What's a simple man like me
Doing in this part of town
Especially at a time like this
When the sun is going down

I crank my Barry Manilow
Up on my cassette deck radio
Letting all the boys round here know
That I'm down with the sound and flow

That's when this old rusty Ford
Creaks up to the light
His girlfriend turns and gives a wink
And a great big green teeth smile

I get the notion then and there
That he's the jealous type
As he spits a wade of tobacco juice
All over my Pintos driver side

Steps down from his conglomerate
Lumbers over to me
The kids in school are sure to hear of this
As I'll soon be history

Roughly pulls me out the window
Shaking me off like a bad habit
Saw my life flash before my eyes
Luckily I had enough sense to reach out and grab it

Just then he catches the music
That's now playing loud and clear
Turns with a look plastered to his face
Asking who is that he hears

I tell him Barry Manilow
He's the one who writes the songs
Just then he starts a-humming
If he knew the words he'd sing along

His girlfriend calls up all their friends
Who quickly show up to the scene
Looks like we got us a Copacabana
With the lights flashing from red to yellow to green

It all came to a ******
As Barry, Mandy sang
There wasn't a dry eye on the street that night
As I quickly saddled my Pinto and drove away

I let out a huge sigh of relief
As I sped through all the lights
With "Looks Like We Made It" blasting through the stereo
Thanking Barry Manilow, once again for saving my life

Barry Manilow said he wrote the songs that made the whole world sing
And all I do is sit
And type
And listen to him sing
While I cry

Billy Joel told me that he just wanted someone that he could talk to
And I only listened
Didn't say anything of importance
Or anything at all
For that matter

Adam Duritz sang that he was the rain king
And I remember
Everytime I sit near a window
Or stand out in the street
When it rains

Ingrid Michaelson told me that she just wanted to be ok
And I knew that she'd be ok
If she was singing
And being her creative self
With me

I wanted to sing my compositions and act and dance
But the songs and words
Of my favourite artists
Seem like an unreachable
Plateau

I'm a Tree Huggin', Soy Chuggin',
I won't eat no meat
I'm a vegan of convenience,
Still, there's leather on my feet
I don't believe in lots of things
I'll protest and attack
But you won't find me out in front
'Cause I'll be in the back
I give money to my causes
Save the whales, electric cars
But I'm not one to lead the fight
"Cause I don't like the scars
Bricks get thrown alot you see
And those things ****** hurt
And I'm not a happy camper
When there's blood upon my shirt
I won't eat seeds of any sort
They get stuck in my teeth
My clothes are all from LL Bean
Except what's underneath
Way back in the sixties
I lived communaly
We ate only what the earth gave up
We didn't watch tv
As years passed by, our voices died
Our causes became much rarer
We sounded more like Manilow
Than Phil Ochs or Tom Lehrer
I choose fine wine over wheatgrass juice
I like leather and wear silk
I no longer go and get the goat
So we can have fresh milk
I'm a Tree Huggin', Soy Chuggin',
I won't eat no meat
I'm a vegan of convenience,
Still, there's leather on my feet
I don't believe in lots of things
I'll protest and attack
But you won't find me out in front
'Cause I'll be in the back
I've changed lots since the sixties
I'm a capitalist blood hound
If I said I'm a true vegan
My board would see me drowned
I used to wear just cotton
Hemp and caftans  and blue jeans
Leather shoes and belts and jackets
Were just not part of my scene
My friends, well, they grew up
And others stayed in touch
The ones with money see me
The others not so much
I used to go out jogging
Through the park in puma shoes
Now I workout in a private gym
Wearing nikes and with my  crew
You see I'm still a vegan
When it suits me, don't you see
My new girlfriend likes organic
And she's only twenty three
There's forty years between us
Though I've done it all before
When my girlfriend is not with me
I am a carnivore
I support all of her causes
Though most things I don't attend
I'll be a vegan of convenience
Until our courtship ends
Who knows, what then will happen
Will I eat Tofu or some chops
I know which way I'm leaning
We'll see how that one drops
Like I said when we first started
I am a vegan, so I am
But instead of eating quinoa
I'll stick to eggs and ham.
I'm a Tree Huggin', Soy Chuggin',
I won't eat no meat
I'm a vegan of convenience,
Still, there's leather on my feet
I don't believe in lots of things
I'll protest and attack
But you won't find me out in front
'Cause I'll be in the back

You can have the days beginning
You can bring it to the end
You can clear out of the middle
Take it all with you my friend

You can swing from forever after
Relish in the here and now
Remove all of the laughter
Melt down the golden cow

You can pack up all belongings
Take it all away in tow
The only thing I ask of you
Is leave my Barry Manilow

You can take the sun from out its cradle
Remove the stars at night
Set to dry the gentle rains of spring
Take what you can of life

Feel free to stop the world from turning
Back it up if you must
Take my old 50's Chevy with you
Leaving behind the rust

Take the shore from its kissing of the sea
Lift the beggar from off his knees
You can pretty much do anything
Just leave my Barry Manilow with me

(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 19, 2015)

Sometimes called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, the tendency to see past events as being predictable at the time those events happened.

Today—no question what we would talk about:
L’entrée de Barry Manilow, or as the French say,
Faire son coming out, as if homosexualité

was Americain. You know, like the French
used to say making love in the English way
while the English were saying making love

in the French way. Meanwhile my own closet
of 33 rpms and fan-club letters and all those
barroom assertions. Is he? Isn’t he?

