Link to MySpace
Link to Rising Rose Records Photos
Gorbyblock
When I start to feel defeated
sad in the lab--fed up w/ microscpes and cell-fate
I take my bicycle right down the stairs
into the city streets
I'd open my eyes just to invent you
find a disguise I can see through
white mice and iodine...? maybe another time
ahh..., a sweet and sour molecule
moving like a galaxy
a book of recipes
a breath or two and she was just like smoke to me
I saw you turn a corner at union-square
i'm pretty sure you saw me standing there
I tried to follow you but lost you after several blocks
down a street that once was called the gorbyblock
we stopped and watched the block become the gorbyblock
it's so hard to find your body and soul
cause I lost you in the crosstown traffic
bring your body to my soul
deliver me from this spiritual insecurity
I saw you ridin' through the street like you're swimming in the ocean
your voice sailed over cars and cabs
it sounded like slow motion
I knew it was you ... you see me standing still and staring at a tree
looking at the way you made a picture out of me
i felt so drawn...
when i turned back from the tree to the city streets you were gone
take this message to my soul
deliver me from my cinematic, surrealistic, horoscopic
kabbalistic, synesthetic, magic carpet, kaliedescopic
rocketscience, cellfated ride...
yeah, my spiritual insecurity
Rubber Vendor
On roads from here to never there is a rubber vendor
a receiver and a sender
a map inside his shoe
a decal from a ball-gum dispenser
a service call from a ghost
a set of keys and a route
note cards from a deadman’s chest
a box for the boss in the trunk
a message for a not so great pretender
a code for the road
another county to cross
another location just can’t be lost
balloon man don’t fall
watch the sink don’t come off the wall
when you stand on it
to nixpix the lock
to refill the slots
and sharpen the tooth
careful-
watch the keys in your pocket don’t fall
and crack the pins till you can’t back in
a slug in the slot
a bump on the head
down off the sink
outside the snow is falling
a jammed mechanism is no big deal
the machine is working and back on the wall
another service call and the cold november
rubber vendor rubber vendor
Mostly Movies
It could be real-life
but it doesn't sound like it
the cigarette lighter you saved to forget her
the 39 steps you took when you met her
the phone clicks like an old see-saw
a seed-pops in the popcorn bowl
there is a car-radio book behind your couch-- inside out
you talk to me
I ask you to read
9 number dial-tones and smoke
you offer me one then ask me to leave
to turn out the lights before I go
or else stay till the end of late-late show
seems more like make-believe
but there's nothing in the sleeve
if the programs don't change
we can sleep
while footsteps creep
and shadows get rolled up like sleeves
down a black and white hall
a match is struck
mostly movies
Forest Story
We took your old two door into the city
It was a chorus of foresty voices
city side-walks rose like a dark choir
the parks and the river rose higher and higher
out the rear window
radio wave on your forehead
a foresty dashboard
dark water and sleep on the floorboard
forest story wasn't always easy
we took it tree by tree
we took it steadily
accidental incidents in the middle of the city
were never really close at all
never late and never early
humming like a sanctuary
steaming like a winterberry branch
stretched out on a library floor
your little blue two-door took us there
for rest in the city... forest
Wire Doll
Wire doll called me in her way
on her ouija phone
even when I wasn't home
yeah, she made me feel that way
Wing-worm--took it slow
no point in rushin' or talkin' about it
no , she never talked about it
she just sewed a button on my shirt
yeah she sewed the way the caterpillars rise up from the dirt
Wire-worm--- you broke in two
headlines, going down
a garden wire
left out below an open gate
not so long ago, in the back of a trance
Wing wood
wire tree
a ticking wire heart
a burning hexagram
a wire book of chance
in the wire fingers of her hands
wire doll
called me in her way
even when she lost the plan
a wire-dream
two little wings
she made me feel that way
Graysong
the night we met outside the show
you said what's gone is gone and yet
you were thinking about what a friend had said
gray letters you write can never be read
the ink in the pen in the palm of your hand
won't mean a thing
won't turn a feather into lead
it won't tap the ground like a shoe
or dry like ink on a pillow
or a thought in your head
that beats like a drum in a song on the tip of your tongue
There is a graysong inside us now
so we look for the grayleaves
I saw you collecting the grayleaves
I knew you were humming that tune
tapping your toes
like you were at the opera, or the rodeo..
