LYDIA TOMKIW: INCORPORATED

Although this is Lydia Tomkiw's solo album and not an Algebra Suicide one, I felt it was worth including here. The tracks are collaborations with other artists, and while most of them lack the AS accord, a few do retain it.


1. May I Take Your Order Please?
2. Delilah's Ex
3. The Edge of Things
4. Iris
5. Thief
6. Hot June Evening
7. Sometimes
8. Heartbeat
9. From the Place Everyone Avoided
10. Saturn Makes a Move
11. Pretty Something
12. Strange Candy

Transcription for this album is mostly complete, though there are still quite a few gappy and uncertain areas marked in italics. Please feel free to post corrections or additions!
_____________________

May I Take Your Order Please?

I'll start out with a cup of instant coffee with white [?] (whitener?) and floss sugar
And then the soup of the day, as long as it's alphabet soup so my tongue can play with the letters
Sort of like the Soul Train scramble board.
Are there substitutions? If so, instead of parsley, I'll take half a dozen jumbo shrimp on my platter
And instead of that piece of lettuce, I'd like some red caviar, um, no... make that yellow.
It's more delicate. I'd also like to have the adoration of millions, but that's not possible.
It would be nice if this became a Broadway musical, where I jump up on the counter
And start singing a wild song about food and sex and living in this great town
And break into a tap dance and all the other patrons join in, dancing on their tables.
Also, I know this isn't on the menu, but could the passers-by that are gawking at us
Through the big windows be gathered to watch our glamorous show?
Then burst out in a thunderous applause while we make curtain calls
And the drapes open and close and open and close and we bow and bow again
And flowers are thrown at us.
The cashier can then go out and collect the entertainment fee
After which, I'll order a kiss for everyone for dessert and leave you a really big tip, okay?

Delilah's Ex

I'm going bald while women are bleaching their mustaches, bald before my teeth rot out.
While my eyebrows are still knit together.
I'm going bald while those around me are selling their hair, going bald into the rice I'm cooking.
I'm going bald and not very fond of hats, afraid of that comb that longs for my head
I'm going bald on my pillow while I'm sleeping and defenseless
While I'm chatting in the tavern with the bearded men
I'm going bald on the dock with my parrot, who will never go bald and knows it.
I'm going bald in the cafe as the sun rubs my head,
Loosening three more hairs that slip while dancing. I'm going bald while dancing.
I'm going bald and convinced that hair has a mind of its own. There's no way,
There's no way to get rid of it. Or to woo it back.
I'm going bald each time my mother strokes my head to comfort me.
Going bald each time the rains get heavy, each time the wind dies down.
I'm going bald and winking at mannequins, eyeing tattoo shops for my future skin.

The Edge of Things

 There's an edge of night, and if I kiss it, I will split my lip and not be happy with the hurt
Or the blood or the blemish it leaves on my face, my face which I count on to make me sane
In the morning mirror.
There's an edge to the sky, right there at the horizon and the moon is on it
Looking silly and large like a bigamous woman with no children, wanting everything else.
It's scary.
There's an edge to the knife you keep in your coat pocket, and I wonder how you would ever use it
How you could get that intimate with your victim, feeling their body heat against your chest.
There's an edge to my teeth, which will [lines unclear] for the spot that will rust on your nerves.
I don't want your meat or bones. Or your immortal soul.
Just that sweet salt radiating through your pores, just your reaction to let me know I've won.

Iris

Tremors of tones that are yours
Let you kiss me with the bugs on your lips
Your poison is better than a fifth of gin
Pull me from the depths that twirl me.
Because the flavor of the sweat of your skin
I'll run with you, as dark as I am
Grate myself on your belly, like some frowzy cats
You, who smells so good
Can smooth away all my [?] with your left hand
Your voice is your pulsation
Your clothes are the vibration that makes me go shaky
It's time to change your force on me.
It's time to stop you letting me. It taunts me, has me too locked up
Let me make noise for a little while.
Winter's passed. The rain is gone. And it's time to walk the naked land.
Tremors of your tunes molest my head
But reassures me that we'll soon find all the colors of the world beneath our feet.

Thief

 I have stolen your hair: its color, its shape.
The way you shake it loose each night before you fall asleep and dream of lumber.
It cascades on my pillow like the water of heaven.
I have stolen the way you hold your cigarette between your ring finger and pinky,
Leaving the rest of your hand free to pinch the flesh of darling boys with their backs to you,
Or to handle money, or to wave at me in desperation, to try to get yourself back.
Point at me and say, there is someone who has stolen my walk,
And she's stolen my scent and now dogs follow her home, wanting something.
She has stolen my jokes, my tattoos. She's stolen the pants I charmed off of everyone I knew.
She's stolen my pout, the way I kiss. She reads my horoscope every day.
She's stolen my voice, my words, the way I dance, and my favorite colors.
Had I a husband, she'd steal him too. Had I any secrets, they would be hers.
Yes, I've taken it away because you were foolish enough to let me.
Thank me. I'm doing it justice.
Thief....

Hot June Evening

One moon rises. One heart ponders the area of a triangle.
One fan blows on a hot June night, wanting a different job.
Wanting something more glamorous to take the heat off.
One voice snores. One girl sighs. Her feet hurt with the thought of something good.
Was a sun so mean it can faint you, and air so thick it cripples you.
A sky so stormy that it is sex. Nothing more, nothing less.
One star rises. One nerve twinges, embarrassed of its placement beneath the skin.
One joke is moaned at, wanting to be better. Wanting to last a lifetime or two.
Ice is always coming, night is always going. Light is always threatening to make things real.
One moon rises. One thought embraces the desire to have everything here and now.
Though dreaming loves sleeping, though wishing loves hoping,
They know when nothing is sure. Everything is possible.
One fan slows on a hot June night.

Sometimes

Sometimes there is love, and sometimes there is nighttime,
Kissing you on the cheek like it wants something sinful you know you can't give.
Sometimes there are cartoons which delight you, and sometimes the radio is silent
Giving you too much time to think.
Sometimes, beauty is funny and you find it in tricky places,
In children making mudpies off the curb on Avenue B, or you find it in the name of a dog
Or a restaurant called "A Dish of Salt." Or you find it on a magical night in a corner
And the world is in a slumber, so there's no one there to share it with.
Sometimes you want to talk, but there's no one there to listen
So you make a list of things you want to say, but your mouth never opens
And it's as if you never had a thought at all.
Sometimes there is a quiet calmness that makes you nervous.
Sometimes things torture us to tears and we want everything we could possibly imagine
And we want it to be glowing and pretty, but we settle for something
That might shine bright in years to come.

Heartbeat

I like running close to myself [??] heart beats against itself, waiting to slow down.
I like to watch you sleep, hypnotized by your heartbeat
Which I can see right through your chest.
I can guess what you're dreaming. You like watching me wake
And watching me wonder who I am.
I like sitting silent with you, burnt out on Sunday afternoons
Just sitting with our histories which bind us and blind us forever.


From the Place Everyone Avoided

Elektra's going steady. The sunlight is astounded. The morning is confounded.
The ballroom is deserted. The dungeon is in mourning. The carnival seems boring.
The heavens are alerted. The playground's getting ready.
Square droughts. Candid drizzle.
Unwinding between winters. Unraveling between furloughs.
Unhinging between cycles. [?] appears fancy.
Consolid appears juicy. One body appears holy.
The swamp becomes pristine. The marsh becomes unblemished.
A sleepy whisper [?]. A bruise from the desert. Who tells the world how to be?
Diamond clumps in the sky faint in sheer amazement.


Saturn Makes a Move

There's the sting of losing and you look at your loss
And you wonder if you'll make it with the burden of the cross
That weighs you down and bakes you every minute of the day
But I swear, and I'm certain, you would have tossed those things anyway.
There are things that you want. And things that you need
And the two get entangled in confusion and greed
You might feel like you've been dangled in some forced-upon decay
But I've come to the conclusion: yes, I believe you wanted freedom from these things anyway.
There's got to be destruction for things to be renewed
And though right now the notion may seem a bit askewed
Beyond the commotion of what has gone astray, I'm sure that you'll discover
I'm sure that you'll conclude: you never needed what you lost anyway.

Pretty Something

Because it was tomorrow and I was exclusive.
Because it was forbidden and no one was looking.
Beecause you are not like me. Because it was hopeless.
I turn my face towards yours and let you color my skin.
Because it was tawdry and we were both tipsy.
Because of some lightning that came from a planet.
Because it felt churchlike. Safe and with promise.
I turned my face toward you and you colored my skin.
Outside there was air, wanting all of our breath.
Violence was waiting, wanting a death.
And some mixed up night birds sang, wanting sanity, so we sang along.
Because you were laughing and nervously shaking.
Because you were whistling, I got scared of your being.
You turned your face toward mine and I made something askew.
Because we were lazy, but not really.
Because there were bills to pay, but we didn't care.
Because we knew a joke we couldn't remember.
We turned our faces to one another and exploded the night.

Strange Candy

Strange candy keeps you guessing.
Keeps you messing with stuff too wide for you, can't abide by you for your sake.
Strange candy is very tasty. Is confusing while it's using wiles.
Strange candy is evil. Is the devil. Will romance you, then neglect you.
Kiss you then forget your name.
Strange candy is a jinx. Is a hex. Is what links you to the nasty dance.
Strange candy keeps you smiling. Is beguiling. Is seducing.
Is inducing you to give your skin. To burst. And bust. Bend all over (Then roll over?).
To spill and deliver everything on golden platters.
Sweetness is so tempting. So delicious. How can it be wrong?
Sweetness is so tender. So precious. So darling. How can it be wrong?
Sweetness is so charming. So enchanting. So angelic. How can it be wrong?
Strange candy makes you woozy. Is so driving. We ache with swelling.
Strange candy makes a fire. Is so stirring. Blurs our senses, numbs our bodies.
Strange candy makes you crazy. Burns inside you 'til you're spent.
Strange candy gives you fever. Makes you quiver. Gives you shivers.
Strange candy will contract you. Give you spasms. Rips you open.
Strange candy is so ardent. Is so fervid that it eats you.
Strange candy makes you dizzy. Makes you heavy. Is so juicy.
Strange candy is a magnet. Makes you come without thinking.
But we dream it. And we want it. And we fight it. And we crave it.