What is the nature of his love? So benevolent
to his fans, surprising them at the piano
of their houses, the spotlight of polite

amid rock and roll infamy. This hindsight
bias is tricky: "At the time." Since when?
Every moment to the now we speak of it.

The was that made the is to be: we will argue this
to our thrones. Like literary ironies of thigh master,
controversial poet of the bedroom farce,

Krissy Snow and her gentle flurry of confession.
Zaftig fans with their quinquagenarian chest pains.
Fantasy is always predictable. It never was.

They are screaming like Beatlemaniacs.
The happy hour question left for us now:
What is the nature of their love?

Now, there's no reason these nights can't
   dissemble our daytime woes.
With bottles uncorked, we'll paint
   friendly faces on daylight foes.

                     The ground's not shaking.
                     Your breath's just ragged.
                     Faces shine and cities glow...

but, come sunrise, we're flying blind,
            while keeping our heads low.

Still I remember the time that
   we chucked that radio
from that rooftop sinking to
   street level, speakers played Manilow

                     Transistors scattered
                     Our footsteps clattered
                     Down the fire escape we'd go

laughing hard, police up in arms
          alleyways lead us home

                        We wanted
                         to up and ******* leave

                         But we're tethered
                         to this place by our heartstrings

                         So we're always
                         celebrating our defeats

                         We wanted
                          to up and ******* leave

I'm off and running in circles
   around my own lasting fears
You're off the wagon and just
   rolling dice hung on rearview mirrors

                           We're contemplating
                            on relocating
                            back to those familiar years

but sunrise comes, we're twiddling thumbs
   and hoping stormclouds clear.

I sat there, it may as well
Have been a whole day
Cranked up the volume
And heard them screaming at me
"You're an idiot!"
Yelled Bach
"******* quivering little ****"
Mozart shook his head
The tears welled up
But then they stopped
Because someone else stepped in
"Just relax. Close your eyes."
Floyd was understanding
Floyd got me
I floated away from self-loathing
Dropped back into the façade that was
The day
And I grinned like an idiot
Manilow? Yeah, we sang together
Paul and John? You best believe
We're a three-person harmony
M'lady Pink requested my voice
And I gave it to her
I sang loud and out of tune
Because they requested it
And finally, Mozart and Bach
Apologized with their minor keys
And accidentals
Their music emblazoned with the word
**Genius

Barry Manilow became a merry ****** beau on May 8, after Barry's
manager made Barry gay with homosexual chicken on Barry's plate
After Barry's manager made Barry gay with queer pork rinds on his
plate, Barry Manilow became a fairy ****** beau 1 day after May 8
After Barry's *** manager made Barry eat queer fish eggs on a date,
Barry transmogrified into a hairy granny vole like Bruce did as Cait
Barry F. Manilow liked to wrestle gators with his homosexual mate
when it was kosher in the Everglades for alligators to live in a crate
I cried when you lied & pimped my body on the street & sold my 2
shoes off my 2 feet so now that I'm without shoes & poor the Johns
say I'm either "The Gainesville *****" or "The Bare-Foot *****"
I whined when you sold my **** on 12th street & then sold 2 tennis
shoes off my 2 feet so now that I'm without shoes & poor the Johns
call me "The Gainesville *****," I meant, "The Bare-Foot *****"
I sighed when you lied & pimped my body in the street & sold both
shoes off both feet, so now that I have no shoes & I am poor, Johns
think I'm "The Gainesville *****" or even "The Bare-Foot *****"

"What do i say to you when my Someday arrives?
Should i speak of my tears, and all the nights i cried?
The world went on, as though you were never gone,
but when Manilow sings, the memories are now only mine.
I will tell you of the days after you passed away.
It left us all crippled, and the pain found it's place to stay.
The weeks, and months flew by, we stopped asking why.
Your spirit now lives on earth. Your soul above the sky's.
And when "My Someday" arrives.
I will speak. I will be their.
I will say only to you. "I love you, my dear."....

"You know I can't smile
Without you" -Barry Manilow
I had no count
Number of times
I listened to this
I think
Every 70's guy
Never misses it
Those lines can tell
You everything

Creativity and ambition is real
And the feeling of risk and intelligence
Are asking for damnation please, placidly
Birds among many things that chirp around your soul that wakes up the dead
Cheering up the party with the talk of apartheid, black and white
Competition is the last word, and talk of lost causes and intellectuality
Est mir leid
I'm up in my knees with Bukowski, they call me old-school Burroughs, the Kerouac rings in the philosophical Barry Manilow
Barry Levinson, please don't make my death bed, you're plot points make sense ambivalently too in case I touch upon Bacchus
The dichotomy of the bridling ***, I suppose you switched with the surface of the country full of dunes and locusts
The swamp of the divorcee storm saves it for the orgie and the promiscuous dollar ride and melee

Barry Manilow became a merry ****** beau on May 8, after Barry's
manager made Barry gay with homosexual chicken on Barry's plate
After Barry's manager made Barry gay with queer pork rinds on his
plate, Barry Manilow became a fairy ****** beau 1 day after May 8
After Barry's *** manager made Barry eat queer fish eggs on a date,
Barry transmogrified into a hairy granny vole like Bruce did as Cait
Barry F. Manilow liked to wrestle gators with his homosexual mate
when it was kosher in the Everglades for alligators to live in a crate