I.
A gentle rivalry
Hung in the hallway that night
As you tried with all your might
To come face-to-face with that
Girl in the mirror.
I remember you stood there
And cut off all your hair,
Saying:    “It won’t let me go,
                   It won’t let me go,
                   It won’t let me go,
‘Til I let go first.”
I bit my tongue, said,
“Well, those times are the worst…”
And so I let you go,
And boy, did it show
When you let go first.

II.
A soft collision
In the middle on the night
Shook your whole family awake.
Fools, they made the mistake
Of trying to hold you down,
And you had no more hair, but
Still, you turned haughtily around,
Gathered your belongings,
And drove out of town.
Knowing it had to be so,
                           We let you go,
                           We let you go,  
                           We let you go,
Because you let go first.

III.**
A silly sort of train wreck,
One of those ancient, nickelodeon types,
Took place, as clockwork,
Before our very eyes.
But, much to my surprise,
When the smoke cleared
I saw a rose petal floating in oil,
Too precious to be spoiled.
Not a word was spoken,
The bonds of the universe were broken,
But you picked it up, quite motherly,
With blackened, blistered hands…
Now, suddenly,
Beware the smallest tear,
Measure each breath, count every hair,
Keep it pretty, keep it clean,
Keep it beautiful, keep it new,
And remember:
                    You don’t have to let it go,
                    You don’t have to let it go,
                    You don’t have to let it go,
Even if it lets go first.
Keep it beautiful, keep it new,
And remember:
                     You don't have to let it go,
                     You don't have to let it go,
Even if it lets go of YOU.

She was eighteen,
He was Twenty-three,
With an old brown Ford
And a smile in the trees.
And with his smile came light,
The kind that appears in early Spring,
In the morning, and only when
You’re Twenty-three.

She wore this black Flamenco dress,
Everyday, and, if I remember correctly,
That was some dress…
Tight from blade to knee,
And billowing from the back,
Begging for every young man to see.
It’s skirt, when she twirled, could cover a camera,
Mute the sound,
Get attention from all over town.
But what she saw was, in all her spinning beauty,
His tree-tall grin,
And it took her in,
To that desperately sought-out end of a quest,
Where mothers held their daughters against their *******.
It was love, perhaps too young,
But it was love,
It was,
It was.

He’s a good man!, she’d always fight,
Left home, one time, in the middle of the night.
Seventeen, too handsome for his own daring good,
That dark-eyed boy and his Redwood-smile
Hopped a south-bound train,
And he looked back, like in some old movie:
Cue the Angry sky, the loneliness, the pouring rain.
He needed to move along, and he had a feeling,
In every sense, that he would;
You know, chalk it up to that daring good.

Well, child?
Well, what?
Well, is that enough?
What happens when he’s twenty-four?
Is it you, for which he’ll walk the floor,
Or leave home, one time, in the middle of the night?
For seventeen, still handsome, still free,
Is not so different, child, from twenty-three…
But it was love, perhaps too young,
But it was love,
It was,
It was.

And Mama, he can dance,
Please remember that!
What was it that drew you,
Like some artist’s red line,
All those years ago,
To some twenty-something,
With hair like a wheat field and eyes like the sun-
In your prime, and also in his,
It wasn’t sin, but something drew you to him.
His hard work, his humor, his wit-
Mama said, and stopped.
And the way his leather soles spoke,
In circles and crooked lines-
When the light began to shine,
They’d whirl and sway,
Every time some guitar played.
Whenever the word “no” she’d been told,
Mama rushed for him to hold.

Mars said to Venus:
"Check out how this scene ends...",
And patted Pluto on the back.
"Dear friend, faithful friend,
This is how it all shall end.
When those Scientists attack-"
(Still, he patted him on the back...)
"-at least you'll never feel a thing!
Venus and I will walk the Black Mile,
Maybe even with a couple smiles,
But when the Sun makes us go,
You won't, for you see,
You are no planet,
You... are Pluto!"

"Do you mean to say,"
He answered, wiping a tear away,
"That it doesn't matter,
Being rejected by the Scientists and Sun,
Because, in the end, I've really won?"