SUMMER VIRUS NIGHT - LIVE IN GERMANY 1990

I had never heard of this album until last night, but I'm very excited to know that it exists! It was released in 2009 and consists of live recordings from Algebra Suicide's 1990 Germany tour. I can't find/can't afford a copy at present, but I can paste in what I have from the other albums now and edit to match once I get it.

If you have this album, I'd grateful if you could send me the lyrics to the tracks unique to it!

1. Cerebral Dance
2. Somewhat Bleecker Street
3. Please Respect Our Decadence
4. Friendly Manifesto
5. Verbal Blunder
6. In Bed With Boys
7. Praxis
8. Waiting For Delmore
9. Amusing One's Self
10. Summer Virus Night
11. Beguine
12. True Romance At The World's Fair
13. Connoisseurs Of Lightning
14. Agitation
15. Tropical Depression
16. A Slap In The Face
17. After Charles
18. Tales Of Brave Ulysses
19. Mantic Sway
20. What Rubs You Up
21. Sub Rosa
22. (A Proverbial Explanation For) Why No Action Is Taken
23. Seven Song
24. Tractor Pull
25. An Explanation For That Flock Of Crows
26. All The Young Dudes
27. Little Dead Bodies

________________________

Cerebral Dance 

Somewhat Bleecker Street 

Greenwich and Chungking and Johnny's got a girlfriend.
Dumb blonde in loose pants, too big to be Miss America. We wave hello.
It's here, even in the rain: the heart, the heart, the simple spin,
The audacity of colors and heat fucking up from the sidewalks.
If you strut, if you wear pretty slippers, see how hard your feet can get.
[??] shakes me up four flights and I don't feel like peeking in.
The lavish halo, innocence in parentheses,
Inside me, five girls shout in Italian, wanting life to be one long vacation.

Please Respect Our Decadence 

Everybody's dying, so we send them flowers.
After their funerals, we go out to dinner, and then we try to forget about it.
We're all committing suicide, and everybody points it out to us:
Is that a coffee you're drinking? Is that a cigarette you're smoking? Is that meat you're eating?
Is that air you're breathing? Have you no self-respect?
No, but we're having fun, quick, before we drop dead. We don't mind your great concern.
But please, send flowers instead.

Friendly Manifesto 

We girls, we have to mature, create an instant past, a hairline incision
Into what was once called [?]. They say we'd lose our heads if they weren't attached
To our spines by ganglia and nerve tissue and stuff called effervescence. Because it's pink.
Oh, it's not enough to be ringmasters, bachelorettes of knowledge, [?] queens of the world.
A sign must be put on to study, to be ignored like that doghouse on fire out back.
Father once warned me that I'd explode, and I did. It was a painful way to spend a Saturday,
But I think it built character. You, you'd do it too, and hide everything that's [?] be inside
Until it becomes a secret known by you, only by you and a soft sweet liver.

Verbal Blunder 

No slip of the tongue could cause this misunderstanding
It's your head and its wicked working that's led you to this awkward pause
After blurting out that vicious clause, which brings those [?]s
Which say, "Drop dead."
No slip of the tongue could cause this misunderstanding;
It's your head that controls your flapping jaws and dictates all those things you've said.
Don't claim that your meaning was misread or twisted by perception flaws,
Because no slip of the tongue could cause this misunderstanding.
It's your head.


In Bed With Boys

When I was small and arthritic in my crib, I knew Spaniards wanted sleep,
While Americans merely needed it. Now, on warm summer days, boys nip at my neck,
Their hands too sweaty to hold and their backs wetting the bed.
Boys in bed, boys on the bed, their heads roaring on pillows
And their feet twitching in sleep.
I got boys who speak Latin in their dreams; boys whose faces land in books,
Who must be coaxed to the covers. I got European boys who like cold rooms
And those that like the bushes. I got boys who think they're famous,
And boys who call me "Sir." Boys who are shaped like Z's
That snap straight when an avalanche of sun comes in the window
And in winter, they're rolled in sheets that unfurl in the morning and fill the room with skin.

Praxis 

The opposite of green unleashed a new animal
[?] calls where liquid lips were just released from lockjaw
A pale boy grabbed my hand as I walked by
And thinking his left eye aglow, spun it around to show me Germany,
Land of husky women and beer, and thought I was impressed.
I seem to remember chatting with an unskillfully dressed girl
Whose first name meant a lively Polish dance
She described how sometimes, an unborn baby will press its face up against its mother's womb
Thinking it a window. It must be why children look like distortions of their parents.
Each time a voice is raised or a skinny black tie is flung romantically across the room
I cringe like a sensitive plant.
There was a largeness about this place which makes people abandon their silence
In (and?) their clothes, and those (no?) such things should only be discussed in telegrams
Many photos are taken, and soon we find ourselves guilty and inflated
Between pages of a magazine.

Waiting For Delmore 

It's like brushing your teeth in public or being kissed in a dream by a stranger in white shoes.
I get so confused. Delmore's no longer in the shower, no longer on [??], no longer making a fuss.
Telephone calls come, asking if he is home. They hang up before I can answer.
I get so melancholy when I think of his good points:
How he knew what each piece of silverware was for;
How he could light a match using only one hand;
His talent of grinding his teeth in his sleep,
Clacking out a calypso rhythm that would send me tapping into the living room.
Oh, Delmore, Delmore, your comic books still come in the mail.
The oatmeal I make for you each morning turns green well before noon.
The shoebox whimpers when it recalls your feet.
And I miss you.

 Amusing One's Self 

A fever crawls into you. A colorful one. Scarlet? Yellow? Too soon to tell.
Restless and itchy, you grab any rumor that's lounging around.
Blame it on boredom or the position of stars. Perhaps the good weather has made your brain crazy.

You write "Warsaw was raw" in lipstick on your old lover's letter,
Hold it up to a mirror, and delight in yourself.
It's easy, like sending a card to yourself on your birthday
And crying when you get it, 'cause "someone remembered!"
Like when you empty a bag of groceries onto the kitchen floor:
When the last apple stops rolling, you call it still life.

Summer Virus Night 

This velvet feels like being drunk, mixed with lazy flower with big stink.
Pumped and coddled (cuddled?) and then disassembled,
The last petal falling on she loves me not. I sever myself from the world
With a fever which I blame on you and your crazy mouth,
Which can kiss my heat away tonight, now that the moon has entered the sky
And is outing [??] dogs rub their ribs against fences and cats pulsate like [?]s
Yowling with desire for doo-wop.
What's inside me is rampant, wanting ice-bath or alcohol sponge,
Something to extract and into a test tube. Glowing in the dark like Madame Curie's lover.
Nothing will end, the [???].
What's inside me is rampant, wanting ice-bath or alcohol sponge,
Something to extract and into a test tube. Glowing in the dark like Madame Curie's lover.

Beguine 

We all want to see the sight that makes us goofy with desire.
[??] wearing a bikini made out of an American flag. A gun, a car, a nun.
The skyline of Manhattan collapsing or some very pretty art damage.
A movie star, a Spanish fly, a shining eye, a mirror. Whatever it is, it will impassion us.
It will impassion us like a big fat [???] impassion us. Like a lovely war (roar?) can impassion us.
Or like an African [?]. Like a six-pack, like Andy Warhol's rolodex, it will impassion us.
And then we want it to dangle before us like some crazy constellation,
'Cause we know that if it lingers long enough, we might just get to keep it all to ourselves.

True Romance At The World's Fair 

A whispered remark changed a girl's life.
Make no mistake, there was a difference. She had a war job and mother-in-law trouble,
A jitterbug wedding, and an itch that started quick.
Dressed in the most attractive of rubber suits, posing as a girl, unmarried and unkissed,
She set out to answer questions: "How red is Hollywood?" and "What brings out the beast in men?"
By the seaside, by the bandstand, she sighs and says: "Too many blondes spoil the crowd,"
As sound systems loom over the city. Electric, anesthetic, and that mad shine is drilled into the moon
Which is masculine at night, but this ain't no musical romp, no screwball comedy.
This is just dog-collar loneliness.
The world -- the world is not a wild place.

Connoisseurs Of Lightning 

It never thunders in Paris. I can see us there, small and polite,
Waiting for someone to offer us a cigarette, waiting for a street child to pick us at random
Present us with a flower. A tulip, perhaps. So out of context.
Each time we enter buildings, we are greeted by groups of violinists who adore us.
And we love it well.
How wonderful it would be. No time for revolutions, we'd laid down our guns.
Too much fluff to enjoy, and we do.
No time to think of dead parents, no time to write our own epitaphs,
Which in any case would read: "Had lots of fun. Thanks."
We would glow and sweeten the air, more brilliant than any Manhattan neon.
Oh, Paris, Paris, I know you're there. I know you're there like heaven is there.
Not very lonely. Not dying to see me.

Agitation 

Not afterglow, but overglow. Not moonlight, but spotlight.
The crooning has grown cold, while I have shrunken in my old age and gone soft all over.
Give me the morphine sleep I crave, that slap in the face for hysteria.
Replace my bones with plastic joints; remove my breasts so I can slip through gates.
Give me knees so weak I have to roll and boys (buoys?) that make suicide impossible.
I don't want to have to go out in peace. No talking, no snoring, no dreaming.
And my lungs collapsing in unison.

Tropical Depression 
I'm tired and hungry and about to get wet. Today has been too tight, too heavy,
And it's not getting thinner with this downpour. Everyone runs for cover,
Avoiding the bookstore and lingerie boutique.
We all huddle in the coffeeshop and it seems like it's forever.
I see a mother hit her son for the fourth time since my cigarette's been lit.
She's hitting him because he won't stop crying, and he won't stop crying because she's hitting him.
We're a hundred miles south of [?] already, our sweat licking our skin.
[?]ing our clothes in one of those ugly silk fabric kisses.
We're a hundred miles south of [?] already and we know it's not gonna get much better.
Everyone is crabby dealing with this heat. They're [?] each other
And everything else that's out of their control. And now, the wind is picking up.
No, forget an umbrella. I'm going out there, head naked. Let the typhoon take me somewhere else,
Somewhere clear and cool and void of any emotion.