I guess I'll always think of you that way
Peace Song
(It was) 60 years ago today
radio said: peace everywhere , put away your fear
not so long ago
another peace got put away
with marbles and comics from another day
the peace they promised yesterday
was more like a guest
a dreamy song
a freak on the street
who just turned away , just looked the other way
opaque and oblique
a nincompoop in an endless loop
strangled like a promise
tossed like a marble in a puddle
choking like a bubble
twisting like a top
in another time
peace was free like breathing air
and nobody was fighting for breathing air
the answer there is a question here
how can ~love be peace~
when peace is a shadow
from an old dark comic
spinning off like a comet
through a dark glassy puddle ?
Chance
the first eye ends wetter
and blacker
under a closing lid
forgotton like a little buried wheel
hissing it's last bit of air
spun numbers stirred
beneath her skin brimming
sour slides and flooding
false landing promises
lonely cashier rung glasses lost off the pocket side
dialing prints on window blinds
loaded dice in lucky hands
Town
they walk on their hands
belief in maps beneath the lip
backwards the words trace
the future
yards refold yards
old and retold
first laughter then argument
gray moons
lockpin sunddialed sandles
nomadic coneline
rain prayer
old desk coal
rest of red dime lit surprises
jugsoaked solar coiled face wash
lord roof leaked facet blue
the unseen landscaped bastard collected
shrouded basin jems for a gorilla story
remembered rare bird
winds of glove
grassed and peeked
note sail
pie coal
park chain
candle animal
running school
barn tape
slow proliferation of the obvious
low obliteration of the prophecy
rat apart
caustic collectibles
castigated lotus eater
forward seeders
race cat planets
dial store
delectable rope chew
forget book
raincat slammer
schooled out twilight brown basement cadaver
a tisket in a basket
Frontier
darkness jammed the wagon’s course
where west was charted
the bird of it's reins lifted
cattle rod of gold star and dust
smear of courage in a storm of mind
cut through the strange grass of her touch
a whippoorwill cry in a prairie concealed
the way one lonely night
that sunset was test for any man
beating wings
covered wagons
seconds hung like cactus
goldstars falling
a frontier moon wandering
silently, wandering
Foreign Music
talk sad master of goings
play the joke of the painted corner
grave consents forgotten constantly
lost inside the blue triangle
drum to hum the guru’s brain
breath to breath
bells through a pounding near
silently disappear
round again
black coffee
round again
pause to pass the tack test of critical thumb
bounded in icy water
cotton caves
garden waves
painting corners
dreaming all day
returning what is going
Morning Song
rising sun setting sun
hills and tongues
blue and white
rock white sky
red and white
rare bird
dreams already kissing
no home
still water
skyline ship land screen
knee vision witching twiched
stale stairwells
salk link
nose glide
blue rock
copper waves
suit of color
negation of ocean
ocean of blueprint
blueprint of skeleton
skeleton of blacksalt
low fences
peasant stock
gold rock blue rock
Spring
picture of the umpire
fast ball never seen
rain soaked grass
math tracks on empty fields
cracked neck thunder oak trees
broken branch the gardener’s concession
forecasts and footstools
waist high benches
chaise lounge knee deep…
diary of bodies dust cloud backstands
mirror handed thumbs
lopsided slides
curved stiched blankets
push carts striped suits silver rabbits
home safe
(Rising Rose Records are available here , cdbaby, Downtown Music Gallery ,Other Music, Tower Records, Apple ITunes & many other digital music sites)
September Blues and Winter Song from Ghost
Something's troubling the
girl in a white dress
walking through the September
night sky falling
in the burning city
a language she can't read
the people of the world have seen a terrible thing
Dark constellation
unhinged from its black ice
a new alphabet of stars and bone
she cannot stop to rub her eyes
moon rising now through her black hair
Winter Song
There is a winter song
that gets in my head
I see a hill of winter trees
and I can hear the river bed
Your body is water
from a faraway river
you are what you are
and it's making me sad
Between the sweet and the bitter
there is a song of winter
it chills the old winemaker
and the mouse that loves the baker
Dark juice from a grape
is bound to fall
Your eyes of air
are surely going to fall
Your heart of snow
is blowing in the winter wind
and beating in my ear
like a winter song
I see the nothing that's not there
and the nothing that is
you are what you are
and its' making me sad
Yarrow Stalk Bridge lyrics
All In The Way
She goes upstairs to find a bed
but her thoughts went down like the sun
like the people down below
she felt them there
she felt them pass her on the stair
but could not make a sound
but she didn’t feel dead
maybe A little unreal
like a necromancer’s pill
it’s hard to feel dead , when the sound of the world still rings in your head
She tried calling out to someone
someone said "it’s not her spirit in the ground!"
