Jane

the last time I saw you I was blue.
I know you loved me, I didn't want to worry you.
(that's no way to leave someone)

I came looking for you.

But, I am blue.

I put on my bravest face,
to at least pretend I wasn't.

My life is coming together.
I've made changes since I last saw you.
Changes I'm proud of.

I wanted you to be proud of me too.

You were like a mother.
You protected me the best you could.

You knew me then,
You knew her too.

I wanted you to know I'm healing.
I think I can love again.

I'm sorry I never called or wrote.
I didn't want  you to worry.

But I'm here now.

You were like a mother to me,
(except you'd take issue with that)

No, you'd want me to remember
 you as the girl in your stories.

A young coquette in the 70's-

New York City
Single
Carefree

A heart breaker.

A woman who could have any man.
(before you settled for a man named Leonard)

That is the woman named Jane.

I came looking, after so many years.
but I was a couple years too late.

You've left this place too.
It broke my heart.

I'm sorry Jane, I'm too late.

But I'll remember you as that girl in New York.
You'd have broken my heart even then.

Escape Velocity

I had to get out of town.
As far away from myself as I could.

I had to make a run for it.

There is a dark gravity trying to pull
me in.

I can feel it closing in.

I can out run the pain,
if I just drive fast enough.

I can reach Escape Velocity.

For the first time,
I knew what to do.

I was not running from you.
I was running to you.

Split

The three of us stand in middle of the parking lot,
with a bag full of loot.

We're gonna split it up three ways.

One for you,
two for  you...
One Two Three for me.

Were gonna split it up and part ways.

Today is last day
I work with them.

They are kind enough to make it last just a little longer.

In the past I would slip out,
(Quietly)
like a thief and make a getaway.

No-

That's no way
to say goodbye to friends.

I want to stay here as long as I can.

But.
the bag goes empty.
Its time to go home and other places.
Its time to split.

Later I will treasure, this shared plunder.

The Physics of Pain

"Hold my head,we'll trampoline
finally through the roof
on to somewhere near and far in time"- Pixies



"Energy can neither be created nor destroyed"
It just changes, like people change,
like minds change.

I suspect she has decided to keep moving.
"An Object in motion will stay in motion."
While I stay here waiting.
Unsure who has left and who I expect to return.

"The greater the mass of the object being accelerated,
 the greater the amount of force needed"
But you don't have to force him to go.
Just starve the poor bastard.
He will grow smaller and smaller.
As you grow further and further away.

Beams of light poured out of me uncontrollably.
I call it love.
I busted  my heart wide open.
I "broke it" myself.

I've never wanted to be alive,
so badly before.

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
What I know is coming next, will be pain so perfect and complete,
it will not matter who has left, or if they return.

All that matters is who has remained, remains.

Lovely Riah

(B Side)

" 'I'm just a boy with a new haircut'
And that's a pretty nice haircut"- Pavement



Zahra cuts my hair and tells me about Morocco.
I make her laugh.  So she tells me about the
time an elderly stylist cut off some guy’s eyebrows. She makes me laugh.
She teases my hair as she cuts it.
Making sure it’s just right. She says she loves Elvis.
Shes says who wouldn't.
She turns off the clippers so we can talk.
By the time she is done, she is proud of her work.
I ask for her card but realize I've taken out my phone.

I add a little something extra to her tip.
She unleashes me onto an unsuspecting world.

I feel fucken cool.I look fucken cool.
So far one person agrees.

20 Questions

They sit there pretending to care.

I'm not going to pretend.

Not this time.

I've interviewed for promotion so many times.
Each time believing I was the best candidate.

Maybe I wasn't,
but
If I don't believe it
how could anyone else.

Of the five women in the room
only one of them speaks.

So I only speak to her.

This isn't an interview,
this is goodbye.

I have nothing to prove.

Why me?
Whats so great about me?

It's not that you wouldn't believe me,
even if I told you.

It's that there's nothing to say, they see it.

(No nothing as petty as what 

My chromosomes dictated)

It is something 

Unspoken-

I'm everything they're not and
that alone is more than enough.

Elvis poem #135

“When he shook it and he rang like silver
He shook it and he shine like gold
He shook it and he beat that steam drill, baby
Well bless my soul, well bless my soul”-Gillian Welch



They say he stole,
that big ol dumb beautiful hillbilly.

They say he was the brains behind the whole thing.

Him-
In between getting bossed around by the Colonel and his mamma,
pulled off the heist of a century.

He stole the rhythms, the soul and the blues of the music he loved,
He stole from something beautiful that they say didn't belong to him.
He stole lightning, and smuggled it out in his pants.
(Hence all the shaking)

And that's why you should not enjoy his music-
Its counterfeit
Artificial
Full of high cholesterol  and saturated fats.

So cover your ears.
Ask for your money back
Repent

He's a thief.

Somebody call the cops.

Throw him in
the Slammer,
the Poky,
the Hoosgow-
and throw away the key.

 (But Fuck it)
You know he’s just gonna Rock out
in that Jail house.

That's what he does.

It’ll be a fucken party.
It'll be you and me and Bugsy and Shifty
and everyone else
"Guilty" of having a guilty pleasure.

We're gonna stick around and get our kicks.

"That's alright now mama, anyway you do."
That is, if that's alright with you?

The Raven and the Dove

"Often it does seem such a pity that Noah 
and his party did not miss the boat." - Mark Twain



There was a Flood of emotions.

To many to carry in my heart.
Too heavy for a hobo's hanging handkerchief bindle
at the end of a stick.
To many for the wheel barrel kart.

I needed an ark built of a woman's lace,
a brown briefcase,
and a dogs wagging tail.

Something built to shine brighter
than the trail of a skipping stone on its way to its fate.

Each emotion came in pairs.
Each with its mate.
the light,
the dark.
the wrong and the right.
the truth and not the truth.

Each boarded the ark,
carved its initials on the walls,
took out lines of credit-
and paced down the halls.

And the Flood came and went
and stopped coming by to sit a spell.

Last I heard its going door to door,
(ringing a bell)
making a fortune in women's hosiery.

And I lost my best
umbrella-
But gained a capricious sky,
Removing my hat, I stay polite.

I am cautious like that.

I sent out the raven
after the dove.

The black bird
after the white.

Although
there was no need,
the bird of love had come back alright.

The raven raised in shadows
with the
dove raised in love.

I sent out the raven after the dove,
I sent out the raven
because I doubted the other's
love.

I sent out the raven after the dove
I sent out the raven to be free,
never to come back-
surely lost in the blue eyes of ice.
never to come back with the branch of a tree.

But he came back with a diamond in his beak
cold, but true.

It was exactly what i needed, but
not at this time.
But for when the flood waters subside
and I claim what is mine.
When the land is ready for a King to set foot.

Till then,
I will send out the dove-
again and again.

When it comes back
with a branch, still green with hope
held tight in its grip.

I will ask it to do it again.
Until I have the tree, aboard ship.

I am cautious that way.