I know we've never been "together."
I know you said to move on.
I tried to be fine with wading this weather,
But the love in my heart still tells me it's wrong.

Now, I'm not saying I'm resentful,
But you did treat me like I was special.
Lately has been so uneventful.
And I'm starting to think this isn't a game...

I get a little jealous when you look at other girls.
I know we're not together, but... You are my whole world.
I get a little jealous when you talk about them too.
It's because we're not together, but...
You told me that you liked me... You told me that you do.

Now, I'm not trying to be weird, but call me, I'd give you my time.
Actually, I'd give you everything, cuz I just want you to be mine.
When I got too lonely, I'd just stare at your photos--
Soundless replacements for you, who knows.

You said I'm obsessive—come on now, don't play.
You like it when I'm open, you preferred me this way.
You said we'd be great together, don't think I forgot.
I cherish every sweet thing you said, so my heart doesn't rot.

Now I've deleted all of your things, cuz I can't bear to see your face.
My prized possessions... I should've given you space.
Why wouldn't you make me yours, like you wanted to?
Now we're apart, now we'll both just be blue.
And now I regret this—now I really do.
True, I'm a little weird, but we're both crazy.
I know what you're afraid of; I know it isn't me.

As we sit down to our dinners,
as we open our romance books,
people die.

We sip our water;
their guts spill open.
We study our notes;
their planes crash.

We live;
they die.
We breathe;
they suffocate.

We are testaments to chance,
to luck, to possibility.

We are not products of God.

We are blind goats trotting on our path
before we perish, suddenly,
and vanish into death.

the night I was going to die
I was sweating on the bed
and I could hear the crickets
and there was a cat fight outside
and I could feel my soul dropping down through the
mattress
and just before it hit the floor I jumped up
I was almost too weak to walk
but I walked around and turned on all the lights
and then I went back to bed
and dropped it down again and
I was up
turning on all the lights
I had a 7-year-old daughter
and I felt sure she wouldn't want me dead
otherwise it wouldn't have
mattered
but all that night
nobody phoned
nobody came by with a beer
my girlfriend didn't phone
all I could hear were the crickets and it was
hot
and I kept working at it
getting up and down
until the first of the sun came through the window
through the bushes
and then I got on the bed
and the soul stayed
inside at last and
I slept.
now people come by
beating on the doors and windows
the phone rings
the phone rings again and again
I get great letters in the mail
hate letters and love letters.
everything is the same again.

I can remember starving in a
small room in a strange city
shades pulled down, listening to
classical music
I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife
inside
because there was no alternative except to hide as long
as possible--
not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance:
trying to connect.

the old composers -- Mozart, Bach, Beethoven,
Brahms were the only ones who spoke to me and
they were dead.

finally, starved and beaten, I had to go into
the streets to be interviewed for low-paying and
monotonous
jobs
by strange men behind desks
men without eyes men without faces
who would take away my hours
break them
**** on them.

now I work for the editors the readers the
critics

but still hang around and drink with
Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the
Bee
some buddies
some men
sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone
are the dead
rattling the walls
that close us in.

1

A great year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother’s heart
closer than any yet.

I walk’d the shores of my Eastern Sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar
of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running—nor from
the single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the
tumbrils;
Was not so desperate at the battues of death—was not so shock’d
at the repeated fusillades of the guns.

2

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?
Could I wish humanity different?
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

3

O Liberty! O mate for me!
Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, to fetch them out
in case of need;
Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy’d;
Here too could rise at last, murdering and extatic;
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.

4

Hence I sign this salute over the sea,
And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,
But remember the little voice that I heard wailing—and wait with perfect trust,
no matter how long;
And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeath’d cause, as for all lands,
And I send these words to Paris with my love,
And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them,
For I guess there is latent music yet in France—floods of it;
O I hear already the bustle of instruments—they will soon be drowning
all that would interrupt them;
O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,
It reaches hither—it swells me to joyful madness,
I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,
I will yet sing a song for you, MA FEMME.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the ****** and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to ***** up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

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