Lyrics

Resolutions

Start a blog, find an online discussion group of Gödel's Proof
Do aikido, join an improv troupe, contact my five favorite authors
Climb a tree, consult a doctor of Chinese medicine
Investigate the organization of my brain
With an MRI

(I will ...)
Well -- juggle every day, visit the Southern Hemisphere, climb Mount Diablo
(I will ...)
Concoct a sting of a rightwing PR outfit, broadcast it on pirate radio
(I ...)
Ask all my neighbors to tell me a story
(I ...)
Make sound collages, discover where my ancestors lived
(Will ...)
Alter a billboard

(I will ...)
Ah -- donate sperm, program computers just for fun, take up pottery
(I will ...)
Drive somewhere random once a week, camp in the desert, write a symphony
(I ...)
Read three Faulkner novels, do the Outward Bound program
(I ...)
Organize a house concert, decorate my kitchen
(Will ...)
Try a writing group, ride my bike, meditate, adopt an imaginary identity

(I will ...)
Yeah -- buy land in a Third World country, get a job, go to clown school
(I will ...)
Purge my closet of unused stuff, create a Burning Man theme camp, cook spaghetti
(I ...)
See and hear much more live music
(I will ...)
Ask a woman out every week even if I get married

Hang Dog Cat

Well thank you my friend for manning the fort
Just bring in the mail and maybe water the plants on the porch
You can watch TV -- yeah, make yourself at home
There's just one more thing I should tell you before I get going

Don't boycott the boy cat
The cat wouldn't like that
He's a hang dog cat
He wish he was fat
He knows where the mice is
He provide them a crisis
Misfortunate mouse
There's a screech in the house
Tooth and claw, opportunity knocks
Better keep on your long sleeves, don't leave out your socks

Hang dog cat gonna beat you to the bag

Better feed him the best bits
Pretend that it's Christmas
He can give you the eye
Till the Fourth of July
He'll lie on your sweatshirt
While you watch the network
Don't push him off
As if you were the boss
The canary's a carcass, the neighbors are polite
You can't watch him all the time, he can stay up all night

Hang dog cat gonna beat you to the bag
Hang dog cat gonna beat you to the bag

Warm Air Rising

Wind, her skin, her green eyes pining
In you spin and not surprisingly
You glide without trying
Warm air rising

Sun above a mile-wide chasm
Run in love, leave all you have
But for the boon of abiding
In warm air rising

Don't you paint a face on your summer girl
Grace never fled her world
Dark only dapples in her flight
Through canyon light

Tell me what you say, when you're lost for words
Pray, with your hands like birds
Dream, you've waited for so long
Your canyon song

Warm air rising

I Wonder Where Samsara Goes

I live with a calico cat
Samsara is her name
When I see her she sees me back
All the world in a twin slit flame

Somewhere there’s a golden axis
Where the stars come around anew
I know there’s a hub of stillness
But Samsara is passing through

Coming home from wandering hours
I wonder where Samsara goes
She smells like smoke and flowers
I wonder where Samsara goes
Down the creek or up a fig tree
I wonder where Samsara goes
Wild life that she lives without me
I wonder where Samsara goes

All gold to the windblown branches
All copper for the debts that are mine
When I call she knows I’m calling
But she moves in calico time

Home from wandering hours
Smells like smoke and flowers
Down the creek or up a fig tree
Wild life lives without me
I wonder where Samsara goes

Beast to Bed

We took a walk down the streets of my childhood
Riverside Drive with the lights turning red
Burning her boots on the loot that I buried
For all my days
Putting the beast to bed

I heard her say that the past is illusion
Underground river in the land of the dead
But I've got a beef with the Buddha of California
For all I've lost
Putting the beast to bed

She went still as a fawn
When we saw a boy grab his brother by the shirt
On a well sprinkled lawn
Where I've torn those buttons off, tasted that dirt

Swaddle my feet by the bank of the Ganges
Find me in Barstow with a price on my head
How can a man give a full deposition
With all he's done in the dark
Beast to bed

Alaina's Fabric

Alaina, soldiering on
Taking it all so hard finding him gone
Taking it all so hard losing the charm
Of a man who takes it easy

Alaina, what can I do
Denim and twill on sale cerulean blue
Took it upon myself, bought it for you
You can wrap me in the remnant