she felt them pass her on the stair
but could not make a sound
it’s all in the way in the way in the way
Dream Bank
I knew right away you weren’t from here
ghost writing 40letters on icy strawberries
pressing sealing wax on alphabet sheets
the e….’s smoking off your tongue
frozen breath through an envelope
like the w and t hold the a in water
you said for every minute there is a summertime
for every winter there is a counterline
that’s when I knew you weren’t from here
talking time and intuition
showing me revisions
seeing what can’t be shown
lighting candlesticks
like an old old comic strip
where the letters start to drip and drip
downback stairs ,over your soft hair
the o is held in you by the y and the O...U...
and the o is so heavy
it takes root in the heart like the ink on a page
Like the one needs the e to fall from the tounge
like air through an envelope
the old switch-a-roo
opening and closing like a stich
nothing at first then blue
Dream bank, put some love into your dream bank
Arithmetic
In the morning you divided herbs and rice
with gravity and a dark syrupy tree root
I was reading the paper and it wasn’t right...
it wasn’t simply foresight or predestination
no, it just wasn’t my dream or your precision
Turn on the lamplight
pour some water in the winter mint
turn down the porchlight
check the halflife in the filament
if that old nightmare is still at the door
Don’t let em’ in!
insight is just like the cup in your hand
This is the door that you opened before
your cookbooks’ favorite page
hallucination is not deception
A recipee ‘s watery breath
leaf on the windowsill
vein in the vowel
So,tonight under moon rays in a café
your alphabet of wildleaves
is all I want to read
or multiply
Apple ITunes
She Said
When you touched my hand
my fingers started to dream
She said...
when you poured water on my dreaming fingers
they burst into flames
in the ashes is written
Time is an ice cube
you are warming up to
and death is a hot air balloon
She said
Strange Dream
down in chinatown
on a busy street
in the leafy dry early night
there’s a little black umbrella in a weird light
a grainy bourbon colored sky
every corner that I turn passes right through me
like a recurring dream
I guess you live and learn
to turn the pages of the day just like a magazine
there's a strange dream coming to me
every corner that i turn starts to re-tune me
like a weird high
or the way you looked when I touched you
through an open door
in the twilight
there's a little black umbrella in the moonlight
there's a weird sky
a glass of bourbon dry
and it’s starting to feel like we’ve been there before
Her Dreams
Tap my shoulder without moving a finger
just tell me what I want to hear
14 hours on this train and I’m ready for more
so I think of old songs
the oldest saddest songs I can remember
Like some strange waltz I've forgotten
all her dreams are gone
She took back the steps that stood before me
Reality is what I dream
stacking old letters into a messy pile
your ghost is everywhere
the sleeves of my sweaters
the park across the way
… so I think of old songs
the oldest saddest song I can remember
but like some strange waltz I have forgotten
all her dreams are gone
Chaplin Song
when I was charlie chaplin
I’d walk through the market
past tables of lettuce
until I spotted the phony
the one with the green mask
a wanted bandit
moving from town to town
entering homes
wrecking families
taking the kids on the road.
