The Big Picture The picture is far too big to look at kid. Your eyes won't open wide enough and you are constantly surrounded by that swirling stream of what is and what was. Well, we've all made our predictions but the truth still isn't out. So if you want to see the future, go stare into a cloud. And keep trying to find your way out of that maze of memories. It all sort of looks familiar, but then you get up close and it's different. clearly. Each time you turn a corner, you are right back to where you were and your only hope is that forgetting might make a door appear. Is it your fear of being buried that makes you so afraid to speak? An avalanche of opinions like the one that feel that I am now underneath. It was my voice that moved the first rock and I would do it all again. So, I mean, it's cool if you keep quiet, but I like singing. So I'll be holding my note and stomping and strumming and feeling so very lucky. There is nothing I know except that this lifetime is just one moment and wishing will just leave me empty. So you can try and live in darkness but you will never shake the light. It will greet you every morning and make you more aware with its absence at night, when you are wrapped up in your blanket baby, that comfortable cocoon. But I have seen the day of your awakening boy and it's coming soon. So go ahead and loose yourself in liquor and you can praise the clouded mind but it isn't what you are thinking it's the course of history, your position in line. You are just a piece of the puzzle so I think you had better find your place. And don't go blaming your knowledge on some fruit you ate. Because there has been a great deal of discussion, yes, about the properties of man. Animal or angel? You were carved from bone, but your heart it's just sand. And the wind is going to scatter it and cover everything with love. So if it makes you happy, keep kneeling Mama, but I am standing up. Because this veil, it has been lifted. My eyes are wet with clarity. I have been a witness of such wonders. Oh, I have searched for them all across this country but I think I'll be returning now to the town where I was born. And I understand you must keep moving friend, but I am heading home. I'm gonna follow the road and let the scenery sweeping by easily enter my body. I'll send you all this message in code, under ground, over mountains, through forests, deserts and cities. All across the electric wire, it's a baited line. The hook is in deep boys, there is no more time. So you can struggle in the water and be too stubborn to die, or you could just let go and be lifted to the sky. Method Acting There is no beginning to the story. A bookshelf sinks into the sand and a language learned and forgot, in turn, is studied once again. It's a shocking bit of footage viewed from a shitty TV screen. You can squint through snowy static to make out the meaning. Just keep on stretching the antennae, hoping that it will come clear. We need some reception, a higher message, just tell us what to fear. Because I don't know what tomorrow brings. It is alive with such possibilities. All I know is I feel better when I sing. Burdens are lifted from me, that is my voice rising! So Michael, please keep the tape rolling. Boys keep strumming those guitars. We need a record of our failures. We must document out love. I have sat too long in my silence. I have grown too old in my pain. To shed this skin, be born again, it starts with an ending. So thank you friends for the time we shared. My love stays with you like sunlight and air. Oh how I truly wish I could keep hanging around here but my joy is covering me. Soon, I will disappear. It's not a movie, no private screening. This method acting, well, I call that living. It's like a fountain, a door has been opened. We have a problem with no solution but to love and to be loved. So, I've made peace with the falling leaves. I see their same fate in my own body. But I won't be afraid when I am awoken from this dream and returned to that which gave birth to me. And the story goes on and on and on and on... False Advertising On a string I was held. The way that I move, can you tell? My actions are orchestrated from above. So I swing and I sway. Wave my hand. Kick my leg. And it is always right with the music. "Until all that swinging starts to make you sick" For a song I was bought. Now I lie when I talk with a careful eye on the cue card. Onto a stage, I was pushed with my sorrow well rehearsed. So give me all your pity and your money. Now. "We used to think that sound was something pure" If I could act like this was my real life and not some cage where I've been placed, then, I could tell you the truth like I used to and not be afraid of sounding fake. Now all that anyone is listening for are the mistakes. In a house, by myself, I hear the ice start to melt and watch rooftops weep for the sunlight. And I know what must change. Fuck my face. Fuck my name. They are brief and false advertisements for a soul I don't have. Something true I have lacked and spent my whole life trying to make up for. But I found in a song and in the people I love. They will lift me up out of darkness. Now my door stands