A Slap In The Face 

Night descends upon the city like some rusty red woman and rubs its breasts in your face,
Reminding you that you're not gorgeous or immortal or swell.
Reminding you that it's September, and you haven't been bad enough to go to hell like you planned
When spring erupted and bit your cheek like some rabid diva.
This evening sky was made for you, wraps itself around you like a luxury stole
And yanks you through the streets as if you were a stilettoed girl late for church.
Fear that you can set things on fire [unclear] inside you as if it wants to dance,
And the smell of roses is so far away, and windows are shut so we can't hear your yelling,
And those things called trees are turning colors, dying a pretty, pretty death.
That sweat we're making is not of hard work, or heat, or sex, or the desire for much,
But of nerves that buzz beneath your skin.

After Charles 

I have stolen from you the floor.
Every evening, I remember [unclear] the rain fall on the city
And wondering if the weight of the water is heavier than any dirt in the air.
Then, I remember: hats -- my aversion to them, since my head has gone red
How I'm forced to look the heavens while pinning them on.

Tales Of Brave Ulysses 

You thought the leaden winter would break you down forever
So you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun
And the colors of the sea [?] your eyes with traveling mermaids
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave Ulysses
How his naked ears were tortured by sirens sweetly singing
But the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss the white lace nets
And you see a girl's brown body dancing through the turquoise
And you wanna take her with you where the sky loves the sea
And when your fingers find her, she drowns you in her body
Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.
The tiny purple fishes run lapping through your fingers
You wanna take her with you to the heartland of the winter
Her name is Aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell
And you know you cannot leave her for you touch the distant sands
With tales of brave Ulysses, how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing.
Those tiny purple fishes run lapping through your fingers
And you wanna take her with you to the heartland of the winter.

Mantic Sway 

Something will erupt. Straining stockings, aching chains
The dress that pops off from too much affection and bursts, busts, breasts that swell
In a too-tight brassiere. A fist muscle growing as a hand tightens.
A perfume called Volcano of Love... in French. France is waiting to erupt.
Painted nails scratch a surface, scratch sin off so something can erupt. Something will.
Oh, the beat of our blood in our necks. The flutter of blood in our guts.
We know what that is. We all know what that is.
I have a good ear tonight. I have intuition worth your weight on my lap.
I am nothing to put to rest. I am nothing but a fireball. Take it.
Take it and something will erupt.
Tomorrow, no noisy mournings. Tomorrow, a collection of regrets.
We'd wanted them for so long. They can ruin our lives.
We'll read about them in our biographies when we're dead, dead, stone-cold dead.
A paragraph about what we never once mentioned,
A paragraph describing how we managed a secret.

What Rubs You Up 

It is silent. You see some kind of pretend debt caught up to you.
A universal language causing holes in sidewalks where flowers pop up.
It is not yet spring and already you're snide, although nothing old is looking up to you.
Talk to me about this bleached winter, all I know is that miserable fish are swimming
In the frosty lake and your lungs are very warm.
You've forgotten too many things. Barflies have gathered and are singing.
I have too many hearts when you're looking at me. Remember, pause, then go away.
You'll be happy, oh so happy, doing so.
 
Sub Rosa 

All the stars clustered like rashes
[?] on a cheap woman's neck.
Reminding me of nothing as subtle as a tongue slipped into an ear.
Condensed laughter streams in from the wings.
I've called for it to distract you.
I hear you sing a song of temptation and wonder if you wrote it for me.
You'll never tell. You only give me big, big dumb juicy eyes.
I become obsessed with all sorts of omens: birthmarks or plagues or glints in the eye.
From closer, I see your hands are sweating, flooding their wrinkles.
I see your hands are nervous now, begging to be clutched.

 (A Proverbial Explanation For) Why No Action Is Taken 

Because nothing ventured, nothing gained, but better safe than sorry.
And when in doubt, don't.
Because we look before we leap, knowing a stitch in time saves nine.
And we try to make hay while the sun shines, because he who hesitates is lost,
But slow and steady always wins the race.
Because too many cooks spoil the broth, but God helps those who helps themselves.
And if you want something done, do it yourself, but two heads are better than one.
Because where there's smoke, there's fire, although all that glitters is not gold,
And you can't judge a book by its cover, but clothes make the man.
Because idle hands are the devil's playlot, but we fear burning our candles at both ends.
'Cause the only place success comes before work is in the dictionary,
So we keep our nose to the grindstone, knowing all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Seven Song

Last night, the tide was high.
Seven women dressed in white swayed seven different ways (waves?)

While a boy at the piano played a pack of hearts. We were tired of being mild.
We wanted tornado, our lips painted red.
Was it the night that was barking? Only the Buddhists were sleeping, dreaming
Of the Orient [??] itself.
Seven naked boys carry seven yellow candles into the darkened fields
While I stole a box of father's hair and set it to the wind.
We arrived at the party dressed as water, eyes slick-red from thinking,
Waiting for a nervous twitch, a steady hum inside our bones.
We were tired of being mild. We wanted tidal wave, hurricane [line unclear] 
Seven nets were cast into the water, pulling seven older women up (out?)
Bruised faces in the moonlight. Was your (her?) sister among them? 
The one with the slender hands; the one that wanted nothing but music all day long.
Bowls of water set out for the deadpan-faced gangsters in the funeral home.
The casket flipped over, the corpse on the floor. We were tired of being mild.
The ominous blur nestled in the motor [?] at sea and obscured.
Seven cannons were shot cross town to honor seven modern lovers,
While a sailor sung a hymn to [??] our shoes.
A burst of pigeons pierced the heavy summer air, a burst of gunfire.
Dressed in bullets, we were tired of being mild! We wanted disaster, the taste of [?]
Pumping [?] into our throats.
Seven oily children spoke in seven different tongues.
And they slipped out of church, backdoor, with handkerchiefs in pockets
Just enough to gather one before the eyes 
[Multiple unclear lines]
Where through the window she is there. Faces tame as milk, we were, we were cooking,
Our blood thick inside our veins.
Seven falling stars pierced seven empty arms and the saddle caught on fire.
[Unclear line]
A harnessed giggle, an eerie caress longed to be exiled,
To be the thought of the pearl gleaming.

Tractor Pull 

This evening, upon waking, I saw [?] saying, "I'm going to a tractor pull."
And I didn't understand. Outside, it was dusk enough to make things invisible,
And I heard a car swerve as it skinned the elbow of an ugly child.
It didn't make the news, though I did wonder how hard it would be for a tractor to skin anything,
No matter how impulsive it was on the open fields.

It was an hour before I fell asleep again and dreamed I was on a soggy bed,
While Mom ironed linen curtains in the other room, saying:
"Isn't it awful here with all the heat and the fever blisters and no trees to block the tumbleweeds
From coming in the windows?"
I looked up at the open prairie skies and all its stillness and I forgot that the TV was silent,
Letting us remember all the loud colors of the world.

An Explanation For That Flock Of Crows 

A thread of birds has settled outside your door.  Spring is coming, and you lean back,
Waiting for its root-juicy kiss. Politely, charmingly.
Once, during a summer, you came without shoes, without any maps, and settled
Into my elbow while this hemisphere turned blue.
We were urban, unkind animals and I never once thought of champagne.
How often you'd want me to tell you your future. Show me your palms, the lumps on your head,
As if I knew what my mother knows best: how to inflame things at a distance.
Now, you think of me with a casual chuckle. Now, you save me like an auctioned-off bon-bon:
Brought out on a doily for guests to admire. I know, and it's all in my pocket.
Just press your ear against your back door. There's a sound I've sent.
It's there to haunt you. Like a cello. Like a buzzsaw.
I hope you're enjoying yourself.

All The Young Dudes 

 Little Dead Bodies

How right you were, dear Paul,
That we hear of famous people's deaths while on vacation.
Perhaps it's so their funerals are not too crowded, with their loyal fans being out of town and all.
Those celebrities are pretty clever.

I've heard that someone's born every eight seconds,
So I presume that someone dies every eight seconds just to keep things even.
It makes me feel shortchanged when I read the obituary page: someone's holding back information.
It also prompts me to flip through the telephone directory on sleepless nights,
Saying over, and over, and over again: "Yup! You're all going! Every last one of you."
Wow. Heaven must be a big place.

I don't know too many dead people, but folks tell me I'm young.
When my grandfather died, he was laid out in the Bogg funeral home,
And I was secretly glad Mr. Bogg didn't change his name to something more romantic
When he went into business. I just wish it was less memorable.
My high school locker partner, Ned, worked part-time for a mortician.
Imagine dressing dead people, straightening their ties and fluffing up their hair
So you can afford to take a girl out to the movies on Saturday night.
Well, that's love! That's adolescent desperation!
I would've been honored to have Ned take me to the movies and let him buy me popcorn.
Instead, I went out with a boy who died.
The hardest part was knowing that his body didn't just disappear on the bed the moment he left.

I think that's what keeps me off of suicide:
The idea that there's something left for someone else to clean up. How rude and inconsiderate!
It's a pain to take out the weekly trash, let alone figure out what to do
With over a hundred pounds of flesh that's about to go bad.
It'd be even worse in India, where there's a religious cult which believes you shouldn't desecrate
Any of the elements with the dead. They can't be buried or burned. They can't be cast out to sea.
So they're taken to the top of the Tower of Silence, where they become the vultures' problem.
How's that for passing the buck?

No, when I go, I want to go clean, convenient, leaving no mess.
As if I vaporized while taking a shower,
As if I moved to Antarctica, leaving no forwarding address.

TONGUE WRESTLING

I don't have to try to transcribe Tongue Wrestling! I have a mint condition copy of the original, complete with undamaged, perfectly legible liner notes. The wording I originally presented here was about the same as in the liner, though I altered the spacing, the punctuation, and in a few cases the spelling.

1. What I Like Doing Best
2. What Is Not In Texas
3. Thank You
4. Wily
5. Your Face
6. Desire
7. Incorrigible
8. Luster Goddess
9. Downpour
10. Stopping
11. One Night I Fell In Love
12. Loose Change 

The lyrics in the liner don't quite match up with most of the actual tracks, but what I've posted should now reflect what you'll actually hear. As always, if you have any corrections, do let me know.