I’d find the manager
tap his shoulder
and say,look there, back there
Look
Garden
Maybe her wisecraft cracked opened the door like a stopwatch
sunday driving
time passing by
and trees of green
like the color she saw
when she rose from her chair
for a midnight walk
turning slow from her thoughts
like the hands of a clock
inside of your car.
I really love your garden
I just want to plant some seeds
I really love your garden
you've got to...got to... let me plant some rosemary
Astronomy
I never took astronomy
but she did
facing mathboards and blackspace
with backturned bucktoothed knuckles
stars in her head
chalk in her hand
erased, eye to ear, a , b, c … astronomy
can’t you hear ? you were right here…
clothesline crook in a school yard game
model rockets and flipping cards
She looked
because she had her own idea of counting 10
not to make herself feel bad
morelike Orpheus
only more conspicuous
bootleggers again
gone with the clothesline pin
speak easy. Speak easy
hide and seek and astronomy , can take you further than the eye can see
can’t you hear the saturn tv No sense of Loop
Can’t you hear ? pioneer...?
Don’t forget the chalk!
an empty blackboard is lost in space
Speak easy , speak easy
Bluetooth
blue tooth stormy old blue tooth
you eat through the tree roots
you bite through the bark
a girl of string sat next to me
she came from nowhere
just like a newspaper
like a kidnapper
who’s been kidnapped already
and really should be traveling on
unravelling like a pretty ball of yarn
don’t you worry bout’ the little plans
My thoughts open like doors
in the cool breeze
inside the cool breeze
there is girl of string, unraveling
blue tooth…stormy old blue tooth...
you eat through the tree roots
you bite through the bark
Tear in my Heart
It was a chilly dark day
you took my favorite guitar
and put the beads in a jar
you went through all of the drawers
but left some pictures of course
if I can get up today I think I’ll be ok
I’m going out of mind
she won’t be here when I’m down
we won’t go up on the roof
and it’s gonna take a long long time
until she’s out of my mind
cause there is nothing that can mend the tear in my heart
I’ve got to to find a way to chase my blues away
I know you felt alone
I need you by my side
it’s love I’ve got to hide
I’ve found the rock in the bean
I’ve got to lower the flame I didn’t want it to burn
I couldn’t live with that
If I was bringing you down the darker side of a clown
you put up lights in the hall
Your voice is still in my ear
You said I’m going nowhere take me away from here
but in the back of my mind I was prepared for that line
(chorus)
Her Raincoat
I opened the window
you started a novel
I took down the curtain
You called it her raincoat
I put on my glasses
You petted the grey cat
I looked at your writing
You said it was too wet
I went to the basement
And played the piano
It sounded like ragtime
You stood at the doorway just like a sunflower
I looked at your wet boots
I didn’t have shoes on
You showed me an old book
all covered with flowers
I told you to take some for under your pillow
You told me to play something dark like a sleeping pill
you took your shoes off
I played like prokofiev
we started to laugh
You told me you loved me
I'd found the x on your secret map
I asked you to love me more
You told me her raincoat will be a little bit darker than before
Apple ITunes
Excerpts from Walk the Bike lyrics, printed in their entirety within the booklet.
I walked in for some apples and a loaf of bread
and I felt just like a cloud going round in her head
- from Grocery Song
Lying under this tree
You imagine her under high clouds
- Imagine Her
It's written out in drops of rain
the sky of blue has turned to gray
an editor has seen the weather change
looks like we're in for some rain
colors fade in the sky of your mind for a change
- from Coffee
Words fall back into clouds
Footprints on your round leaves
- from Old Recurring Dream
Pouring water through a strainer
and watching the hours grow later and later
I've just got to catch
the movies another time
- from Tea
There's a phone down in the lobby
and a number in my head
if I'd only brought the copy
I'd be like the living dead
and never free...
of someone following me
- from Moroccan Roll
I think of his sealed home
in a vault like a classic
- from Projector
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, " You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, " Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."
And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."