"Precisely," Jupiter cut in,
(As he did, every now and then...)
"Because, although a planet
You may no longer be,
At least you won't go down
Like him, and him, and him, and him, and him,
And me!"

Pluto smiled, but his ice was thick.
"You know, I was beginning to believe this was a trick!
But new words from old friends
Are   usually   true-
I am so very thankful to you!"

And then all the stars went dark,
And all the planets had fear in their hearts.

"The moment has come-"
In a mighty voice, said the Sun (or whoever...),
And Pluto began to wave goodbye,
The tears returning to his eyes.
But the Sun (or whoever...) just could not stop at six
(For who ever really stops at six, when they're in need of such a fix?),
And Neptune was surely surprised
When he discovered that Uranus, and he, and Pluto, too,
Would soon be gone-
But Mars was not,
For he had known it all along.

Two days later, he opens his eyes.
Bright sunlight, some blinding enemy,
Like heat waves upon scalding sand.
Two seconds later, he closes his eyes.
How did it begin?
And where, for that matter,
Did his dignity run off to?
He rolls out of bed,
Clutching his greasy head.

It was the annual banquet
For the Pure-of-Heart-but-Poor-of-Soul’s
Club; They dined, they danced, and
Someone grabbed his sweaty hand,
                                             and…

He leans against a round-topped refrigerator,
Stained a putrid brown, which collects
Take-out boxes from all over town.
He ought to find a chemical,
Some bleach-magic in a bottle. He could
Use steel wool, or a sponge,
Make it into a worthy possession again,
But still,
He won’t. And he probably never will.

A metal cap is flung across the room,
Landing soft upon a soil on the floor.
The beer tastes
Like aspirin and the ***** General Electric.
Waste not, want not,
He’d always say.
And so he sipped, and did for
The rest of the day.
Waste not, want not,
Wasting away.

What color was her dress?
Did she dress,
In that purple dress,
To seek? To impress?
Anyway, he thought,
Anyway you stare,
Is alright. Not okay, but did he care?
And he just might marry her red hair,
But only if her crooked grin
Would run away with him.
She’d never seen a black tie before,
And neither had he,
Until he found one on the floor.
“I see you’ve joined our Club,”
She said, stubbing a cigarette on her shoe.
“Just passing through, fair-headed,
Taffeta lady. But it’s sure nice
Seeing you."

A dripping air conditioner
Barely clings to the window ledge,
As if a seven-story fall from
The pathetic high-rise were
No big deal at all.
And it pours its sour, frigid air
To the dark apartment there,
And another ***** shakes itself loose,
As he turns up Scarlett O’Hara
On the evening news.
“I’ll bet she’s a princess,” he said
To an audience of burn-holes and broom handles,
“The woman of somebody’s dreams…”
And glancing at the dieing machine, he added,
“Well, since you are my only friend,
What do you think?”

She kissed him over an open pizza-box delight.
He was probably crazy,
But not as crazy as she that night.
Crazy will do as crazy often does,
Which explains a lot,
If you don’t think about it much.
He should have known better
Than to trust a pair of cloudy eyes,
Or the bird’s nest of a mess sitting
Confidently on her head,
Like some wilted rose painted red.
Some devil’s right-hand angel
Was kind enough to carry
Him home that night,
Staggering drunk, robbed blind.
And crazy never changes,
So the Taffeta lady will remain
Counting all his money in her room
In the asylum for the criminally insane.



Sometimes you live, other times you die;
Two days later, he opens his eyes.

I humbly believe
That it often seems
Like the sweetest dreams
Could last forever.
A perfect picture of curious and happy,
A pair of hands with ten fingers cupped,
A pair of cheeks wet from tears of laughter,
A perfect afternoon,
And I hope I’ll be seeing you again soon.

Saint Benjamin, I know of a woman
Who talks to the morning clouds-
Or, rather, to the space between,
Right where your face should be.
“Can you hear me?”
The leaves shake upon a tree.
“How humid is the Heavenly air?
Tell me, I know you must be there…”
She waits, her frozen heart beings to thaw,
But the clouds shift,
And move back together,
And the line is broken again,
Broken forever.
Saint Benjamin, she’s reaching a hand to you.
A stretching, never-ending, one last wave goodbye.
“I’ll never meet any one quite like you,”
She’ll say,
But you’ll just smile and turn away.
Smile, that’s all you’re allowed to say.