_________________________________

What I Like Doing Best

Busting slob, swaying gush, nabbing drool, boodling;
Flinging woo, pitching woo, spooning, smooching, swooning
Under the moonlight, under a flashlight, under a sun lamp,
Under a table, understated, underscored, underrated,
Understand I won't remove my underclothes, under the influence,
Underwater with an underclassman, watching the submarine races,
Lapping faces; playing kissy-face, playing smacky-lips,
Locking lips, ripping lips, playing tonsil hockey, tongue wrestling.
Perching, petting, bussing, smacking, slurping, parking, in a convertible, in a big rig, in a castle,
In a dumpster, in a bathroom, in a river, in front of Rover, in front of mother, in a field of clover,
In a dungeon, in a prison, in a hospital bed, in June, in November,
In a tizzy, I remember getting dizzy while listening to, like, Thin Lizzy in the background,
To like Bolero or Elvis Costello; to Howling Wolf howling, to Yoko Ono yowling,
While I was dealing drool, swapping spit, switching lip, whipping pout,
Trading mouth, smashing face, bouncing lick;
Gently, elegantly, tenderly, subtly, coolly, friendly, demurely, alluringly,
Or give it to me surly, burly, late at night or early! I want to get loved up, cuddled up,
Eaten up, only from the waist up; lip tango, lip scalp, lip loot, smooch, suck face,
Make out, neck, kiss, salute someone with the throwing of my lips.

What Is Not In Texas

All you are seeking is also seeking you, he said.
Go down to the river; lie placidly, sit still. It will find you, he said.
Standing on the overpass are drunk teenagers breaking curfew, who are loud, do senseless smooching
Beneath the stars which pulsate torridly, though they know they'll be paled by dawn.
Go down to the river, he said. It's been waiting for a long, long time.
It is not my heart, it is not my anger. It does not promise anything, and it cannot stay forever.
But it is there. And it's sweet, and it's warm, and it's delicious, and it's waiting just for you.
Once it finds you, don't move away. Rest. It'll glow in the dark. See what happens next.

Thank You

Thank you for the headache. It was lovely.
The stars were out that night. I spoke to them. They offered no stunning information.
The best part of being sick is the cure: a pinch, a shot, or simply nothing for a long, long time.
Thank you for not killing me with your car. That was very thoughtful.
Now, you're welcome to my couch, my cocktails, to any trivia about me,
Though I won't say which is true or not.
The best part about morning is that time moves so slowly and sin whispers sweetly in our ears,
Begging for wild abandon.
Thank you for not hating me. That's very big of you. There's nothing much to hate or fear.
I have no sleeves, no pockets, leaving no secret hiding places
Except my head, my heart, and other such tiny empty holes.
The best part about being coy is the trouble it might cause while you remain totally innocent.
Thank you. Thank you for not giving me a hard time.
That would have been so very easy.

Wily

I will not say it first. It's too much what you want. You have not given me what I came here for.
Could you not be less a man and more a woman just tonight?
Could you not ask silly questions a little quicker just tonight?
The moon goes thud. Now you seem too easy. Stars off kilter, wind too timid.
I think I thought I heard a drunk hum a song about an angel beneath my window. It was very tasty.
You love secrets. I do too. Give me some.

Your Face

The way it is in the summer, in the winter, when the trees start to die, in a traffic jam --
The way it is up close, far away, in the rain, in the dark, under neon, in the moonlight,
In my thoughts, in China, moving through space or being perfectly still.
I once dreamt your face tattooed upside-down on my chest, and when I bowed my head,
I saw it move with my heartbeat and my lung heaves;
Your face, the way it's laughing, eating, talking, kissing, singing, sleeping.
The way it is guessing, musing, just waking, shaving, being very busy, being very serious,
The way it is beneath my fingertips in the morning with the sunlight upon it.

Desire

Do not ask: What is this here fire in our loins? Who put it there and why must we tend it?
Do not ask: If we ignore it, will it go away? The answers will be disappointing.
It's what keeps our bloods boiled; it's what keeps our glands oiling.
It's what keeps our virtues soiled; it's what keeps our hearts toiling.
All you can do is think cold-shower thoughts.
Shredded wheat in warm milk, Norway sleeping, the Dewey Decimal system.
Imagine a mule on a black satin bed, or an Eros, hung over, blindfolded, rolled up naked
And awaiting a penicillin shot. If all else fails, think of a statistician, whispering:
"Vector, quadrature, random regression..."
Yet, don't disregard that inner yowling.
That restless want of darling undulations with no parents present.
It's what keeps our bloods boiled; it's what keeps our glands oiling.
It's what keeps our virtues soiled; it's what keeps our hearts toiling.

Incorrigible

It's because it's fun, and what's it to you?
It's because I was being told too many times that the world is flat
When I think it's more like a rhombus or a beehive shape.
It's because I know the good die young and I'm not up for sainthood.
Not enough time left to become immortal or revered in this lifetime.
It's because it takes guts and balls, will and definition,
An attitude that one can do no wrong and if one should, you're willing to admit it and ask forgiveness,
Which is granted easier than permission to do it in the first place.
It's because I have to live every day like it's my last, because it may be.
Being secretly weak and feebleminded, ready to step out in front of a moving truck
Or get hit at random by that asteroid headed for earth.
It's because I still think that anything that shines is bright and notice any peculiarity in common life
And anything, just everything, seems so ridiculous I want to screech, laughing.
It's because I've estimated how many weekends are left in my life and it's hardly a staggering number.
It's because I remember my mother being my age,
And because I know too many dead people that shouldn't be gone.
And I know too many live people that shouldn't be here.
It's because I could never hurt anyone: don't know how, never will.
It's because you think it's charming, and because I don't know how else to be.
It's because it's worked in the past. It's because it's working now, begging your attention.

Luster Goddess

Who needs a script when you've got blonde? And when the moon rises with you,
Spilling junk on you that makes women love you as much as men?
You are angel face, glamour puss, Venus de Milo with arms and with big fat bank account.
You are my stepsister, a staircase away, blowing smoke rings while you clutch your crotch
As if something was really there.
Phenomenon, marvel, spectacle, wonder: where did you get that secret stuff you're blessed with
And do you manage it with a silent secretary?
You are everything the Japanese are taught not to be.
You are a limousine. You're what lilts in my head at night.
You're why I bathe three times a day. You're why I have to dance.
You're why I spin in the wind. You are Latinized, patron saint of devil girls.
You're what I stare at and don't know what to do with.
You're what I smell during sex. You're what gives me crazy fever.
You're what I hold when the earth seems dull. You're why I consider voodoo.
You're why I lose it if I think too long. You're why I...

Downpour

Lightning bolt: mute, before the thunder. Like lovers are dumb before a kiss.
Out of chaos, skies emerge, wanting us to capture them. We're sick of snubbing the chill.
We are wet. We have no shame, it has us.
We wear the bones we're sure to die with. We hope that they remember pleasure.
We hear the ghost of our mothers' voices telling us to be flawless, to be very, very clever.
Our skin can't take the ache of the hunger for other skin. We crave it badly, hanker for it fiercely,
Think of it when we're bathing, dream of it when we're drunk.
I'm still waiting for proof that says it's safer outdoors than not.
In translation, the Chinese call wind "moving air." It moves viciously, teasing us,
Bitter that we aren't as stupid as the trees.

Stopping

Angels sing and I am deaf. Across the field, birds are waking,
Looking forward to food and sex and making noise. Sounds good to me.
I just felt a flurry inside me which I thought would change my life, but it didn't because it stopped.
I recall a night so thick you could faint. A combo of now and not, that and there,
And darkness crowned with flowers that inflated my heart.
We filled ourself with so many good things, we thought we'd never stop.
We hypnotized each other across a table, we thought we'd never stop.
Although my love is pristine and secure; is filled with whatever I can give,
Can accept what can't be there.
I'm logical. I'm analytical. I know when to take my turn and when one won't be given.
I know life's too short to think about things too much. Give me a fake name. I'll give you mine.
I can give my skin up. I can keep my mouth shut. I can pretend nothing happened.
Touch me now.

One Night I Fell In Love

One night, I fell in love and I took a bus home, filled with mangy people
Who all looked mentally deprived, depraved, and they all smelled like nanny goats, but I didn't care
Because I had fallen in love and was dizzy with it.
I think it was cold, but I didn't care if I caught triple pneumonia, my lungs hardening
With so much scar tissue that I wouldn't be able to breathe. I couldn't breathe anyway.
I was holding my breath, I was so much in love, and I turned a lovely blue,
Although I don't know if it was from holding my breath or from being cold
Or being so very, very much in love.
At home, I took a bath to try to get it off of me, then a shower.
Then I started praying to help me fall out of love, but soon found myself praying to always,
Always feel that giddy. Praying that the object of my affection, my affliction
Bite his tongue again and again, then have his right ear ring and think of me.
Then I prayed that he'd trip and fall down in public and think of me,
Being very, very glad I was not there to see it.
Then I went to bed and I couldn't sleep because I was so very much in love,
So I got up and drank a fifth of gin and smoked a million cigarettes
And thought about all the dead people I knew to make me drowsy, but that didn't work
So I watched the most beautiful movie on TV about a combat during World War II
And I took a thousand Alka-Seltzers,  then I went to sleep and dreamed I was on that bus again,
And despite the heat wave, all the people riding were smiling and trying to give me their seats,
And quoting Descartes, and they all smelled like lilacs and laundromats.
And when I woke up, I realized I was still in love...
But not as much.

Loose Change 

Sometimes, I think of money and curse the country that first coined it.
At parties, at reunions, out on the street, everyone you bump into asks, "So what are you doing now?"
What they really want to know is how much money you make.
Then they want to know your sexual preference, but only if you make enough money.
Money scares me. It deals with numbers and I am not linear-brained. 
It bears portraits of presidents, and I am politically unconscious.
On the back of every dollar bill: mystical Latin words and a pyramid with an eye in it.
That was the monster under my bed when I was a child. There's the fear of not having money:
Caught downtown at midnight, five cents short of bus fare,
Caught at tax time owing the country two thousand dollars you don't have!
They'll come after you! They'll put you in jail!
You'll lose your job and you'll never make money again!
Your life will be ruined! And no one will rent you an apartment.
Sex and money: both needed to prolong civilization. But you can survive without sex.
Not without money. I had a friend who once borrowed my life savings to pay her rent.
I never got it back, but she always smelled of designer perfume. I had a friend.
Forgive me for being petty, but it's a matter of lifeline.
Take my money and you take my food and shelter away! You want me to die! How can I like you?
Grandma always told me, "It's as easy to marry a rich man as it is to marry a poor one."
But grandma came from a communist country where such fortune cookie proverbs hold true.
A penny saved is a penny earned sounds backwards, and a penny for your thoughts is so insulting!
Wads of bills for the headwork of thinking!
Or instead, give me a haircut that makes me look like I couldn't have a job.
Like I have some secret income. Like all my "starving artist" friends. I hate money.
The root of all evil, which spelled backwards reads "live." I am living to circumvent money.
I am living to find a new method of measuring success.