- Stanza from The Man with the Blue Guitar by Wallace Stevens
Link to Rising Rose Records Photos
Gorbyblock
When I start to feel defeated
sad in the lab--fed up w/ microscpes and cell-fate
I take my bicycle right down the stairs
into the city streets
I'd open my eyes just to invent you
find a disguise I can see through
white mice and iodine...? maybe another time
ahh..., a sweet and sour molecule
moving like a galaxy
a book of recipes
a breath or two and she was just like smoke to me
I saw you turn a corner at union-square
i'm pretty sure you saw me standing there
I tried to follow you but lost you after several blocks
down a street that once was called the gorbyblock
we stopped and watched the block become the gorbyblock
it's so hard to find your body and soul
cause I lost you in the crosstown traffic
bring your body to my soul
deliver me from this spiritual insecurity
I saw you ridin' through the street like you're swimming in the ocean
your voice sailed over cars and cabs
it sounded like slow motion
I knew it was you ... you see me standing still and staring at a tree
looking at the way you made a picture out of me
i felt so drawn...
when i turned back from the tree to the city streets you were gone
take this message to my soul
deliver me from my cinematic, surrealistic, horoscopic
kabbalistic, synesthetic, magic carpet, kaliedescopic
rocketscience, cellfated ride...
yeah, my spiritual insecurity
Rubber Vendor
On roads from here to never there is a rubber vendor
a receiver and a sender
a map inside his shoe
a decal from a ball-gum dispenser
a service call from a ghost
a set of keys and a route
note cards from a deadman’s chest
a box for the boss in the trunk
a message for a not so great pretender
a code for the road
another county to cross
another location just can’t be lost
balloon man don’t fall
watch the sink don’t come off the wall
when you stand on it
to nixpix the lock
to refill the slots
and sharpen the tooth
careful-
watch the keys in your pocket don’t fall
and crack the pins till you can’t back in
a slug in the slot
a bump on the head
down off the sink
outside the snow is falling
a jammed mechanism is no big deal
the machine is working and back on the wall
another service call and the cold november
rubber vendor rubber vendor
Mostly Movies
It could be real-life
but it doesn't sound like it
the cigarette lighter you saved to forget her
the 39 steps you took when you met her
the phone clicks like an old see-saw
a seed-pops in the popcorn bowl
there is a car-radio book behind your couch-- inside out
you talk to me
I ask you to read
9 number dial-tones and smoke
you offer me one then ask me to leave
to turn out the lights before I go
or else stay till the end of late-late show
seems more like make-believe
but there's nothing in the sleeve
if the programs don't change
we can sleep
while footsteps creep
and shadows get rolled up like sleeves
down a black and white hall
a match is struck
mostly movies
Forest Story
We took your old two door into the city
It was a chorus of foresty voices
city side-walks rose like a dark choir
the parks and the river rose higher and higher
out the rear window
radio wave on your forehead
a foresty dashboard
dark water and sleep on the floorboard
forest story wasn't always easy
we took it tree by tree
we took it steadily
accidental incidents in the middle of the city
were never really close at all
never late and never early
humming like a sanctuary
steaming like a winterberry branch
stretched out on a library floor
your little blue two-door took us there
for rest in the city... forest
Wire Doll
Wire doll called me in her way
on her ouija phone
even when I wasn't home
yeah, she made me feel that way
Wing-worm--took it slow
no point in rushin' or talkin' about it
no , she never talked about it
she just sewed a button on my shirt
yeah she sewed the way the caterpillars rise up from the dirt
Wire-worm--- you broke in two
headlines, going down
a garden wire
left out below an open gate
not so long ago, in the back of a trance
Wing wood
wire tree
a ticking wire heart
a burning hexagram
a wire book of chance
in the wire fingers of her hands
wire doll
called me in her way
even when she lost the plan
a wire-dream
two little wings
she made me feel that way
Graysong
the night we met outside the show
you said what's gone is gone and yet
you were thinking about what a friend had said
gray letters you write can never be read
the ink in the pen in the palm of your hand
won't mean a thing
won't turn a feather into lead
it won't tap the ground like a shoe
or dry like ink on a pillow
or a thought in your head
that beats like a drum in a song on the tip of your tongue
There is a graysong inside us now
so we look for the grayleaves
I saw you collecting the grayleaves
I knew you were humming that tune
tapping your toes
like you were at the opera, or the rodeo..
