WORDS

Vals

I step out of a dream

I was a child of the new age

Wrapped in an American flag

Sun burned face

California’s open arms will shelter me

I have a voice but I’m not sure what I want to say

What do I want to say?

I set off for the river but the banks had all been gated off

So I followed their telephone wires and streetlights and sleeping houses

It was such a thing of beauty, I could look in but never touch

It was such a thing of beauty.

Bethany Lane

How did we end up as strangers here?

You blew out the candles and counted another year

If your roots are in these vines

Then why did you leave?

‘O child, because i had to, you see

It was written all over me.’

The colors are changing

The air is strange

There’s an old man singing gospel at the corner

On Bethany Lane

We were the summer

Now we are the fall

We’ll be the winter

Freezing flagpoles to our tongues

The escape was narrow

The run was cheap

Two autumn lovers pass an orphan in the street.

Houses In Water

Happiness,

you’re back again

Where were you

in the summer?

I landed there

In Sausalito

hoping to find you

But all I found there

were houses in the water.

Oh President,

I want to believe you

So choose your words carefully.

The people have a face

Now it’s you who must wear it

But it’s heavy as a stone

Wouldn’t you agree?

I’m a poor poet

down on my knees.

Oh emptiness,

you come and you go

You show up at midnight

and you take off your clothes

But you were too proud

and your lips were too sure

Now you’re a stranger

knocking at my door

Like a widow after God’s war.

Solitude

I’m on a bus with a neon sign

That says double happiness

It’s been a lonely July

I’m running out of breath

It’s midnight in New England

and I’ve got the only light

On my way back to Baltimore

Route 95

I’m thinking of a movie

Starring only silhouettes

The more you think about it

the less you understand.

The antagonistic hero

And his artificial grin

Ride their bicycles to war

As the sun begins to set.

Solitude’s a root

And existence is the tree

You cannot eat the fruit

Without pushing past the leaves

The harder that it hurts

The louder you can sing

A life without some pain

Doesn’t mean a thing.

A gypsy from Los Angeles

Drew visions from my hand

She said I don’t know where I’m going

But I’m sure about the end

She pulled out a faded picture

Of an orchard and the sea

Said ‘I used to live there

Before the war took him from me’

I thought if broken hearts could kill

We’d all be dying lonely deaths

We’d be actors in that movie

And we’d all be silhouettes

But the hand that goes around the clock,

It comes back again

So stand up and cast your shadows

On the cold pavement.

Solitude’s a root

And existence is the tree

You cannot eat the fruit

Without pushing past the leaves

The harder that it hurts

The louder you can sing

A life without some pain

Doesn’t mean a thing.

Grey Highway

How can the coast always withstand the tide?

How can the sun be so lonely but shine so bright?

We came here from Brooklyn

We came to start over

A life in the gutter waiting to get wet

Though I’m a poor man

My time here is rich

I saw a bluebird on the grey highway

He was the fortunate one

As gamblers and bankers and architects

raced against time

I watched them go by

Though I’m a blind man

I never needed my eyes

Though the light’s fading I’ve still got my mind

Through all the ages and the arches of time

All the cathedrals, their bells will ring

You might push us down

But we’ll never stop singing.

Den Of The Wolves

For your kind of touch

There’s a hand that’s felt too much

For your kind of touch

There’s a hand that can’t feel

For your kind of truth

There’s a mouth that lies for you

For your kind of truth

There’s a mouth that lies

I caught a glimpse of your heart

And it weeps in the dark

In the den of the wolves

In a bed made of fire

In your greedy eyes

There’s a sea of hungry flies

In your greedy eyes

There’s a red moon on the rise

For your kind of love

There’s four hundred words

And I’ve seen them all

and not one of them is love

In your broken bed

There’s a hundred lonely heads

I caught a glimpse of your heart

And it weeps in the dark

In the den of the wolves

In a bed made of fire.

Don’t Say You Love

The sun it was setting

The war it was ending

With one final blazing beam

We stood alone

On the path to the water

Under a lonely juniper tree

Gone are the old birds,

their children are finding their wings

I’ll miss you, my love,

but I hope that you find what you seek

Don’t say you love me

Before you leave.

I wouldn’t worry, no,

all of our words have been buried

Centuries deep

When you’re alone

and New York is bleeding you senseless

Just hold on to this memory

There’s no use in painting a smile

that’s already blue

When these fields have grown old,

it’s the harvest that’ll make you feel new

Don’t say you love me

If it ain’t true.

Sad Mona Lisa

Sad Mona Lisa

Left in the street to

Feed on the passions of men

With the devil in her eyes

And god in her smile

Innocence in the myth of a sin

Sad Mona Lisa

I know she don’t mean to

But she pulls us apart like vines

She works through the night

In a town painted white

In the morning she leaves with the tide

And when she cried

There was a hurricane

She’ll never know our names

And she beats the walls in vain

Only to return tomorrow

Our wives, they all chased her

Down Bourbon to St. Peter

They caught her at Dauphine and Anne

They dragged her down the ‘Maine

Past the Voodoo Museum

And left her for dead at the station

Well, I am the attendant

And I saw her in the distance

I helped her to my place by the theatre

She drank all my wine,

Smoked holes in my sheets

She cried and i took her to bed

When she closed her eyes

Down came the rain

She’ll never know my name

Because our faces are all the same

But I will return tomorrow

Oh Mona please tell me

Do you mean those words you say?

Will you love me ’til the end

Or will you call me a friend?

Island Creek

I met you in the winter

In the bowels of Albany

We were a silent film

As we walked down Island Creek.

You said ‘That lonely mountain wind

Still stirs me in my sleep.

I was a country girl back then,

a collage of tangled memories.’

I once held you in my arms

But destiny pulled us apart.

Oh, time it lingers on

Like a leaf after the storm

Like the memory of a lover

That you called your only one

So here’s one to remember

And another to forget

And one to drown the voices

Of a lifetime of regret

And another for your brother

And a fifth for solitude

And this one’s just for knowing

You are no one and no one is you

I once held you in my arms

But destiny pulled us apart

Across wires and setting suns

I will walk that road alone.

A Record, A Wheel

Did it hurt you so deep

That you couldn’t show?

Were they so unkind

That you left Chicago?

We started a riot

Marched city hall

The police blocked the streets

But that didn’t stop us.

You’ve been a record

You’ve been a wheel

That endless summer

You were my steel.

So I’ll keep my eyes wide

And I’ll hang my head low

That sun is gonna come,

But it’s gonna come slow.

If you ever come back

God I hope you let me know.

Of all these faces

Yours is the most

beautiful.

You’ve been a record

You’ve been a wheel

That endless summer

You were my steel.

The Garden & The Road

On the last train to Providence

I will wear my mask

And believe that all my joyful thoughts

Will bring the colors back

The radio was playing

There’s a memory of a note

That cries and recedes, and gnashes its teeth

As it drifts along the coast

My wrongs they are many

But my regrets they are none

Only a lonely shadow ever hurt no one.

And I dreamed a life I’ve never known

Filled my pockets with the falling snow

I stand in time between the past and the unknown

Between the garden and the road

As the last great war hero

Looked upon his men

He said ‘My weary sons I fear

My faith is wearing thin.’

For he had come to love them

And he saw them as his own

He stepped back from the podium

And followed his thoughts home

As he gazed upon that open road

He filled his pockets with the falling snow

He walks in time between his past and his unknown

Between his garden and the road.