SWOON

Alpha Cue and Swoon are almost always grouped together, but I've decided to give each album its own entry in order to reduce the overall bulk of the postings.

I do have the liner notes for this one, but unfortunately they're pretty badly damaged and difficult to read.

Tracklist:

1. Blush #102
2. Too Often
3. After Busy Summer
4. Lazy Sweat
5. He's Famous Now
6. Tender Red Net
7. Charming Twilight Haze
8. Jealous
9. That Small Convulsion
10. Sonics
11. Coup De Grace
12. Mantic Sway

Transcription for this album is complete! There are still a few uncertain words marked in italics -- feel free to post additions/corrections!

 ______________________

 Blush #102

Pristine? What does that mean? The rumor of hell for this sin is dim,
Bland as the bark of a deaf, meaty nun.
This crime, this vice makes vibration thunder.
The salty steam swells from me like a skirt above a subway grate.
Oh you brutish itch, your teasing turns me into scarlet fever.
Oils the image of Adonis, of Adam, of Valentino with urgent sweat. Oh, I'm in a tizzy.
Sweetling, all evening I've been lit on and off. On and off.
My patience growing thinner than a playboy's grope.
The thought of you irks me the way the world worries God.
My wimpy, tiny, little heart has become explosive.
[?], inspired by roses, by embraces of angels. My pristine self is melting,
My old whore halo glowing bright as nirvana.




Too Often

Too often, the thing goes thud and you like it moving away from you
Like the last glacier of the Ice Age, signaling something coming but you don't know what.
It doesn't really matter, you say anything is more party than this mess around your neck,
More kick in the gut than this pat on the rump.
Your image is covertly plotted. Pretend you're jaded to seem intriguing.
Don't twist an eyebrow, reveal no marvel, let the common thrill someone else.
You go to the ends of the earth to prove there is an edge.
You don't step over the limit but feign that you always do to seem smoother than you really are.

After Busy Summer

As autumn leaves are falling down, it's time to reap the fun we've sown,
Cash in on all indulgence blown due to business that was at hand.
Hey, drown that urge to work today! Let's rumble into town.
Big-lipped, hyper, with body-tone as autumn leaves are falling down.
It's time to reap the fun we've sown. Let's be the adjective and not the noun.
Ticking while the others groan, and dance a samba to their drone.
Let's don a restless cha-cha gown as autumn leaves are falling down.
It's time to reap the fun we've sown.


Lazy Sweat

Murky tavern air and heat kisses strip the trees of any sap that's clinging.
And junkyard dog licks sloth today.
Snow is on vacation, has nestled in your head,
And you can't recall how rude it was when it swallowed your November.
To be cool, we hang out of windows like some bad joke we keep forgetting.
We're spoiling faster in this heat; sheets are torture against our skin.
The thought of braille repulsive. And nothing can coax us into sex, not even that starry evening sky
Smeared with what looks like a million tired sperm.
All our dreams are wet ones. We're clinging to a buoy bobbing above the water line
Just to keep our lung-beats going. Every breath becomes a new surprise, newer than the last one.

He's Famous Now

He's famous now, the boy of the hour. His photo hung on every girl's door.
He's famous, and you read all about him in those tabloids that he used to read:
He had a fever in Paris, he danced in Berlin, he collapsed on the stage in London.
He is waging a lawsuit, he is dating a model, he was seen in Miami with the broadest of blondes.
You were never a blonde,
But you helped him up the stairs the night you brought him home to meet mother.
You have all his records -- he gave them to you that Christmas that you were expecting a mink.
You have all his records in the back of your closet, his face on each of them,
Smug and well-kissed. On Valentine's Day, you were expecting a diamond;
He gave you a ring from a hotel in Jersey.
Complaining about your letters, about his writer, and how his roadies have been just no good.
He stuck to the wall, a flash in the pan; it's guaranteed to take its toll.
You saw the way up, you'll see the way down, and ignore his calls when he comes around.
He's famous now, but if you squint into the distance,
You can see him lumbering towards the horizon like some big, painful animal.

Tender Red Net

(Thank goodness this section of the liner notes is relatively undamaged! This song would probably be near impossible to transcribe accurately if you didn't know that each line is palindromic)

Sex alert relaxes
Stops, sir, in mad telephone men. Oh pox as damn iris spots.
Deb gals, damned as nuns. A den: mad, slag bed.
Murmurs: you bat at a baby's rum-rum
Riot: tab abattoir.
Oh, who can go cognac, oh who?
Snub-nose vile dude lives on buns:
Epic err recipe.
A dog, a Panama man, a pagoda.
Go bop, meter us, ma'am - sure tempo bog.
Sun evasion, "No!" is a Venus:
Tender red net
Tense semen parts madam's trap: nemeses net -
No sin, unison.
Raw as is a banal luna, a null anabasis, a war.
Yell amid a dim alley.


Charming Twilight Haze

A festive posture, a tiny nap, and a loud smell is all we need tonight.
Sexy fog, thick enough to choke on, has draped the streets, but if we wear white,
No rain will touch us. An orchestra is playing in a tavern where
Orientals dream of meeting famous blondes and everything in this
Whole wide world seems drunk... and burning.
I am being called dangerous. You're appearing to like it.
We feel like celebrities, we sway and the crowds scatter.
We'll go home when the birds start singing. 

Jealous

Jealous of the human heart: so ugly yet exalted. Jealous of the blood it keeps. 
Jealous of fast cars and not-hot colors of monks and their vows of silence,
Of leather wrapped around the skin of silly boys.
Jealous of sex and all its power, of romance and how it makes you swoon.
Of men who can grow beards of/or knots, of women who can play the cello.
Jealous of love and how much it's desired.
Jealous of hair that comes and goes as it pleases, of weather, which no one can control.
Of infants, who can sleep all day, of lacewings, that don't sleep at all.
Of houseflies and their zillion eyes, the windows to a zillion souls.
I'm jealous of saints and their tickets to heaven. I'm jealous of birds and their simple brains.
Jealous of people who are naturally prompt, of those who have too much money.
Of those who are younger and more famous than I, I'm jealous of those who are older and wiser.
Jealous of good liars and lotto winners, jealous of the vast sky above me,
Of the threat of hell below me. I'm jealous of the world and the beauty it holds.
Jealous of the color green: so fresh, so moldy. So much the gorgeous god of envy.

That Small Convulsion

Something's kicking in our bushes, something with evil fizzle.
You can hear it's close in giggles, its shimmy in the shrubs.
A war may be raging. A market may be crashing.
An earthquake may be brewing; a volcano, erupting.
A planet is stammering. A zoo is on fire.
And somewhere else, a country's exploding.
But here, in fear, we watch something twitching in our bushes.
Trouble's twisting beneath our window, crashing in our backyard.
Too shady to deal with, too close to our core.
We're too spineless to see beyond it, around it, or through it.
We can't beat it if we don't know quite what it is.
We're sure it's not a dog. We're sure it's profoundly ugly.
It seems small and tight. It seems strict and smart.
It keeps us up all night with our timid, lazy hearts.


Sonics

This morning, you were whistling while shaving,
And it drove me crazy as my knock-out drops faded into a dream
Of a thousand canaries engaged in one-upmanship.
Cupids were noisy all day. They were wanting attention.
And my gold tooth picked up signals fron the frenzied radio station;
Haywire salsa filled the room, foreign lingo wrestled with my tongue and won,
And even my pulsebeat was unwelcome. I turned the ceiling fan off,
And it was like the world tumbled down a staircase before it stopped, heavenly silent.
Now, I put my head out the window so I can hear nothing for a while.
You see me and you begin laughing.
I'm wanting to hit you and wondering what sound that would make.




Coup De Grace

The lump in my breast is now growing visible. I keep sleeping and saving my money.
Bathing and being polite; it's the cruel hoax that I play on myself.
The lump in my chest is now invisible. I keep waking, becoming transparent.
Counting and recounting the stars, one of the jokes that I play with myself.
Brave up, come closer, and give me your number.
Give me your passion, your tempo, your zeal.
If you're good, I'll will you my charm and point to the sky where the night rubs its belly.
Look there when I leave for a trace of a glimmer, a soft lucid shimmer too lofty to see;
It will be what's left of me after I'm gone.
Among the darkness and calm and the burden of night,
My ghost will sneak back and stink up your room. You won't wash me out of your system.
You can't vow to never call out my name as your tongue lies heaving in your sleepy dry mouth.
You won't forget me. I'll be warm and wet in the thin winter air.
I'll be the murmur, the secret like crazy.


Mantic Sway

Something will erupt. Straining stockings, aching chains
The dress that pops off from too much affection and bursts, busts, breasts that swell
In a too-tight brassiere. A fist muscle growing as a hand tightens.
A perfume called Volcano of Love... in French. France is waiting to erupt.
Painted nails scratch a surface, scratch sin off so something can erupt. Something will.
Oh, the beat of our blood in our necks. The flutter of blood in our guts.
We know what that is. We all know what that is.
I have a good ear tonight. I have intuition worth your weight on my lap.
I am nothing to put to rest. I am nothing but a fireball. Take it.
Take it and something will erupt.
Tomorrow, no noisy mournings. Tomorrow, a collection of regrets.
We'd wanted them for so long. They can ruin our lives.
We'll read about them in our biographies when we're dead, dead, stone-cold dead.
A paragraph about what we never once mentioned,
A paragraph describing how we managed a secret.
 

ALPHA CUE

Alpha Cue and Swoon are almost always grouped together, but I've decided to give each album its own entry in order to reduce the overall bulk of the postings.