I guess I'll always think of you that way
Peace Song
(It was) 60 years ago today
radio said: peace everywhere , put away your fear
not so long ago
another peace got put away
with marbles and comics from another day
the peace they promised yesterday
was more like a guest
a dreamy song
a freak on the street
who just turned away , just looked the other way
opaque and oblique
a nincompoop in an endless loop
strangled like a promise
tossed like a marble in a puddle
choking like a bubble
twisting like a top
in another time
peace was free like breathing air
and nobody was fighting for breathing air
the answer there is a question here
how can ~love be peace~
when peace is a shadow
from an old dark comic
spinning off like a comet
through a dark glassy puddle ?
Chance
the first eye ends wetter
and blacker
under a closing lid
forgotton like a little buried wheel
hissing it's last bit of air
spun numbers stirred
beneath her skin brimming
sour slides and flooding
false landing promises
lonely cashier rung glasses lost off the pocket side
dialing prints on window blinds
loaded dice in lucky hands
Town
they walk on their hands
belief in maps beneath the lip
backwards the words trace
the future
yards refold yards
old and retold
first laughter then argument
gray moons
lockpin sunddialed sandles
nomadic coneline
rain prayer
old desk coal
rest of red dime lit surprises
jugsoaked solar coiled face wash
lord roof leaked facet blue
the unseen landscaped bastard collected
shrouded basin jems for a gorilla story
remembered rare bird
winds of glove
grassed and peeked
note sail
pie coal
park chain
candle animal
running school
barn tape
slow proliferation of the obvious
low obliteration of the prophecy
rat apart
caustic collectibles
castigated lotus eater
forward seeders
race cat planets
dial store
delectable rope chew
forget book
raincat slammer
schooled out twilight brown basement cadaver
a tisket in a basket
Frontier
darkness jammed the wagon’s course
where west was charted
the bird of it's reins lifted
cattle rod of gold star and dust
smear of courage in a storm of mind
cut through the strange grass of her touch
a whippoorwill cry in a prairie concealed
the way one lonely night
that sunset was test for any man
beating wings
covered wagons
seconds hung like cactus
goldstars falling
a frontier moon wandering
silently, wandering
Foreign Music
talk sad master of goings
play the joke of the painted corner
grave consents forgotten constantly
lost inside the blue triangle
drum to hum the guru’s brain
breath to breath
bells through a pounding near
silently disappear
round again
black coffee
round again
pause to pass the tack test of critical thumb
bounded in icy water
cotton caves
garden waves
painting corners
dreaming all day
returning what is going
Morning Song
rising sun setting sun
hills and tongues
blue and white
rock white sky
red and white
rare bird
dreams already kissing
no home
still water
skyline ship land screen
knee vision witching twiched
stale stairwells
salk link
nose glide
blue rock
copper waves
suit of color
negation of ocean
ocean of blueprint
blueprint of skeleton
skeleton of blacksalt
low fences
peasant stock
gold rock blue rock
Spring
picture of the umpire
fast ball never seen
rain soaked grass
math tracks on empty fields
cracked neck thunder oak trees
broken branch the gardener’s concession
forecasts and footstools
waist high benches
chaise lounge knee deep…
diary of bodies dust cloud backstands
mirror handed thumbs
lopsided slides
curved stiched blankets
push carts striped suits silver rabbits
home safe
(Rising Rose Records are available here , cdbaby, Downtown Music Gallery ,Other Music, Tower Records, Apple ITunes & many other digital music sites)
September Blues and Winter Song from Ghost
Something's troubling the
girl in a white dress
walking through the September
night sky falling
in the burning city
a language she can't read
the people of the world have seen a terrible thing
Dark constellation
unhinged from its black ice
a new alphabet of stars and bone
she cannot stop to rub her eyes
moon rising now through her black hair
Winter Song
There is a winter song
that gets in my head
I see a hill of winter trees
and I can hear the river bed
Your body is water
from a faraway river
you are what you are
and it's making me sad
Between the sweet and the bitter
there is a song of winter
it chills the old winemaker
and the mouse that loves the baker
Dark juice from a grape
is bound to fall
Your eyes of air
are surely going to fall
Your heart of snow
is blowing in the winter wind
and beating in my ear
like a winter song
I see the nothing that's not there
and the nothing that is
you are what you are
and its' making me sad
Yarrow Stalk Bridge lyrics
All In The Way
She goes upstairs to find a bed
but her thoughts went down like the sun
like the people down below
she felt them there
she felt them pass her on the stair
but could not make a sound
but she didn’t feel dead
maybe A little unreal
like a necromancer’s pill
it’s hard to feel dead , when the sound of the world still rings in your head
She tried calling out to someone
someone said "it’s not her spirit in the ground!"