Alaina, what do you care
Curtains could blow outside, fall on the stair
I could be out all night punching the air
And your eyes would still be hurting

Now I see you in the garden with the chard that grows in August
Piling up the sand bags for a labyrinth in the forest
That's a load to bear
I can pour that sand if you'd like to have me there

Alaina, bicycle by
We live in a torn up world, who could deny
Live in a torn up world, hard as we try
And today I give you fabric

The Man with the Untied Shoe

Now surely you've heard tell and you know them well
All the heroes in the Wild West oeuvre
Well there were some with a knife and some with a gun
And the ones who could chop and hew
Yeah they were tall, fast, and strong
And they could hold their share of brew
But they would all stand by ... they would all stand by
For the Man with the Untied Shoe

Old Bertram Cob pulled a quick bank job
Like no one you ever knew
People said "By duck, you'll be out of luck
When old Cob runs a heist on you!"
Until the time poor Bertram tripped on a lace
And discovered he was licking dew
The bank was much obliged ... they was much obliged
To the Man with the Untied Shoe

Sweet Julie Ray and Moon Faced Jake
Told each other they was stuck like glue
And the word of mouth spread north and south
Was that nothing could detach them two
But one day Jake was floored
By Julie's terse ado
'Cause there was none so fine ... yeah there was none so fine
As the Man with the Untied Shoe
The Man with the Untied Shoe
Etc.

The Poppy Fields of Oz

The poppy fields of Oz grow warmer than you know
I lay me down to linger there and never feel the snow
Where I wanna be
Where I'm gonna be again
I don't know where I am
I don't know where I am

The island women smile -- I hand my oars to them
To eat their flowers every day and never taste the stem
There in reverie
There until the captain came
And tied me to the bench

Never trust a hero, and keep your garden far from chariot races
Stay away from girls who try to get back home by going places

Beneath the purple clouds poppies bow and bend
Two thousand years of Christian flame has barely changed the wind
Where they hunt for me
Where I'll always be your friend

Get It Again

Mmmm -- Gotta get it again
Gotta take it on the chin
Gonna take the day but you don't know when
To jump in the skin
You gotta jump in the skin

    I drift in my own brown eyes
    My toast got too moist ocean dry
    My toast it is moist in the jam
    And I don't know if I am, don't know if I am...

Mmmm -- Gotta get it again
    ...Ready to begin
Gotta take it on the chin
    ...I know, I know
Gonna take the day but you don't know when
To jump in the skin
You gotta jump in the skin

    I mix up an old groove
    I finally got it to move
    I finally got it to talk
    Now I know where I can walk, know where I can walk...

Mmmm -- Gotta get it again
    ...On streets I've never seen
Gotta take it on the chin
    ...Yeah, I know
Gonna take the day but you don't know when
To jump in the skin
You gotta jump in the skin

Gotta get it again
Etc.

Kali

My New Age blond never sees your necklace of skulls
Hanging from the eaves
The curtains part
I can feel a chain tugging down on the sun
Serpents in the breeze

Crash the car, burn the bed
All I own
Kali come on home, Kali come on home
Cut the quick back from the dead
Skin from bone
Kali come on home, Kali come on home

My New Age blond never leaves her teacher for long
Too much to believe
She'd sleep on straw
Just to lick the wax off his sarong
Ashes from his sleeve

Tear my coat, bite my neck
Sharp and slow
Kali come on home, Kali come on home
Suck out gold from pencil lead, soup from stone
Kali come on home, Kali come on home

I see the time puppets dance and my little life shimmer on
Behind a sky that is full of you
When you are here I am gone

Tear my coat, bite my neck
Froth and foam
Kali come on home, Kali come on home
You, my bloody maidenhead; you, old crone
Kali come on home, Kali come on home, Kali come on home

My Genes

I never did what they thought I might
But I got a way to make it right in a flash
A little splash in the pan
Got low grades but a high IQ
And there ain’t no end to what I could do if I tried
I got my pride

My genes are better than me
You don’t have to date me
My genes are better than me
Deliver my baby

Unemployed, got no rank
But I got sperm to put in the bank, check it out
Our little joint account
Why couldn’t I continue the line?
I’m out of shape but my grandpa’s fine, grandma too
Why should I matter to you?