open. I am inviting everyone in. We will drink. We will laugh until the morning comes. That is what we are going to do. You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will You say that I treat you like a book on a shelf. I don't take you out that often because I now that I completed you and that is why you are here. That is the reason why you stay here. How awful you must feel. You said you would be my dream. I could have you every night and if, by morning, I had forgotten you, well, no big deal, it would be all right because you are the reoccurring kind. You are the reoccurring kind. You never leave my mind. Are you the love of my lifetime? Because there have been times I have had my doubts. We were just kids when I first kissed you in the attic of my parents house, and I wish we were there now. It took so long to figure out what this book has been about. Now I write when I'm away letters that you never read. You said go to explore those other women, the geography of their bodies but there is just one map you'll need. You are a boomerang. You see. You will return to me. You will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. Because if you don't, then this book is all lies. If you don't, then my plans would be all ruined. If you don't, I'll start drinking like the way I drank before. And I just wont have a future anymore. Lover I Don't Have To Love I picked you out Of a crowd to talk to you Said I liked your shoes You said thanks can I follow you? So it's up the stairs And out of view No prying eyes I poured some wine I asked your name you asked the time Well it's two o'clock Yeah the club is closed we're up the block Your hands on me Pressing hard against your jeans Your tongue in my mouth Trying to keep the words from coming out You didn't care to know Who else may have been here before I want a lover I don't have to love I want a girl who's to sad to give a fuck Where's the kid with the chemicals? I thought he said he'd meet us here but I'm not sure I got the money if you got the time He said it feels good I said I'll give it a try Then my mind went dark We both forgot where your car was parked Let's just take the train I'll meet up with the band in the morning Bad actors with bad habits Some sad singers They just play tragic Now the phone's ringing And the band's leaving Let's just keep touching Let's just keep keep singing I want a lover I don't have to love I want a boy who's so drunk he doesn't talk Where's the kid with the chemicals I got a hunger and I can't seem to get full I need some meaning I can memorize The kind I have always seems to slip my mind But you but you You write such pretty words But life's no story book Love is an excuse to get hurt And to hurt Do you like to hurt? 'Cause I do I do I do This didn't hurt me Didn't hurt me Oh this hurt me Bowl Of Oranges The rain, it started tapping on the window near my bed. There was a loophole in my dreaming, so I got out of it. And to my surprise my eyes were wide and already open. Just my nightstand and my dresser where those nightmares had just been. So I dressed myself and left then, out into the gray streets. But everything seemed different and completely new to me. The sky, the trees, houses, buildings, even my own body. And each person I encountered, I couldn't wait to meet. I came up a doctor who appeared in quite poor health. I said "(I am terribly sorry but) there is nothing I can do for you (that) you can't do for yourself." He said "Oh yes you can. Just hold my hand. I think that would help." So I sat with him a while and then I asked him how he felt. He said, "I think I'm cured. No, in fact, I'm sure of it. Thank you Stranger, for your therapeutic smile." So that is how I learned the lesson that everyone is alone. And your eyes must do some raining if you are ever going to grow. But when crying don't help and you can't compose yourself. It is best to compose a poem, an honest longing or simple song of hope. That is why I'm singing... Baby don't worry cause now I got your back. And every time you feel like crying, I'm gonna try and make you laugh. And if I can't, if it just hurts too bad, then we will wait for it to pass and I will keep you company through those days so long and black. And we'll just keep working on the problem we know we'll never solve of Love's uneven remainder. But if the world could remain in a frame like a painting on a wall. Then I think we would see the beauty. Then we would stand staring in awe at our still lives posed like a bowl of oranges, like a story told by the fault lines and the soil. Don't Know When But A Day Is Gonna Come Is it true what I heard about the Son of God? Did he come to save? Did he come at all? And if I dried his feet, with my dirty hair, would he make me clean again? They say they don't know when but a day is gonna come, when there won't be a moon and there won't be a sun. It will just go back to the way it was before. I knew a lovely girl, with such pretty pride, and every man wanted her, and so did I. So did I. But she up and died in a fit of vanity. Now men with purple hearts, carry silver guns. And they will kill a man for what his father has done. But what my