she felt them pass her on the stair
but could not make a sound
it’s all in the way in the way in the way
Dream Bank
I knew right away you weren’t from here
ghost writing 40letters on icy strawberries
pressing sealing wax on alphabet sheets
the e….’s smoking off your tongue
frozen breath through an envelope
like the w and t hold the a in water
you said for every minute there is a summertime
for every winter there is a counterline
that’s when I knew you weren’t from here
talking time and intuition
showing me revisions
seeing what can’t be shown
lighting candlesticks
like an old old comic strip
where the letters start to drip and drip
downback stairs ,over your soft hair
the o is held in you by the y and the O...U...
and the o is so heavy
it takes root in the heart like the ink on a page
Like the one needs the e to fall from the tounge
like air through an envelope
the old switch-a-roo
opening and closing like a stich
nothing at first then blue
Dream bank, put some love into your dream bank
Arithmetic
In the morning you divided herbs and rice
with gravity and a dark syrupy tree root
I was reading the paper and it wasn’t right...
it wasn’t simply foresight or predestination
no, it just wasn’t my dream or your precision
Turn on the lamplight
pour some water in the winter mint
turn down the porchlight
check the halflife in the filament
if that old nightmare is still at the door
Don’t let em’ in!
insight is just like the cup in your hand
This is the door that you opened before
your cookbooks’ favorite page
hallucination is not deception
A recipee ‘s watery breath
leaf on the windowsill
vein in the vowel
So,tonight under moon rays in a café
your alphabet of wildleaves
is all I want to read
or multiply
Apple ITunes
She Said
When you touched my hand
my fingers started to dream
She said...
when you poured water on my dreaming fingers
they burst into flames
in the ashes is written
Time is an ice cube
you are warming up to
and death is a hot air balloon
She said
Strange Dream
down in chinatown
on a busy street
in the leafy dry early night
there’s a little black umbrella in a weird light
a grainy bourbon colored sky
every corner that I turn passes right through me
like a recurring dream
I guess you live and learn
to turn the pages of the day just like a magazine
there's a strange dream coming to me
every corner that i turn starts to re-tune me
like a weird high
or the way you looked when I touched you
through an open door
in the twilight
there's a little black umbrella in the moonlight
there's a weird sky
a glass of bourbon dry
and it’s starting to feel like we’ve been there before
Her Dreams
Tap my shoulder without moving a finger
just tell me what I want to hear
14 hours on this train and I’m ready for more
so I think of old songs
the oldest saddest songs I can remember
Like some strange waltz I've forgotten
all her dreams are gone
She took back the steps that stood before me
Reality is what I dream
stacking old letters into a messy pile
your ghost is everywhere
the sleeves of my sweaters
the park across the way
… so I think of old songs
the oldest saddest song I can remember
but like some strange waltz I have forgotten
all her dreams are gone
Chaplin Song
when I was charlie chaplin
I’d walk through the market
past tables of lettuce
until I spotted the phony
the one with the green mask
a wanted bandit
moving from town to town
entering homes
wrecking families
taking the kids on the road.