My genes are better than me
Don’t let your eyes rule you
My genes are better than me
Don’t let the phenotype fool you

Alright all you under-achievers: let me hear you!
My genes are better than me
That’s alright now
My genes are better than me
Future’s looking bright now
My genes are better than me

Sleeping Beauty

She’s a sleeping beauty
Trapped in beams of fear
And she’s sat there staring
For a hundred years
While a kingdom crumbles
‘Round her jaded ears
Till the spell is lifted
Till the sun appears

Now her cheeks are bathing
In a pale blue cloud
While a band of wizards
Casts the spell aloud
And her tears are rising
Watching wizards play
One more wall of roses
One more lonely day

Wake up wake up my princess bride
Wake up and step into the light
That box of stars is but a dream
Wake up wake up where you are queen

Travel back
Through the storm
Safe and warm to the day when you were born
Far away
Once upon a time
Here and now when you let your eyes meet mine

All you sleeping beauties
Trapped in beams of fear
Falling from your senses
Shuffling through the years
In a broke-down palace
Let your friends replace
All the perfect strangers
Flashing on your face

Wake up wake up my princess bride
Wake up and step into the light
Turn off the wizards on your screen
Wake up wake up where you are queen

Wake up wake up
The sun is high now
Wake up wake up
Rise and shine now
Wake up

All the Blue

They wonder what you are
You’re missing a game that makes no sense
The only one to stand in resistance
Eyes in the distance
Fingers through a chain-link fence

The city of your soul
Is fading soft above your school
And you can see the queen parading
Squires waving
Fading gently with your jewels

All the blue in the sky
All the blue in the sky
Blue throne, yours alone
When you’re young and high
All the blue in the sky

The colors of your soul
Measured, but no one knows their worth
And now they fall on worlds of cotton
Old worlds forgotten
Only one bends down to Earth

All the blue in the sky
All the blue in the sky
Day blown, far from home
Lift your head and sigh
For all the blue in the sky

Green Wand

Gunmetal gray
The dark in your day
A blanket that falls on behalf of what he didn’t say

The helmet won’t open
The armor won’t shine
Now the knight of your dreams rides away in the night of your mind

When we lived with mom did you have a green wand?
Every room every bush in the yard got a blessing or two
You never hit hard for another’s regard
And when we took a ride on a carpet the magic was you

When I had the flu did you bounce on my bed?
While I filled up the moat for your castle you dug out the doors
You fed all the jays with my cinnamon bread
And when I was scared you would soothe me with something of yours

You can be what you will
Won’t you let it be water or grist for the mill

Gunmetal gray
Won’t bear you away
As you look for a crumb in the clues of what he used to say
As if it were scripture or runes in a stone
But the wound in his silence is only a wound of his own

I dug through my shards, can you guess what I found?
Every drawer in my old purple desk has a blessing or two
Your battered green wand still potent and bound
You passed it to me now it’s time that I pass it to you

Goodbye Joe

What a long morning
Coffee is colder
Cafe Europa holds me in
Sparrow is singing
Not for my friend
He'll never hear that song again
I'm stalling
Can't do a thing for him now
The barista smiles

His final call
And the art on the walls
And she smiles
What do we know?

Goodbye Joe

Stirring

There he is that guy again
Staring outside looking grim
Usually he's looking in
Or at Joe his weirdo friend

But today he tilts his chair
Fingers through disheveled hair
Why do my eyes linger there
When I should be stirring?

Maybe he'll shuffle up and
Order another shot
Maybe a cappuccino
I make a good cappuccino

Picking up his spoon and then
He sees my smile and looks again
Absently his spoon goes in
To his coffee stirring

As I smile his spoon goes in
Stirring

Showing

I'm finally showing at Cafe Europa
My pictures are hanging for the whole month of May
But what does it matter when nobody's looking?
And the pretty barista wouldn't give me the time of day

Why do I bother?
I must be pretty thick
Pour my soul into these squares on the wall
And they might as well be stains in the brick

Hey isn't that Peter stirring his coffee?
I wonder where Joe is: they're usually joined at the hip
I guess I'll go over and see how he's doing
Maybe casually mention, hey ain't this art a trip

Showing
Finally showing
Finally showing
At Cafe Europa