There's no reasonable explanation
To how this all went down
When the world woke up one morning
All made up as clowns

Not a single person in the world
Did this phenomenon not claim
With big red buttons on their chests
Spelling out new funny names

There was Patches and Petunia
Floppy and Cupcake
Winky and Bumper the Clown
Were just a few that they displayed

Everyone went about their business
Only now they all carpooled
You could see clowns piling out of cars everywhere
From businesses to stores to schools

Crime it did die down
Because all the guns that people have
Instead of shooting bullets
Shoot out brightly colored Big Bang Flags

Of course the circus lost its glamour
With an audience made up of clowns
It's hard to tell who's there enjoying
And who's entertaining all the crowds

People stopped taking each other seriously
Over anything they had to say
Pointing at each other and laughing
As they go about their day

Who knew a thing like this would happen
When the world went to bed last night
That the very next morning
They'd wake up clowns for life

Oh, I almost forgot the Politicians
Were the only ones to stay the same
It's already a simple known fact
*When your a clown you don't need to change

i need this listerine for my bad
breath he said, but i knew better
than to give him a quarter.
he begged me with blue eyes
and every puff we exhaled into
the back bay that grey morning.

i’m here to help
i answered him
and i’ve been there-
at McLean in ART, where the girls
didn’t like me cause my music
was a trigger. but
i pulled through, sometimes
on my own, with help
from a court appointed drug group
(even though i carpooled
every wednesday in a baked
out mini van).

i’m here because day after day
i dragged my spinning
body to the toilet, sun dawning,
to spew bright yellow fluid
into the waiting water.
and i’ve hit the ocean floor:
i used to sniff the bowl to make
the ***** come up faster.
i’d say if i get up again in less than ten
minutes, it’s gonna be a rough day
(but yesterday started this way
and i ended it with a beer
in my hand anyway).

i’m here because when
officer spirito dragged my racing
body through the hallways handcuffed,
because of the purses
missing from the locker room,
i still spent the night on the
closet floor rocking back and
forth, knees to pounding
chest, a hollow
voice on the phone saying i’ll be fine
(but i know that ****’s cut
with ether and i’m gonna
need a hospital).

i told my sponsor
i wanna get clean cause
dope is taking my friends one by
one like bowling pins, and i’m lonely
cause all my ex boyfriends
are still locked up
upstate. she just told me
to pray to god
(but everybody knows
that prayer only works
in emergencies).

i’m here because that relapse
my first year of college got me
pretty close to death. i didn’t know
i could puke that far and
the emts didn’t know
a heart could beat that fast.
but **** the past
and **** the future. i can’t
say much about the rest
of my life, but i can
make sure i’m sober the rest
of this night. you can get through
centuries one hour at a time, so
since i know what you want it for
why would i give you that quarter?

no response except a drop
of spit hung from his silver beard
like a pendulum, and the smell
of the chicken i left to cook
too long inside that soup kitchen.
if i didn’t laugh, i would have
cried the whole
time that he said to me
i need this
listerine, baby,
i need listerine
i need this
listerine for my bad
breath.

There's no reasonable explanation
As to how this all went down
When the world woke up one morning
All made up as clowns

Not a single person across the land
Did this phenomenon not claim
With big red buttons on their chests 
Spelling out new funny names

There was Patches and Petunia
Floppy and Cupcake
Winky and Bumper the Clown
Were just a few that they displayed

Everyone went about their business 
Only now they all carpooled
You could see clowns piling out of cars everywhere
From businesses to stores to schools

Crime it did die down
Because all the guns that people have
Instead of shooting bullets
Shoot out brightly colored Big Bang Flags

Of course the circus lost its glamour
With an audience made up of clowns
It's hard to tell who's there enjoying 
And who's entertaining all the crowds

People stopped taking each other seriously 
Over anything they had to say
Pointing at each other and laughing
As they go about their day

Who knew a thing like this would happen
When the world went to bed last night
That the very next morning
They'd wake up clowns for life

Oh, I almost forgot the Politicians
Were the only ones to stay the same
It's already a simple known fact
When you're already a clown you don't need to change

Hallelujah from the heart of Leonard Cohen
just took Leonard and his old scratchy voice
into my heart. What a gift my music app
just slung into my afternoon
to wake me from my late afternoon fatigue.

I do not take these tech gifts for granted
remembering when I would have to get the LP album
from off the crammed shelf and play it on a turntable.

Here in a moment of peace
I look up and see the trees
and the neighbor’s garden
beyond my windows.

And I thank God for this lovely peaceful moment
thank my old piano teacher
and the conductor of the Houston Youth Symphony
where I sang before my voice changed
and my parents who carpooled me from our suburb
to the old auditorium downtown
where my young mind and soul were nourished
by adults who cared for our young minds and voices.

Who knew that the gifts of these people
would spring up in my mind eight decades later
and mental images of Leopold Stokowski who directed us
at a grand concert in the Houston Music Hall.
He loved children but delivered high pitched hell
to the symphony players at rehearsals.