Every spring time,
Every first sunny day of the year,
A pair of bright eyes closes,
And a pair of dark eyes opens.

It’s like a foreign film set on repeat,
Over and over again, like a machine.
We live it again, and again, and again:
Can you feel the thick, hot prairie wind
Blow away your every sin,
Every time I do?
You don’t; For you never sinned
The way I do.
I still feel that perfect afternoon,
And do believe that you left too soon
With a soft praise,
Two hands upon the wheel.
If you could just return, one more time,
If only just to properly say goodbye-
But you can’t,
And that much won’t ever change.
You know, finally, after all these years,
I can see it’s meant to be that way.

Saint Benjamin, can I just say something?
I’d like you to know that I hold her,
Every minute,
Spring day or not,
Sunny day or not,
On perfect and imperfect afternoons,
And, you best believe,
I do my best to get her through.
Between the clouds, or maybe not,
You can smile,
You can turn away,
But Saint Benjamin,
I would like to say
That everything for her will be okay-
She’ll be seeing you again someday.

And I know you wouldn’t have it any other way.

I see a blue-white light
Shining on your hands tonight,
And in one of those hands
You’re clutching this city by the neck,
Hanging it by a cat-gut string.
In the other hand, there’s nothing-
I guess that doesn’t really mean a thing.
Ten professional fingers,
Each one with a degree,
And to silence us you hold one up,
Bright and tall,
And they call you all,
They call you all:

Pretty little demons
Taking the world by storm,
And never giving it back.
Pretty little heathens who
Keep on swimming,
Even when the water turns black.

There’s shards of broken glass
Laying in piles of greasy trash,
And I wonder how they got there.
A push, a shove, some sonic boom?
The effects of a sea of doom,
A sea of greed,
A hundred hungry mouths to feed?
Now’s the moment, hero,
To step front and center
One more encore, one more word,
You’ll play the mother bird
That feeds her children, so
Helpless and small,
And they call you all,
They call you all:

Pretty little demons
Taking the world by storm,
And never giving it back.
Pretty little heathens who
Keep on swimming,
Even when the water turns black.

I remember when you were crying on your knees;
You told me, “I have what this city needs!”,
And I agreed, I agreed.
Now there’s a wolf howling at
Your name in neon lights-
He believes in you.
After all that struggling, you were right.
Was it only yesterday that you were a nobody?
And not just a nobody, but a nameless nobody?
No food upon a paint-spattered table,
An aging Mercedes dieing on the road,
A yellow bulb flickering in the hall…
Yes, I still recall,
But you don’t remember
Life before success at all.
And they call you all,
They call you all,
(how long will they)
Call you all:

Pretty little demons
Taking the world by storm,
And never giving it back.
Pretty little heathens who
Keep on swimming,
Even when the water turns black.

I turn right,
Right before the railroad tracks,
And all I see are dark eyes.
Get yourself together, girl,
They seem to say to me.
You’re bigger than this side of town,
But be sure to flee before the sun goes down-
Hang that right,
Or else you gotta stay all night.

I never travel this road in daylight.
I’ve driven through a hundred summer nights-
When the wind is like velvet upon sweaty skin,
And the air is no cooler than
Than the air in Satan’s smoke-filled lungs-
Can you help but think of here, July, and being far too young?
I only travel this road at night, and
I’ve looked up to many a-blackened sky,
But all I see are dark eyes.

One arm around my shoulders yesterday,
One moment not to be relived again,
No matter how hard I try.
And now I drive through this
Black-silk, thick, and lonely night,
Trying to get you here,
Or there,
Or anywhere
That’s off my mind.
One day, one for the books, my dear,
Was all it took.
Yes, that smile hit me with a hard right,
And now all I do is think of you at night.

A bright color,
An innocent color,
That’s what I long to see in my sight.
Ophelia and I,
Coffee-haired
And told too many lies,
Will always search for blues,
But all we see are dark eyes.

Dark eyes in the rear view,
Dark eyes down the road.
There’s nothing all around me,
Far as my dark eyes can see;
A million years from now,
A million miles away,
These dark eyes will remain.