Human, The Empty Excuse

Human is what I will say about us


Ambiguous, with natural unmade minds
carpets dirtier than the doormats.


Just a shred of recognition
proof of me there in your expression
I look but don’t find it in between
illegal glances down the road.
If I could see it drip
out from your foot prints. . .


Strangers is what we have to say about ourselves.


It sounds rude and sad at once. We know
it was supposed to be different, tracing
to childhood.


We wear our eyes the same way
becoming more human
in the worst sense
Becoming black
slush from the salting insides
losing all bones, to that personal winter
as we pass ourselves off,
trying not to notice.

Cold Tea Blues

If I pour your cup, that is friendship
If I add your milk, that is manners
If I stop there, claiming ignorance of taste,
that is tea

But if I measure the sugar
to satisfy your expectant tongue
then that is love,
sitting untouched and growing cold


-Cowboy Junkies

Bells for Her

and through the life force and there goes her friend
on her nishiki it's out of time
and through the portal they can make amends
hey would you say whatever we're blanket friends
can't stop what's coming
can't stop what's on its way

and through the walls they made their mudpies
i've got your mind i said
she said i've your voice
i said you don't need my voice girl
you have your own
but you never thought it was enough of
so they went years and years
like sisters blanket girls
always there through that and this
there's nothing we cannot ever fix i said
can't stop what's coming
can't stop what's on its way
bells and footfalls and soldiers and dolls
brothers and lovers she and i were
now she seems to be sand under his shoes
there's nothing i can do
can't stop what's coming
can't stop what's on its way

and now i speak to you are you in there
you have her face and her eyes
but you are not her
and we go at each other like blankettes
who can't find their thread and their bare
can't stop loving
can't stop what is on its way
and i see it coming
and it's on its way

-Tori Amos

Patches of Blue Sky

Patches of Blue Sky

"There! A patch of blue sky, let us chase it!"
-Sense and Sensibility

a thousand yesterdays
we try not to uncount
as our old sandcastles
have hardened into stony fortresses.
We fly flags that admit
now that we do not know.

The hard skies are tilting down
drowning the personal,
as a pendulum collides
against our insides.
I suffocated
a small dare in me
to meet those porch steps
rounded from small feet.

Escaping the tin lidded sky
I ran
away chasing the
second promise of blue
feeling copper eyes
on my back.

There was a peeled image
in my mind, yesterday...
you were wearing polka-dots,
I forgot my shoes.
We had chocolate smeared faces,
when we could scuffle easily across
those sidewalks

but now we allow
that same distance to garden
into unexplained miles
and clocks to strangle our minds.
Our thin-painted distractions
are enough, sometimes,
to mask any hint of rain.

we do not find these footsteps easy,
being creatures of salt,
we always look back.
We learned early
how to pretend
and build imaginary skyways.
to uncode secrets written on faces.

We keep our faces blank.
I start again to chase
whatever patch of blue
the instinctive sky
has to offer me.

Until I can reach it,
I will line below it steady
watching what is above
ready to catch the sky
in case it falls.

In Liverpool

In Liverpool
On Sunday
No traffic
On the avenue
The light is pale and thin
Like you
No sound, down
In this part of town

Except for the boy in the belfry
He's crazy, he's throwing himself
Down from the top of the tower
Like a hunchback in heaven
He's ringing the bells in the church
For the last half an hour
He sounds like he's missing something
Or someone that he knows he can't
Have now and if he isn't
I certainly am

Homesick for a clock
That told the same time
sometimes you made no sense to me
if you lie on the ground
in somebody's arms
you'll probably swallow some of their history

And the boy in the belfry
He's crazy, he's throwing himself
Down from the top of the tower
Like a hunchback in heaven
He's ringing the bells in the church
For the last half an hour
He sounds like he's missing something
Or someone that he knows he can't
Have now and if he isn't
I certainly am

I'll be the girl who sings for my supper
You'll be the monk whose forehead is high
He'll be the man who's already working
Spreading a memory all through the sky

In Liverpool
On Sunday
No reason to even remember you now
...
Except for the boy in the belfry
He's crazy, he's throwing himself
Down from the top of the tower
Like a hunchback in heaven
He's ringing the bells in the church
For the last half an hour
He sounds like he's missing something
Or someone that he knows he can't
Have now and if he isn't
I certainly am


In Liverpool
In Liverpool


=SuzanneVega

PANIC ATTACK

PANIC ATTACK

Thought I could fake this thing alright
Thought it could somehow get me by
Watching the doctors as they slide
Needles into my eye

Thought I could finally get around
Laughable symptoms keep me down
Faces I see all keep me blind
Now their redemptions mine

Now that I can't exchange actions for words
Now that I found these inside fears the worst
Now that I know there's no place left to hide
Can I become all I thought I might

As the leaders who follow
The path of whoever was standing around them
Call to say what I'm missing
And into a detail they always go
Don't believe them
But after condolences under the circumstances
All too often I'm missing the spirit to fit in
So call me out
Thought I could soundly sleep tonight
Positive clear and breathing right
panic attacks me now
Seems like a fair redemption.


-Finger Eleven