduced to poetry, as our ties unwind
without any sort of design. We all want someone who needs someone the way we do,
with a rapt interest, with a golden hue. I think that I could love you if we were
on the beaches of a foreign isle, with your blood warm all the while, it would
be worth it, if we were free to wander as we wished. You
asked if it would be all right to sing for the last dwindling moments of the night
and keep your broken arrow in plain sight. To hold each other tight, to turn it
on, to turn it on, to make it right. Holding what is true and what is blithe and
not look at the situation like a spectator or a doctor who assesses a patient.
This is not just an epigram. This is not something that is lost on me. This is
something that is real and a way for us to be free. There will be days to be cruel
and days to be fooled and days to be the fool. Do you understand commitment? Do
you understand the relationship of one human being to another? Of a man to a woman?
There was a breeze that ruffled the shade just as each person in the room forbade
the advances of one another. Seeing that it was a cold, dark, and deep December
night, I could not understand how I could truly only hold one hand. We all have
a family. We can sing for our family - mother and father, brother and sister -
but, at the end of it all, do you understand the relationship between a human
and a human? There is an electric pulse in
the room tonight. All the colors are more than black and white. There is a heat
coming through the cold night. Aren't we all so polite? Perfume…sweet perfume…all
throughout the electric room. I'm so lonely, so lost and lonely and if there were
only one person with whom we could confide, when not on the wings of Bacchus,
but when all our faculties were there, then I think we could bring it all together.
With an earnest effort that lets my mother know that I tried. I tried. I've always
tried to hold on for a midnight ride that would bring a morning of championship
and chivalry, with all the kings being swept aside.
|
ANGELINE | Well,
it's so cold on an evening of a sanctimonious day. Down your worn and weary way.
Oh, Sunday sanctum is slippin' away. She's so cool and she's always one step ahead
and I'll never know who she wants me to be or what she'd like to see in me. It's
such a puzzling mystery. Oh, I'm a fool and she always makes me feel that I'm
not enough, like second best. But life is tough. Just when you think you've got
something in your hand, it slips away. But isn't life grand? She don't want me.
I can hardly stand. So kick your heals up. The heater broke but I'm gonna be warm
tonight. There's always the flicker of the fire light because we can find some
peace, sure enough, all right. Think about when the sun divides the light. And
we will play. Saying Mama, let the guitar player say the words and melodies that
make us swing and sway and forget about the things our lovers never gave away
and the lovers who don't want us never gave when we walked along the winding promenade
and she cut me even thought I'd often prayed. Oh, it's a blazing, bright day but
I can't see it that way. Oh, mama, mama give this boy some shade. Woman, give
me your hand, it is so strong. And so gentle in how it moves the night along.
But it's just a touch, just a hand, oh, and a man is just a man and his plan is
just a plan. When he exhales a few breaths, when it was gone he knew it left,
and laid down for a long, deep slumber. I'm going under. Business is dying and
I'm tired of worrying about whether I'm bending or lying, 'cuz a plan is just
a plan. And love is just a last stand. I'll make this my last stand. A woman and
her man…but a man is just a man…or a boy, who knows. She's
just 23 and her least favorite word is death. I say child, you'll learn to deal
with that yet. It sounds so unpleasant, but it's just a new beginning girl. You've
got nothing to fear in this mean, ugly world. I had a friend. We knew each other
for such a long time. I was her best friend and she was mine but it had to end.
The way the golden leaf turns brown in time and all the flower girls they feign
and it's fine. Their words are lost in the pantomime. Now she's gone, but not
forgotten. I know her just like a memory. What is a relationship but a series
of moments? What's a friend, even if it ends? It's just a sort of endless pageantry
but it's got to end. Sometimes you haven't got a hand to lend and no goodwill
to send and no morals to bend for the sake of a friend. But the friend is in your
brain, in your thoughts, in your pain, in the ones you love and love in vain when
the love begins to strain and when your friends are gone, they do remain!! You
shall remain, so don't fear death. It is a word like any other you might use.
Like any other problem you might choose, it'll be gone and lost but you had nothing
to lose. So Mama, give me your hand, I will be your lover man. We will walk through
the streets in the rain and I'll cry out loud and make you feel no pain. It's
all misty. It's all effusive. You don't have a place that you can call home and
love me to the bone. Don't let me ever feel alone, 'cause when I am, I'll remember
you. I'll remember you tonight. Before the morning, before the plight. Angeline,
just smile and forget about ourselves for a while and think only of the way it
could be and the way you feel right now. It is always better in the future but
let's live right now - right now is the future! But right now will be yesterday
and will be so far away and gaining class and beauty with each passing day. But
your imagining will make it real - a blue day, a green, pink bird surrounded by
the fiery spray. Let's go on vacation. Let
the virgins swing and sway. Let's shock ourselves. Let's drink some wine in a
brown cup. A metal cup, with metal silverware and metal plates. In a dark, murky
building with billows of smoke on top. And business men dressed in steel-colored
pants and navy dress coats. Where people have eyes black as coal. A picture of
emblazoned black holes. Those are the zones we live in. With a machine on our
desk. With a phone on our chest. But let us take a vacation from our test. Away
from all the rest. Oh, give me a coconut! Give me a palm tree! Give me the virgins
in the spray! The sea otters, once a day. And give me your hand, now golden and
tan, and peppered with sand. Let's swing and sway, get lost in the spray. Just
for today. Oh, give me mercy and let me imagine a better day. Let me hear some
chimes. A noise and a voice that rhymes. The periwinkle, the parrot, and the tropical
climes. Sandpapered voice, golden sun, my body is golden and my time has come.
Love has come to pass while we lay there in
the green, green grass. The dreamers died but the dream remains. Clock is ticking
and rain is pounding and the air is grown colder and it's rare that I take a look
over my shoulder. But if I could take a thousand moments and toss them up to the
sky and only want to make you wish that I would be your guy and live in the moment
when I was actually your guy and sometimes when I'm lying on my back late a night
I recall the spell that we were under. All the magic of the sky that was high
above us and all the ceaseless wonder. So I think I'll have a little faith that
I'm taking a dark road that ends in light. There's no sense trembling 'cause thus
far, it's been all right but it's getting dark now baby and I hope it's not endless
night. I hope I'm free. Love will come to pass when you're lying on the green,
green grass. The love you own is not in vain. The lovers died but the Love remains.
The beautiful died but the Beauty remains. We shall taste it again. We shall live
it again. We shall be beautiful without and within. We will be whole again. Oh,
yeah, all right, I'm gone. No goodbyes.
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