Tracklist:

1. Summer Virus Night
2. A Slap In The Face
3. Friendly Manifesto
4. Connoisseurs Of Lightning
5. What Rubs Up To You
6. Beguine
7. Cerebral Dance
8. Verbal Blunder
9. Tropical Depression
10. Seven Song

Tracks in bold have been transcribed, the rest are coming soon.
Italicized words are unclear -- feel free to post corrections or additions!

_________________________


Summer Virus Night

This velvet feels like being drunk, mixed with lazy flower with big stink.
Pumped and coddled (cuddled?) and then disassembled,
The last petal falling on she loves me not. I sever myself from the world
With a fever which I blame on you and your crazy mouth,
Which can kiss my heat away tonight, now that the moon has entered the sky
And is outing [??] dogs rub their ribs against fences and cats pulsate like [?]s
Yowling with desire for doo-wop.
What's inside me is rampant, wanting ice-bath or alcohol sponge,
Something to extract and into a test tube. Glowing in the dark like Madame Curie's lover.
Nothing will end, the [???].
What's inside me is rampant, wanting ice-bath or alcohol sponge,
Something to extract and into a test tube. Glowing in the dark like Madame Curie's lover.


A Slap In The Face

Night descends upon the city like some rusty red woman and rubs its breasts in your face,
Reminding you that you're not gorgeous or immortal or swell.
Reminding you that it's September, and you haven't been bad enough to go to hell like you planned
When spring erupted and bit your cheek like some rabid diva.
This evening sky was made for you, wraps itself around you like a luxury stole
And yanks you through the streets as if you were a stilettoed girl late for church.
Fear that you can set things on fire [unclear] inside you as if it wants to dance,
And the smell of roses is so far away, and windows are shut so we can't hear your yelling,
And those things called trees are turning colors, dying a pretty, pretty death.
That sweat we're making is not of hard work, or heat, or sex, or the desire for much,
But of nerves that buzz beneath your skin.

Friendly Manifesto

We girls, we have to mature, create an instant past, a hairline incision
Into what was once called [?]. They say we'd lose our heads if they weren't attached
To our spines by ganglia and nerve tissue and stuff called effervescence. Because it's pink.
Oh, it's not enough to be ringmasters, bachelorettes of knowledge, [?] queens of the world.
A sign must be put on to study, to be ignored like that doghouse on fire out back.
Father once warned me that I'd explode, and I did. It was a painful way to spend a Saturday,
But I think it built character. You, you'd do it too, and hide everything that's [?] be inside
Until it becomes a secret known by you, only by you and a soft sweet liver.


Connoisseurs Of Lightning

It never thunders in Paris. I can see us there, small and polite,
Waiting for someone to offer us a cigarette, waiting for a street child to pick us at random
Present us with a flower. A tulip, perhaps. So out of context.
Each time we enter buildings, we are greeted by groups of violinists who adore us.
And we love it well.
How wonderful it would be. No time for revolutions, we'd laid down our guns.
Too much fluff to enjoy, and we do.
No time to think of dead parents, no time to write our own epitaphs,
Which in any case would read: "Had lots of fun. Thanks."
We would glow and sweeten the air, more brilliant than any Manhattan neon.
Oh, Paris, Paris, I know you're there. I know you're there like heaven is there.
Not very lonely. Not dying to see me.


What Rubs Up To You

It is silent. You see some kind of pretend debt caught up to you.
A universal language causing holes in sidewalks where flowers pop up.
It is not yet spring and already you're snide, although nothing old is looking up to you.
Talk to me about this bleached winter, all I know is that miserable fish are swimming
In the frosty lake and your lungs are very warm.
You've forgotten too many things. Barflies have gathered and are singing.
I have too many hearts when you're looking at me. Remember, pause, then go away.
You'll be happy, oh so happy, doing so.


Beguine

We all want to see the sight that makes us goofy with desire.
[??] wearing a bikini made out of an American flag. A gun, a car, a nun.
The skyline of Manhattan collapsing or some very pretty art damage.
A movie star, a Spanish fly, a shining eye, a mirror. Whatever it is, it will impassion us.
It will impassion us like a big fat [???] impassion us. Like a lovely war (roar?) can impassion us.
Or like an African [?]. Like a six-pack, like Andy Warhol's rolodex, it will impassion us.
And then we want it to dangle before us like some crazy constellation,
'Cause we know that if it lingers long enough, we might just get to keep it all to ourselves.

Cerebral Dance

Verbal Blunder

No slip of the tongue could cause this misunderstanding
It's your head and its wicked working that's led you to this awkward pause
After blurting out that vicious clause, which brings those [?]s
Which say, "Drop dead."
No slip of the tongue could cause this misunderstanding;
It's your head that controls your flapping jaws and dictates all those things you've said.
Don't claim that your meaning was misread or twisted by perception flaws,
Because no slip of the tongue could cause this misunderstanding.
It's your head.

Tropical Depression

I'm tired and hungry and about to get wet. Today has been too tight, too heavy,
And it's not getting thinner with this downpour. Everyone runs for cover,
Avoiding the bookstore and lingerie boutique.
We all huddle in the coffeeshop and it seems like it's forever.
I see a mother hit her son for the fourth time since my cigarette's been lit.
She's hitting him because he won't stop crying, and he won't stop crying because she's hitting him.
We're a hundred miles south of [?] already, our sweat licking our skin.
[?]ing our clothes in one of those ugly silk fabric kisses.
We're a hundred miles south of [?] already and we know it's not gonna get much better.
Everyone is crabby dealing with this heat. They're [?] each other
And everything else that's out of their control. And now, the wind is picking up.
No, forget an umbrella. I'm going out there, head naked. Let the typhoon take me somewhere else,
Somewhere clear and cool and void of any emotion.

Seven Song

Last night, the tide was high.
Seven women dressed in white swayed seven different ways (waves?)

While a boy at the piano played a pack of hearts. We were tired of being mild.
We wanted tornado, our lips painted red.
Was it the night that was barking? Only the Buddhists were sleeping, dreaming
Of the Orient [??] itself.
Seven naked boys carry seven yellow candles into the darkened fields
While I stole a box of father's hair and set it to the wind.
We arrived at the party dressed as water, eyes slick-red from thinking,
Waiting for a nervous twitch, a steady hum inside our bones.
We were tired of being mild. We wanted tidal wave, hurricane [line unclear] 
Seven nets were cast into the water, pulling seven older women up (out?)
Bruised faces in the moonlight. Was your (her?) sister among them? 
The one with the slender hands; the one that wanted nothing but music all day long.
Bowls of water set out for the deadpan-faced gangsters in the funeral home.
The casket flipped over, the corpse on the floor. We were tired of being mild.
The ominous blur nestled in the motor [?] at sea and obscured.
Seven cannons were shot cross town to honor seven modern lovers,
While a sailor sung a hymn to [??] our shoes.
A burst of pigeons pierced the heavy summer air, a burst of gunfire.
Dressed in bullets, we were tired of being mild! We wanted disaster, the taste of [?]
Pumping [?] into our throats.
Seven oily children spoke in seven different tongues.
And they slipped out of church, backdoor, with handkerchiefs in pockets
Just enough to gather one before the eyes 
[Multiple unclear lines]
Where through the window she is there. Faces tame as milk, we were, we were cooking,
Our blood thick inside our veins.
Seven falling stars pierced seven empty arms and the saddle caught on fire.
[Unclear line]
A harnessed giggle, an eerie caress longed to be exiled,
To be the thought of the pearl gleaming.

REAL NUMBERS

Tracklist:

1. Cerebral Dance
2. Waiting For Delmore
3. In Bed With Boys
4. No Action
5. Verbal Blunder
6. Sinister
7. Agitation
8. Tonight
9. Tuesday Tastes Good
10. Mantic Sway
11. True Romance At The World's Fair
12. Sub Rosa
13. Let's Transact
14. Heat Wave
15. Friendly Manifesto
16. Connoisseurs Of Lightning
17. An Explanation For That Flock Of Crows
18. Tractor Pull
19. Horizon
20. Please Respect Our Decadence
21. Little Dead Bodies
22. Amusing Oneself
23. Somewhat Bleecker Street

As always, tracks in bold have been transcribed and the remainder are coming soon.
 Italicized words are uncertain; corrections and additions are always welcome!


________________________

Cerebral Dance

Waiting For Delmore

It's like brushing your teeth in public or being kissed in a dream by a stranger in white shoes.
I get so confused. Delmore's no longer in the shower, no longer on [??], no longer making a fuss.
Telephone calls come, asking if he is home. They hang up before I can answer.
I get so melancholy when I think of his good points:
How he knew what each piece of silverware was for;
How he could light a match using only one hand;
His talent of grinding his teeth in his sleep,
Clacking out a calypso rhythm that would send me tapping into the living room.
Oh, Delmore, Delmore, your comic books still come in the mail.
The oatmeal I make for you each morning turns green well before noon.
The shoebox whimpers when it recalls your feet.
And I miss you.



In Bed With Boys

When I was small and arthritic in my crib, I knew Spaniards wanted sleep,
While Americans merely needed it. Now, on warm summer days, boys nip at my neck,
Their hands too sweaty to hold and their backs wetting the bed.
Boys in bed, boys on the bed, their heads roaring on pillows
And their feet twitching in sleep.
I got boys who speak Latin in their dreams; boys whose faces land in books,
Who must be coaxed to the covers. I got European boys who like cold rooms
And those that like the bushes. I got boys who think they're famous,
And boys who call me "Sir." Boys who are shaped like Z's
That snap straight when an avalanche of sun comes in the window
And in winter, they're rolled in sheets that unfurl in the morning and fill the room with skin.


No Action



Because nothing ventured, nothing gained, but better safe than sorry.
And when in doubt, don't.
Because we look before we leap, knowing a stitch in time saves nine.
And we try to make hay while the sun shines, because he who hesitates is lost,
But slow and steady always wins the race.
Because too many cooks spoil the broth, but God helps those who helps themselves.
And if you want something done, do it yourself, but two heads are better than one.
Because where there's smoke, there's fire, although all that glitters is not gold,
And you can't judge a book by its cover, but clothes make the man.
Because idle hands are the devil's playlot, but we fear burning our candles at both ends.
'Cause the only place success comes before work is in the dictionary,
So we keep our nose to the grindstone, knowing all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Verbal Blunder

No slip of the tongue could cause this misunderstanding
It's your head and its wicked working that's led you to this awkward pause
After blurting out that vicious clause, which brings those [?]s
Which say, "Drop dead."
No slip of the tongue could cause this misunderstanding;
It's your head that controls your flapping jaws and dictates all those things you've said.
Don't claim that your meaning was misread or twisted by perception flaws,
Because no slip of the tongue could cause this misunderstanding.
It's your head.