father did, you know it don't mean shit. I'm not him. So you think I need some discipline, well, I had my share. I have been sent to my room. I've been sat in a chair. And I held my tongue. I didn't plug my ears. No, I got a good talking to. And now I don't know why, but I still try to smile when they talk at me like I'm just a child. Well, I'm not a child. No, I am much younger than that. And now I have read some books and have grown quite brave. If only I could just speak up I think I would say that there is no truth. There is only you and what you make the truth. So I will just sing my song and I'll pass a hat. Then I'll leave your town and never look back. No, I don't look back because the road is clear and laid out ahead of me. I'll get home and meet my friends at our favorite bar. We'll get some lighter heads for our heavy hearts. And we will share a drink. Yeah we will share our fears and they will know how I love them. They will know how I love. They will know how I love them. I am nothing without their love. I don't know when but a day is gonna come when there won't be a moon and there won't be a sun. It will all go black. It will all go back to the way it is supposed to be. Is it true what I heard about the Son of God? Did he die for us? Did he die at all? And if I sold my soul for a bag of gold, which one of us would be the foolish one? Which one of us would be the fool? Which one of us would be the foolish one? Which one of us would be the fool? Could you please start explaining? You know, I need some understanding. I could do good with some explaining. You know. I want to understand. Nothing Gets Crossed Out The future has got me worried, such awful thoughts. My head is a carousel of pictures. The spinning never stops. I just want someone to walk in front and I'll follow the leader. Like when I fell under the weight of a schoolboy crush. I started carrying her books and doing lots of drugs. I almost forgot who I was, but came to my senses. Now I try to be assertive. I'm making plans. I want to rise to the occasion, yeah, meet all of their demands. But all I do is just lay in bed and hide under the covers. I know I should be brave but I'm just afraid of all this change. It's hard to focus through all this doubt. I keep making "To Do" lists but nothing ever gets crossed out. Even working on the record seems pointless now. When the world ends, who's gonna hear it? But I try and take some comfort in written words, yeah Tim I heard your album and it's better than good. When you get off tour I think we should hang and black out together. Because I've been feeling sentimental for days gone by...all those summers singing, drinking, laughing, wasting out time. Remember all those songs and the way we smiled in those basements made of music. But now I've got to crawl to get anywhere at all. I'm not as strong as I thought. So when I'm lost in a crows, I hope that you'll pick me out. Oh, how I long to be found. The grass grew high. I laid down. Now, wait for a hand to lift me up, help me stand. I have been laying so low don't want to lay here no more. I But if everything that happens is supposed to be and it is predetermined, you can't change your destiny. Then I guess I'll just keep moving and someday, maybe, I'll get to where I'm going. Make War Our love is dead but without limit, like the surface of the moon or the land between here and the mountains. It is not these hiding places that have keep us innocent but the way you taught me to just let it all go by. So we have learned to be as faithless, stand behind the bulletproof glass, exchanging our affections through a drawer. It was always horribly convenient and happening too fast. You should count your change before you are even out the door. Yes, you should but please... Return, return to the person that you were. And I will do the same because it is too hard to belong to someone who is gone. My compass spins. The wilderness remains. Once too often, I have retreated into the depths of my despair. I built a barricade to block you on the road. But standing there with all of my possessions, piled higher than a house, I felt closer to you than you ever could have known. So let these tiny acts of charity become common ground of which to build a monument to commemorate our time. And though, you say, you've found another who will surely speed you on your way, don't let the forest grow over that you came there by. But you will, so... Hurry up and run to the one that you love. And blind him with your kindness. And he will make war, old war, on who you were before. And he'll claim all that has spoiled your heart. Well, now, I tell myself I've mended under these patches of blue sky. There are still a few holes that let in a little rain. So it is crying on my shingles. My floorboards moan under my feet. The refrigerator is whining, so I've got reason to complain. But I am not gonna bless you with such compliments, some degrading psalm of praise, like the kind that converted you to me so long ago. Because the truth is that gossip is as good as gospel in this town. You can save face but you won't ever save your soul. And that's a fact. Hurry up and run to the one that