1.
Written in Sand
2. Time Marches On
3. Too Many Afternoons Without a Good
Night
4. Tomorrow Will Be Better Than Today
5. Tour De Force
6. A Doctrine
You Could Espouse
7. Can Jesus Help Us?
8. What is the Price, St. Peter?
9.
Comfort In the Wise
WRITTEN IN SAND What is the name
of the sacred road
That leads a man to his dream?
Yes, tell me, what
is the name of the dark blue sea
That shows a man the truth that should be
seen?
What is the name of the God I should fear
Who will allow my soul
to be clean?
Come take my hand and we'll go walkin' again
But this truth
is written in the sand What is the solution to a faceless war
With an
enemy that cannot be seen?
What is the name of the cause to adore
What
ocean is at the end of this stream?
Who can tell me the meaning of bravery
And does that meaning remain to be seen?
Come take my hand and we'll go searchin'
again
But the truth is written in the sand What was the name of my family
Before they settled in this fair land?
And what was the name of my country
Before it fell into these hands?
How can I know what mess of boards is my
house
If it never feels like home to me?
Come, take my hand and we'll
go searchin' again
The truth it is written in the sand TIME MARCHES
ON I hope you feel strong and wanted
And feel healthy in old age
And I hope you feel you have company
When God forces you to turn the page
I hope you build a bridge across this divide
That will withstand the heavy
sun
May you be strong as time marches on
Time marches on, time marches
on,
May you be strong as time marches on You are your grandfather's son
And you've known no better way
I hope you can think for all of us
And
be true and righteous each day
I've always seen the best in you
May your
heart be a loving gun
May you be strong as time marches on
Time marches
on, time marches on,
May you be strong as time marches on Pain is part
of this journey
So I hope you use your hands
To build castles and great
monuments
In the bedroom of your land
I hope you get the best of every
passion
And every obstacle overcome
May you be strong as time marches
on
Time marches on, time marches on,
May you be strong as time marches
on TOO MANY AFTERNOONS WITHOUT A GOOD NIGHT The sirens are blarin'
outside the window
And it's dusk once again
Turn the light on in the apartment
The sirens quiet and I lift the pen
Those sirens stole the silence
Now
that they're gone, my mind's not right
'Cause I've had too many afternoons
without a good night Each party seems like a procession
And each conversation
a ceremony
My bed it is not empty
But last night felt like a funeral at
sea
Each heart has marbled aching
Each soul, a tragic plight
'Cause
I've had too many afternoons without a good night. The evening will come,
as surely
As each evening came before
And there's no promise that this
restlessness
Has a cure outside the door
But I'll work to make each day
the best
And I'll search for the reply
We both have the afternoons, but
we will never control the good night. TOMORROW WILL BE BETTER THAN TODAY
If there weren't a million different roads
If there weren't a million
different signs
If you were not a million miles away, babe
Then you wouldn't
need to believe that
Tomorrow will be better than today
If it hadn't
been a million days since we'd last spoken
And if I could hear your heart
beating a million times
Oh, if I could hear your voice, so different than
the million voices
Then I'd be happy to believe in today In these travels
I have lost all my possessions
It's been weeks since I have looked in the
mirror
Echoes of a former life they seem to haunt me
And the desperate
need for a better tomorrow is getting clearer
If it hadn't been a million
days since we'd last spoken
And if I could hear your heart beating a million
times
Oh, if I could hear your voice, so different than the million voices
Then I'd be happy to believe in today Maybe I've missed the elegiac evening
music
Maybe I've missed the power in the mournful birds
But the sky, the
river, the plaintive worldly beauty
Cannot match the tomorrow I believe in,
And your loveliness that can't be put in words
If it hadn't been a million
days since we'd last spoken
And if I could hear your heart beating a million
times
Oh, if I could hear your voice, so different than the million voices
Then I'd be happy to believe in today TOUR DE FORCE Oh, the buildings
in Chicago will fall to the ground,
And the suburbs will come swelling about
all around
And in the black night you will not hear a single sound
And
South Side juke joints will all be gagged and bound
You fear the worst about
your city, then you can't speak the truth
You want to paint the ceiling like
Michelangelo did, of course?
Promises will be made and will be broken
Between now and the time when you create your tour de force You've spent days
and days in the west wing of the Met
You've seen the Guggenheim when they
just had a new grant
Mighty artists, mighty patrons creating castles out of
aprons
In the wilderness of a world you so admire, yet it's so distant
Struggling through each day, thinking your losing your mind
Chasing Cohen's
footsteps out to Naxos, Greece, of course
Your restless manhunt leaves you
empty handed
Between now and the time when you create your tour de force
Art books of Cezanne on top of the piano
The piano's out of tune, so it's
time to go To the land of the plenty, to the land of the passion
Renaissance
each time you turn a cobbled corner
Lookin' for salvation through your tears,
All the pain, over all the years
Each work of art is like a gravestone
for each mourner
The galleries and the newsstands seem so empty
You see
your face but your happiness seems forced
Hide the pain that comes with pride,
Oh, all the times that you will have died
Between now and the time you
create your tour de force A DOCTRINE YOU COULD ESPOUSE I woke up
with discernable frustration
With no memory of the night before
I woke
up with discernable frustration
With no memory of the night before
Well,
I couldn't help feeling useless in this house
Lookin' for a doctrine that
you could espouse I arrived late at the bus station
And I began to wake
and my memory did return
I arrived late at the bus station
And I began
to wake and my memory did return
I traveled from Portland to Seattle from
2 to 5 am
Lookin' for a doctrine you could espouse A girl who never believes
in anything
Is a tough one to make the sacrifice for
A girl who never
believes in anything
Is a tough one to make the sacrifice for
I try to
forget the pain from the woman who don't love me
But I'm still lookin' for
a doctrine you could espouse CAN JESUS HELP US? You can choose
to listen
To the words that I sing
It doesn't matter where I come from
But Seattle's got a nice ring to it
You can judge and preconceive
You
can think what you must
But I was raised to fear God
And to believe Jesus
helps us From my first memories
I remember the signs
The images of
the cross
It was burned in my mind
Pilat took him down
And he died
just for our trust
Who knew he'd live on so long?