Sinister

Do not leap into the lake. Do not wish for Sri Lanka. You will not get the half of it.
You claim to make the moon disappear, but I know it's just your hand over my eyes.
I'm hip to the tricks of scientists.
Do not make any sound that imitates travel, motorized or not.
There is movement that makes more impact than you.
You twist my cheek harshly, claiming it is love, and tell me life is Cupid useful.
Do not want more than the lump of me, more than you can put in your pocket
And defect with.
Do not stand with your arms folded. They will not protect you as you puzzle,
Trying desperately, to sort it out.


Agitation

Not afterglow, but overglow. Not moonlight, but spotlight.
The crooning has grown cold, while I have shrunken in my old age and gone soft all over.
Give me the morphine sleep I crave, that slap in the face for hysteria.
Replace my bones with plastic joints; remove my breasts so I can slip through gates.
Give me knees so weak I have to roll and boys that make suicide impossible.
I don't want to have to go out in peace. No talking, no snoring, no dreaming.
And my lungs collapsing in unison.

Tonight

Tonight there is no moonlight; no fragrance, no rawness, no lock (luck?)
And lovers retreat to the Ego motel.
At times, colored birds would leave their nests, go espionage hunting for something hard
Sex or [?] or [?]. But not tonight.
Yesterday, a deaf man stole a car, attracted by the garter hanging on the rearview.
Tonight, he sleeps in a normal bed, dreaming of empty beehives.
The compulsive are not leaping [?] naked into the lake.
There are no fresh bridges to jump from.
A conspiracy among the unborn. Procrastinate another day. All kicking in the labor room,
Flatten [?] to a hum. And that light in the sky isn't Venus, but the lost signals of a flashlight
That the meterman dropped at noon.
 

Tuesday Tastes Good 

Note: This is one of the most difficult tracks to transcribe, and unfortunately it's also one of the most popular. If you have the liner notes for this album, PLEASE send me a corrected version of these lyrics!


Slide me out of girl afternoon, feminine square, a fur tube and loose skin
Make me monkey-nude with big car dent.
Give sound of free-running volcano. Pineapple eruption and solar thud.
There is front lawn utopia; scant dull earth works miles near
Unpleasant stay at home vacation.
Now the beat breaks down (x9), breaks down (x10). You've lost it!
Kidnap softens as planned, while newborns are lulled by eloquent drinking songs.
Pull out of it. Aggressive. Pull out of it. Aggressive.
Cursed [?] crumble to flatten friend's hand.
Hear it snap on his diet side of chunky life.
Give skeletal image to [?] too. Moonlit tough interior. Brilliant. Brilliantine.
Nome brass geese. Kill. And again. (x17) To regain smugness.


Mantic Sway

Something will erupt. Straining stockings, aching chains
The dress that pops off from too much affection and bursts, busts, breasts that swell
In a too-tight brassiere. A fist muscle growing as a hand tightens.
A perfume called Volcano of Love... in French. France is waiting to erupt.
Painted nails scratch a surface, scratch sin off so something can erupt. Something will.
Oh, the beat of our blood in our necks. The flutter of blood in our guts.
We know what that is. We all know what that is.
I have a good ear tonight. I have intuition worth your weight on my lap.
I am nothing to put to rest. I am nothing but a fireball. Take it.
Take it and something will erupt.
Tomorrow, no noisy mournings. Tomorrow, a collection of regrets.
We'd wanted them for so long. They can ruin our lives.
We'll read about them in our biographies when we're dead, dead, stone-cold dead.
A paragraph about what we never once mentioned,
A paragraph describing how we managed a secret.


True Romance At The World's Fair

A whispered remark changed a girl's life.
Make no mistake, there was a difference. She had a war job and mother-in-law trouble,
A jitterbug wedding, and an itch that started quick.
Dressed in the most attractive of rubber suits, posing as a girl, unmarried and unkissed,
She set out to answer questions: "How red is Hollywood?" and "What brings out the beast in men?"
By the seaside, by the bandstand, she sighs and says: "Too many blondes spoil the crowd,"
As sound systems loom over the city. Electric, anesthetic, and that mad shine is drilled into the moon
Which is masculine at night, but this ain't no musical romp, no screwball comedy.
This is just dog-collar loneliness.
The world -- the world is not a wild place.

Sub Rosa

All the stars clustered like rashes
[?] on a cheap woman's neck.
Reminding me of nothing as subtle as a tongue slipped into an ear.

Condensed laughter streams in from the wings.
I've called for it to distract you.
I hear you sing a song of temptation and wonder if you wrote it for me.

You'll never tell. You only give me big, big dumb juicy eyes.

I become obsessed with all sorts of omens: birthmarks or plagues or glints in the eye.
From closer, I see your hands are sweating, flooding their wrinkles.
I see your hands are nervous now, begging to be clutched.

Let's Transact


Always, when my sound becomes too freed, I keep
I forget to say I've snuck you into my stories, both told and not, all dangerous.
Tonight, I dress in black and order something dark like Bailey's and bourbons.
Something hard to forget. I know you'll show up, and if the time is right,
I'll pull one on you. That's what we all want, isn't it?
And you'll follow me around, asking, "What did you mean by that?"
It'll cost you dearly for me to tell. Perhaps a kiss or a bathroom encounter.
Perhaps a swearing of eternal adoration. Perhaps a replacement story to hold in my throat
As ammunition.


Heat Wave

Sunday is a killer. I want a festive time, a darling illness
Hands playing staccato violin, while the theme from Psycho fills the room.
Instead, the day's as vacant as an infant's dumb stare.
In Mexico, the toreadors are having their day, torturing bulls that would rather be sleeping.
But here, the only things being tortured are the lawns, wet down by their owners
'Til soggy and numb. Yesterday, while shopping, I saw three men on crutches
Buying galoshes for the women they loved.
But today the only thing I hear are the ethnics outside.
They're walking to church to bless baskets of eggs,
Immobile things that will smell bad with time in this heat, this humidity,
That has closed down even the stripper joints.
It's sad to consider how much sweat is wasted today, produced by our own simple breathing.
Even sadder is when the night turns so arid.
Nothing can shimmy. Nothing can dance.


Friendly Manifesto

We girls, we have to mature, create an instant past, a hairline incision
Into what was once called [?]. They say we'd lose our heads if they weren't attached
To our spines by ganglia and nerve tissue and stuff called effervescence. Because it's pink.
Oh, it's not enough to be ringmasters, bachelorettes of knowledge, [?] queens of the world.
A sign must be put on to study, to be ignored like that doghouse on fire out back.
Father once warned me that I'd explode, and I did. It was a painful way to spend a Saturday,
But I think it built character. You, you'd do it too, and hide everything that's [?] be inside
Until it becomes a secret known by you, only by you and a soft sweet liver.


Connoisseurs Of Lightning

It never thunders in Paris. I can see us there, small and polite,
Waiting for someone to offer us a cigarette, waiting for a street child to pick us at random
Present us with a flower. A tulip, perhaps. So out of context.
Each time we enter buildings, we are greeted by groups of violinists who adore us.
And we love it well.
How wonderful it would be. No time for revolutions, we'd laid down our guns.
Too much fluff to enjoy, and we do.
No time to think of dead parents, no time to write our own epitaphs,
Which in any case would read: "Had lots of fun. Thanks."
We would glow and sweeten the air, more brilliant than any Manhattan neon.
Oh, Paris, Paris, I know you're there. I know you're there like heaven is there.
Not very lonely. Not dying to see me.



An Explanation For That Flock Of Crows

A thread of birds has settled outside your door.  Spring is coming, and you lean back,
Waiting for its root-juicy kiss. Politely, charmingly.
Once, during a summer, you came without shoes, without any maps, and settled
Into my elbow while this hemisphere turned blue.
We were urban, unkind animals and I never once thought of champagne.
How often you'd want me to tell you your future. Show me your palms, the lumps on your head,
As if I knew what my mother knows best: how to inflame things at a distance.
Now, you think of me with a casual chuckle. Now, you save me like an auctioned-off bon-bon:
Brought out on a doily for guests to admire. I know, and it's all in my pocket.
Just press your ear against your back door. There's a sound I've sent.
It's there to haunt you. Like a cello. Like a buzzsaw.
I hope you're enjoying yourself.



Tractor Pull


This evening, upon waking, I saw [?] saying, "I'm going to a tractor pull."
And I didn't understand. Outside, it was dusk enough to make things invisible,
And I heard a car swerve as it skinned the elbow of an ugly child.
It didn't make the news, though I did wonder how hard it would be for a tractor to skin anything,
No matter how impulsive it was on the open fields.

It was an hour before I fell asleep again and dreamed I was on a soggy bed,
While Mom ironed linen curtains in the other room, saying:
"Isn't it awful here with all the heat and the fever blisters and no trees to block the tumbleweeds
From coming in the windows?"
I looked up at the open prairie skies and all its stillness and I forgot that the TV was silent,
Letting us remember all the loud colors of the world.

Horizon

A restless heat has risen above the soft hiss on the radio,
And suddenly, you become the sinister tease, the moist, orange heartache that never goes away.
Now, I hold you out at arm's length, the way a mime holds out a phantom bib.
Now, I am dreaming of April, of yellow.
Dreaming of deserts upon which you walk into the pale horizon.
And the distance makes you ugly.

Please Respect Our Decadence


Everybody's dying, so we send them flowers.
After their funerals, we go out to dinner, and then we try to forget about it.
We're all committing suicide, and everybody points it out to us:
Is that a coffee you're drinking? Is that a cigarette you're smoking? Is that meat you're eating?
Is that air you're breathing? Have you no self-respect?
No, but we're having fun, quick, before we drop dead. We don't mind your great concern.
But please, send flowers instead.

Little Dead Bodies


How right you were, dear Paul,
That we hear of famous people's deaths while on vacation.
Perhaps it's so their funerals are not too crowded, with their loyal fans being out of town and all.
Those celebrities are pretty clever.