you love. And tie him in you likeness, And he'll become, become the prisoner I was. And know all that has spoiled your heart. Waste Of Paint I have a friend, he is made mostly of pain. He wakes up, drives to work, and then straight back home again. He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper. I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover. And I tried to tell him he had a sense of color and composition so magnificent. And he said "Thank you, please but your flattery is truly not becoming me. Your eyes are poor. You are blind. You see, no beauty could have come from me. I am a waste of breath, of space, of time." I knew a woman, she was dignified and true. Her love for her man was one of her many virtues. Until one day, she found out that he had lied and decided the rest of her life, from that point on would be a lie. But she was grateful for everything that had happened. And she was anxious for all that would come next. But then she wept. What did you expect? In that big, old house with all those cars she kept. "Oh!" and "such is life," she often said. With one day leading her to the next, you get a little closer to your death, which was fine with her. She never got upset and with all the days she may have left, she would never clean another mess or fold his shirts or look her best. She was free to waste away alone. Last night, my brother he got drunk and drove. And this cop pulled him off to the side of the road. And he said, "Officer! Officer! You have got the wrong man. No, no, I'm a student of medicine, the son of a banker, you don't understand!" The cop said, "No one got hurt, you should be thankful. And you carelessness, it is something awful. And no, I can't just let you go. And though your father's name is known, your decisions are yours alone. You are nothing but a stepping stone on a path to debt, to loss, to shame." The last few months I have been living with this couple. Yeah, you know, the kind that buy everything in doubles. They fit together, like a puzzle. I love their love and I am thankful that someone actually receives the prize that was promised by all those fairy tales that drugged us. And they still do me. I'm sick, lonely, no laurel tree, just green envy. Will my number come up eventually? Like Love is some kind of lottery, where you can scratch and see what is underneath. It's "Sorry", just one cherry, "Play Again." Get lucky. So I have been hanging out down by the train's depot. No, I don't ride. I just sit and watch the people there. They remind me of wind up cars in motion. The way they spin and turn and jockey for positions. And I want to scream out that it is all nonsense. And that their lives are one track, and can't they see how it is all pointless? But then, my knees give under me. My head feels weak and suddenly it is clear to see that it is not them but me, who has lost my self-identity. As I hide behind these books I read, while scribbling my poetry, like art could save a wretch like me, with some ideal ideology that no one can hope to achieve. And I am never real; it is just a sketch of me. And everything I have is trite and cheap and a waste of paint, of tape, of time. Sometimes I park my car down my the cathedral, where floodlights point up at the steeples. Choir practice is filling up with people. I hear the sound escaping as an echo. Sloping off the ceiling at an angle. When voices blend they sound like angels. I hope there is still some room left in the middle. But when I lift my voice up now to reach them. The range is too high, way up in heaven. So I hold my tongue, forget the song, tie my shoe and start walking off. And try to just keep moving on, with my broken heart and my absent God and I have no faith but it is all I want, to be loved ad believe in my soul. From A Balance Beam There is a man holding a megaphone, so he must have been the voice of God. The bystanders claimed they saw angels flying up and down the block. Well, they must have been attached to wires. I saw one laying in the lawn with a broken arm, so I called 911. So that is one less founded opinion. One more cause for a dispute. So the street filled, like a basin, up with cameras and their crews and they washed away the rumors leaving just the concrete truth. It was a spectacle. No, I mean a miracle. So then I fell like that girl from a balance beam. A gymnasium of eyes were all holding on to me. I lifted one foot to cross the other and I felt myself slipping. It was a small mistake. Sometimes that is all it takes. Now I'm staring at my wrist, hoping that the timing is right. When the planes will align. There will be no planets to align. Just the carcass of the sun and those little painted marbles spinning endless through an endless black sky. (and so it never started and it will never stop just like I am and you are) It was in a foreign hotel's bathtub I baptized myself in change. And one by one I drowned all of the people I had been. I emerged to find the parallels were fewer. I was cleansed. I looked in the mirror and someone new was there. Still, I was as helpless as a chess piece when I was lifted up by someone's hand and delivered from the corner my enemies had got