And that Jesus would
help us Who knows what Socrates would think
If he had still been around?
But the volume of truth that he lived for
Has a resonant sound
The
Roman Empire it flourished
Then it returned to dust
And the holy believers
Knew that Jesus would help us The kings and the queens
They believed in
this man
They crucified the evil ones
On no legs could evil stand
And Jesus was stronger
Than the dark souls that rust
So the legion is
larger
And now Jesus helps us French, English, and German
Plunged
into a war
No one knew the reason
But they settled the score
With
no destination
They jumped on the bus
War is hell, but if we fight
We know that Jesus helps us A couple world wars
And a million battles
A martyr each minute
Get slaughtered like cattle
I read all about it
I gave the teachers my trust
And I believe in my heart
That Jesus helps
us American enemies
Have no face anymore
They come from a land
That
it's hard for us to explore
The irony is
That the evil discussed
Is
the land that bore Jesus
So he could help all of us So I'm think about Hitler
And Genghis Khan and Ivan the Terrible
And the pain and starvation
Of
which this world is full
And there is no one to blame
Just the death in
the gust
Of wind that's so foul
I hope Jesus helps us So, I've got
to go now
I don't know what I've said
All this talk of Jesus
Has clouded
my head
It's hard to believe in anything
But stronger than all that came
before
Is the belief that if Jesus helps us
He'd stop all of these wars
WHAT IS THE PRICE, ST. PETER? The apple fell and Adam sank
The serpent snuck away
Eve cast her eyes to hollow clouds
And gone were
Eden's days
Candles blaze, sepulcher shines
And the lost souls go to greet
her
I still feel sorry for her, I guess
What is the price, St. Peter?
The trees are angry, the streetlamps lonely
In this ragged tenement cityscape
Mother's lose children, innocence gets raped
Swept up in a swirling carnal
gale
Windows, shadows, holes of fire
Soft hands reach out to free them
Every man strives to be one with One
What is the price, St. Peter? Bombs
drop each day, whole buildings fall
Trappers and poachers remain
Blind
carnie barkers detail the slither on the floor
And they set up on the coast
by the trains
The civilized they turn their head and return to the city
To govern 'neath coughing heaters
Soundless songs blare out and meaningless
poems resound
What is the price, St. Peter? Barnacles on broken ships
Grow fast on the floors of silent seas
Immortal poets fasten to Moby Dick
And the wise fall to their knees
Ten talents multiply and then divide
Paradise is golden and replete
And blooming flowers never fall
What is
the price, St. Peter? Who owns this house? Who owns this car?
The landlords
count their shares
We name a value in each star
Condemning the king and
crowning another
The faceless bard with a song for the occasion
Has a
million strings for each raven that glides
There's no place to hide at heaven's
gates
What is the price, St. Peter? The gondola glides, the Mona Lisa
cries
The gypsies lose their homes again
Blackest night, reddest molten
cities
Ghosts haunt the towns of Sweden
And the vultures return, the trickster
crow
Swirls over the alighted theater
For all the blackness and sin to
disappear
What is the price, St. Peter? Tennyson wrote of experience
And attached meaning to the wind
A meaning no pauper could ever know
Because
the cold only was chilling to him
Each pauper bows beneath a prince
And
doesn't know that he's a cheater
Because morals are an invention of man
So what is their price, St. Peter? The seas connect these continents
These
manors and John Donne's threadbare
Theories on the meaning of the sounds of
the bells
Sounding to make sense of the guillotine chair
We imagine a
land, hard to understand,
Sleeping 'neath a Parisian sky and a huit heure
I believe our humble justices will die away
What is their price St. Peter?
So, you my lover, at the end of the bed
Lie sleeping and dreaming in subconscious
streams
You hope to one day pick them from the pile
When truth and Truth
re-team
I will hold off on making sense of these words
We never been told
the true cost of Paradise
Or how these ungainly meanings will weigh up, in
size
Until we settle up our debts with St. Peter. COMFORT IN THE WISE
If you find comfort in the wise,
Better listen to what they say,
Better place your bets and don't feel too safe,
In the land where no
one stays The waves will crash upon the shore,
Where no one lives or
dies,
The merchants will count their loons each noon,
If you find comfort
in the wise These towns are ghosts, passing long ago,
Please give my
love to Kennedy, the wise can never know If you find comfort in the wise,
Better go to the library,
Down there 'neath a heavy gust of wind,
Where the graveyard ships leave the sea The books on shelves, for longer memories,
You hear constant cries,
The baker goes to count the bread,
If
you find comfort in the wise These towns are ghosts, passing long ago,
Please give my love to Kennedy, the wise can never know If you find comfort
in the wise,
You live for the long lagoon,
The fictive palms and rosemary,
By the handsome sailor's tomb His mother weeps and hears the bells,
The experts divert their eyes,
She gives her faith to the bread and wine,
She takes comfort in the wise These towns are ghosts, passing long ago,
Please give my love to Rosemary, the wise can never know
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