I’d find the manager
tap his shoulder
and say,look there, back there
Look
Garden
Maybe her wisecraft cracked opened the door like a stopwatch
sunday driving
time passing by
and trees of green
like the color she saw
when she rose from her chair
for a midnight walk
turning slow from her thoughts
like the hands of a clock
inside of your car.
I really love your garden
I just want to plant some seeds
I really love your garden
you've got to...got to... let me plant some rosemary
Astronomy
I never took astronomy
but she did
facing mathboards and blackspace
with backturned bucktoothed knuckles
stars in her head
chalk in her hand
erased, eye to ear, a , b, c … astronomy
can’t you hear ? you were right here…
clothesline crook in a school yard game
model rockets and flipping cards
She looked
because she had her own idea of counting 10
not to make herself feel bad
morelike Orpheus
only more conspicuous
bootleggers again
gone with the clothesline pin
speak easy. Speak easy
hide and seek and astronomy , can take you further than the eye can see
can’t you hear the saturn tv No sense of Loop
Can’t you hear ? pioneer...?
Don’t forget the chalk!
an empty blackboard is lost in space
Speak easy , speak easy
Bluetooth
blue tooth stormy old blue tooth
you eat through the tree roots
you bite through the bark
a girl of string sat next to me
she came from nowhere
just like a newspaper
like a kidnapper
who’s been kidnapped already
and really should be traveling on
unravelling like a pretty ball of yarn
don’t you worry bout’ the little plans
My thoughts open like doors
in the cool breeze
inside the cool breeze
there is girl of string, unraveling
blue tooth…stormy old blue tooth...
you eat through the tree roots
you bite through the bark
Tear in my Heart
It was a chilly dark day
you took my favorite guitar
and put the beads in a jar
you went through all of the drawers
but left some pictures of course
if I can get up today I think I’ll be ok
I’m going out of mind
she won’t be here when I’m down
we won’t go up on the roof
and it’s gonna take a long long time
until she’s out of my mind
cause there is nothing that can mend the tear in my heart
I’ve got to to find a way to chase my blues away
I know you felt alone
I need you by my side
it’s love I’ve got to hide
I’ve found the rock in the bean
I’ve got to lower the flame I didn’t want it to burn
I couldn’t live with that
If I was bringing you down the darker side of a clown
you put up lights in the hall
Your voice is still in my ear
You said I’m going nowhere take me away from here
but in the back of my mind I was prepared for that line
(chorus)
Her Raincoat
I opened the window
you started a novel
I took down the curtain
You called it her raincoat
I put on my glasses
You petted the grey cat
I looked at your writing
You said it was too wet
I went to the basement
And played the piano
It sounded like ragtime
You stood at the doorway just like a sunflower
I looked at your wet boots
I didn’t have shoes on
You showed me an old book
all covered with flowers
I told you to take some for under your pillow
You told me to play something dark like a sleeping pill
you took your shoes off
I played like prokofiev
we started to laugh
You told me you loved me
I'd found the x on your secret map
I asked you to love me more
You told me her raincoat will be a little bit darker than before
Apple ITunes
Excerpts from Walk the Bike lyrics, printed in their entirety within the booklet.
I walked in for some apples and a loaf of bread
and I felt just like a cloud going round in her head
- from Grocery Song
Lying under this tree
You imagine her under high clouds
- Imagine Her
It's written out in drops of rain
the sky of blue has turned to gray
an editor has seen the weather change
looks like we're in for some rain
colors fade in the sky of your mind for a change
- from Coffee
Words fall back into clouds
Footprints on your round leaves
- from Old Recurring Dream
Pouring water through a strainer
and watching the hours grow later and later
I've just got to catch
the movies another time
- from Tea
There's a phone down in the lobby
and a number in my head
if I'd only brought the copy
I'd be like the living dead
and never free...
of someone following me
- from Moroccan Roll
I think of his sealed home
in a vault like a classic
- from Projector
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, " You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, " Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."
And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."
- Stanza from The Man with the Blue Guitar by Wallace Stevens