me in. But in all of my salvation I still felt imprisoned inside that holding cell that is myself. So I wait for the day when I'll hear the key as it turns in the lock and the guard will say to me, "Oh my patient prisoner you have waited for this day and finally you are free! You are free! You are freezing." Now I'm staring at the sun, waiting for it to explode. Because a day is gonna come, don't know when but it will come and then we will finally know the way out of here. And I will throw away this wrinkled map and my chart of stars and compass, cracked. And I'll climb out that tree all wet with sap to avoid the hungry beasts below. I'll cut out my love's tongue and sing of a graveyard gray and a garden green and then we won't have to worry no more. No we won't ever worry again about how this song or story ends about how this song and story will end. Laura Laurent Laura, are you still living there on your estate of sorrow? You used to leave it occasionally. Now, you don't even bother to ride that commuter train west to Chicago, to stroll through the greenery, in the park, past the statues. How their eyes seemed to follow you like a hated addiction. Their beauty carved out of absolutes that you could never claim, or even envision. Laura you were the saddest song in the shape of a woman. I thought you were beautiful, but I wept with your movements. I hope you are laughing now from that place of the carpet where we shared a sleeping bag, in your sisters apartment. Oh how she would worry so, you know, I was just a stranger. But she asked me to care for you. That is what she did and I went and betrayed her. But do you know we are in high demand, Laura, us people who suffer? Because we don't take to arguing and we are quick to surrender. Well, I think I would call tonight if I still had your number. Your thoughts have always laid close to mine. We were both skipping supper. But you should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living. Because it is the ones with the sorest throats, Laura, who have done the most singing. Everybody! La La La La La La La La La Lah... Lets Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And To Be Loved) The animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness. A baby cried hard in an apartment complex, as I pass a car buried under the influence. The city is driving me out of my mind. I have seen a child is caught in the sad trap of gravity. He falls from the lowest branch of the apple tree and lands in the grass and weeps for his dignity. Next time he will not aim so high. Yeah, next time, neither will I. A mother takes loans out, sends her kids off to colleges. Her family is reduced to names on a shopping list. Meanwhile, a coroner kneels beneath a great, wooden crucifix. He know that there are worse things than being alone. I have learned to retreat at the first sign of danger. I mean, why wait around, if it's just to surrender? Ambition, I have found, can only lead to failure. I do not read the reviews. No, I am not singing for you. I stood dropping a coin into the pit of a well. And I would throw my whole billfold if I thought it would help. With all these wishes I make, I should by something great, at least a telephone call home. My teachers, they built the retaining wall memory, all those multiple choices I answered so quickly. And I got my grades back and forgot just as easily, but as least I got an A. So I don't have them to blame. I should stop pointing fingers; reserve my judgment of all those public action figures, the cowboy president. So loud behind the bullhorn so proud they can't admit when they have made a mistake. While poison ink spews from a speechwriter's pen, he knows that he doesn't have to say it, so it don't bother him. "Honesty" "Accuracy" are really just "Popular Opinion." And the approval rating is high, so someone is going to die. ABC, NBC, CBS: Bullshit. They give us fact or fiction? I guess an even split. And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment. We are still the pawns in their game. As they take an eye for an eye until no one can see, we must stumble blindly forward, repeating history. Well, I guess that we all fit into your slogan on the fast food marquee: Red blooded, White skinned oh and the Blues. I got the Blues! I got the Blues! That's me! That's me! Well, I awoke in relief. My sheets and tubes were all tangled weak from whiskey and pills, in a Chicago hospital. My father was there, in a chair, by the window, staring so far away. I tried talking, just whispered, "...so sorry...so selfish..." He stopped me and said, "Child I love you regardless and there is nothing you could do that would ever change this. I'm not angry. It happens. You just can't do it again." So now I try to keep up, I have been exchanging my currency. While a million objects pass through my periphery. So now I am rubbing my eyes because they are starting to bother me. I have been staring too long at the screen. But where was it when I first heard the sound of brutality? It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody. How grateful I was them to be part of the mystery, to love and be loved. Let's just hope that is enough.