I've heard that someone's born every eight seconds,
So I presume that someone dies every eight seconds just to keep things even.
It makes me feel shortchanged when I read the obituary page: someone's holding back information.
It also prompts me to flip through the telephone directory on sleepless nights,
Saying over, and over, and over again: "Yup! You're all going! Every last one of you."
Wow. Heaven must be a big place.

I don't know too many dead people, but folks tell me I'm young.
When my grandfather died, he was laid out in the Bogg funeral home,
And I was secretly glad Mr. Bogg didn't change his name to something more romantic
When he went into business. I just wish it was less memorable.
My high school locker partner, Ned, worked part-time for a mortician.
Imagine dressing dead people, straightening their ties and fluffing up their hair
So you can afford to take a girl out to the movies on Saturday night.
Well, that's love! That's adolescent desperation!
I would've been honored to have Ned take me to the movies and let him buy me popcorn.
Instead, I went out with a boy who died.
The hardest part was knowing that his body didn't just disappear on the bed the moment he left.

I think that's what keeps me off of suicide:
The idea that there's something left for someone else to clean up. How rude and inconsiderate!
It's a pain to take out the weekly trash, let alone figure out what to do
With over a hundred pounds of flesh that's about to go bad.
It'd be even worse in India, where there's a religious cult which believes you shouldn't desecrate
Any of the elements with the dead. They can't be buried or burned. They can't be cast out to sea.
So they're taken to the top of the Tower of Silence, where they become the vultures' problem.
How's that for passing the buck?

No, when I go, I want to go clean, convenient, leaving no mess.
As if I vaporized while taking a shower,
As if I moved to Antarctica, leaving no forwarding address.

Amusing Oneself


A fever crawls into you. A colorful one. Scarlet? Yellow? Too soon to tell.
Restless and itchy, you grab any rumor that's lounging around.
Blame it on boredom or the position of stars. Perhaps the good weather has made your brain crazy.

You write "Warsaw was raw" in lipstick on your old lover's letter,
Hold it up to a mirror, and delight in yourself.
It's easy, like sending a card to yourself on your birthday
And crying when you get it, 'cause "someone remembered!"
Like when you empty a bag of groceries onto the kitchen floor:
When the last apple stops rolling, you call it still life.

Somewhat Bleecker Street

Greenwich and Chungking and Johnny's got a girlfriend.
Dumb blonde in loose pants, too big to be Miss America. We wave hello.
It's here, even in the rain: the heart, the heart, the simple spin,
The audacity of colors and heat fucking up from the sidewalks.
If you strut, if you wear pretty slippers, see how hard your feet can get.
[??] shakes me up four flights and I don't feel like peeking in.
The lavish halo, innocence in parentheses,
Inside me, five girls shout in Italian, wanting life to be one long vacation.

THE SECRET LIKE CRAZY

Many of the tracks on this album originally appeared on Big Skin but have been reposted here for the sake of completeness and convenience.

Tracklist:

1. Little Dead Bodies
2. Somewhat Bleecker Street
3. Gist
4. Why No Action Is Taken
5. Father's By The Door
6. Tractor Pull
7. Tuesday Tastes Good
8. In Bed With Boys
9. Sinister
10. True Romance At The World's Fair
11. Tonight
12. Please Respect Our Decadence
13. Heat Wave
14. No War Bride
15. Let's Transact
16. Lethargy
17. Amusing Oneself
18. Recalling The Last Encounter
19. Seasonal Zombies
20. Agitation

These lyrics have now been checked against the official liner booklet and should be complete!
______________________________

Little Dead Bodies

How right you were, dear Paul,
That we hear of famous people's deaths while on vacation.
Perhaps it's so their funerals are not too crowded, with their loyal fans being out of town and all.
Those celebrities are pretty clever.

I've heard that someone's born every eight seconds,
So I presume that someone dies every eight seconds just to keep things even.
It makes me feel shortchanged when I read the obituary page: someone's holding back information.
It also prompts me to flip through the telephone directory on sleepless nights,
Saying over, and over, and over again: "Yup! You're all going! Every last one of you."
Wow. Heaven must be a big place.

I don't know too many dead people, but folks tell me I'm young.
When my grandfather died, he was laid out in the Bub funeral home,
And I was secretly glad Mr. Bub didn't change his name to something more romantic
When he went into business. I just wish it was less memorable.
My high school locker partner, Ned, worked part-time for a mortician.
Imagine dressing dead people, straightening their ties and fluffing up their hair
So you can afford to take a girl out to the movies on Saturday night.
Well, that's love! That's adolescent desperation!
I would've been honored to have Ned take me to the movies and let him buy me popcorn.
Instead, I went out with a boy who died.
The hardest part was knowing that his body didn't just disappear on the bed the moment he left.

I think that's what keeps me off of suicide:
The idea that there's something left for someone else to clean up. How rude and inconsiderate!
It's a pain to take out the weekly trash, let alone figure out what to do
With over a hundred pounds of flesh that's about to go bad.
It'd be even worse in India, where there's a religious cult which believes you shouldn't desecrate
Any of the elements with the dead. They can't be buried or burned. They can't be cast out to sea.
So they're taken to the top of the Tower of Silence, where they become the vultures' problem.
How's that for passing the buck?

No, when I go, I want to go clean, convenient, leaving no mess.
As if I vaporized while taking a shower,
As if I moved to Antarctica, leaving no forwarding address.

Somewhat Bleecker Street

Greenwich and Chungking and Johnny's got a girlfriend.
Dumb blonde in loose pants, too big to be Miss America. We wave hello.
It's here, even in the rain: the heart, the heart, the simple spin,
The audacity of colors and heat bucking up from the sidewalks.
If you strut, if you wear pretty slippers, see how hard your feet can get.
Giraffe timidness shakes me up four flights and I don't feel like peeking in.
The lavish halo, innocence in parentheses,
Inside me, five girls shout in Italian, wanting life to be one long vacation.

Gist

Sameness halts.
Every husband is extinct or floats into exile while a sly tenor breaks the hush.
Hush, let's no longer be shy for years but the blatant camera scanning hairlines
Just to get on nerves, play. Play up our rawness while we soak the hard boiled
'Til they lapse far off into the red land. Remedy the tension not with see-through hints,
But the stuff that pierces hearts. Let's explode. Let's give the half-blind an eyeful.
Change the timid habit of the skin and raise the simple hairs upon it
Right now, this moment, happy thugs ambush the evening, bust loose the wicked seams
And call them their own. Let's, let's be among them, the looming opera, the exotic hymn,
The shameless snarl that's mainly crispy.


Why No Action Is Taken

Because nothing ventured, nothing gained, but better safe than sorry.
And when in doubt, don't.
Because we look before we leap, knowing a stitch in time saves nine.
And we try to make hay while the sun shines, because he who hesitates is lost,
But slow and steady always wins the race.
Because too many cooks spoil the broth, but God helps those who helps themselves.
And if you want something done, do it yourself, but two heads are better than one.
Because where there's smoke, there's fire, although all that glitters is not gold,
And you can't judge a book by its cover, but clothes make the man.
Because idle hands are the devil's playlot, but we fear burning our candles at both ends.
'Cause the only place success comes before work is in the dictionary,
So we keep our nose to the grindstone, knowing all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Father's By The Door 

Father's by the door. No more jukebox hands or swollen feet.
No more fun. The house is drained.
I put on my bravest shirt and get some blueing for these eyes.
I know this face is money, but the skinny boys won't buy.
Father's by the door. Father's by the door.
Forget that saxophone in the subway; that glove, slipped off, which smelled.
Stop those river of hips: they'll be greeted with a sneer, and fasten your brassiere
Before your breasts become too cold.
The day reclines and falls asleep, 'cause father's by the door.
Father's by the door. Father's by the door.


Tractor Pull

This evening, upon waking, I saw a face saying, "I'm going to a tractor pull."
And I didn't understand. Outside, it was dusk enough to make things invisible,
And I heard a car swerve as it skinned the elbow of an ugly child.
It didn't make the news, though I did wonder how hard it would be for a tractor to skin anything,
No matter how impulsive it was on the open fields.

It was an hour before I fell asleep again and dreamed I was on a soggy bed,
While Mom ironed linen curtains in the other room, saying:
"Isn't it awful here with all the heat and the fever blisters and no trees to block the tumbleweeds
From coming in the windows?"
I looked up at the open prairie skies and all its stillness and I forgot that the TV was silent,
Letting us remember all the loud colors of the world.

Tuesday Tastes Good 

Slide me out of girl afternoon, feminine square of fur tooth and lulu skin
Make me monkey-nude with big car dent.
Give sound of free-running volcano. Pineapple eruption and solar thud.
There is front lawn utopia; scant dull earthworks miles near and
Unpleasant stay at home vacation.
Now the beat breaks down (x9), breaks down (x10). You've lost it!
Kidnap softens as planned, while newborns are lulled by eloquent drinking songs.
Pull out of it. Aggressive. Pull out of it. Aggressive.
Curse goes crumble to flat in friend's hand.
Hear wrist snap; eyes die at sight of chunky life.
Give skeletal image to pin pelvis to. Moon-licked tough interior. Brilliant. Brilliantine.
No brass peace. Kill. And again. (x17) To regain smugness.


In Bed With Boys

When I was small and arthritic in my crib, I knew Spaniards wanted sleep,
While Americans merely needed it. Now, on warm summer days, boys nip at my neck,
Their hands too sweaty to hold and their backs wetting the bed.
Boys in bed, boys on the bed, their heads roaring on pillows
And their feet twitching in sleep.
I got boys who speak Latin in their dreams; boys whose faces land in books,
Who must be coaxed to the covers. I got European boys who like cold rooms
And those that like the bushes. I got boys who think they're famous,
And boys who call me "Sir." Boys who are shaped like Z's
That snap straight when an avalanche of sun comes in the window
And in winter, they're rolled in sheets that unfurl in the morning and fill the room with skin.


Sinister

Do not leap into the lake. Do not wish for Sri Lanka. You will not get the half of it.
You claim to make the moon disappear, but I know it's just your hand over my eyes.
I'm hip to the tricks of scientists.
Do not make any sound that imitates travel, motorized or not.
There is movement that makes more impact than you.
You twist my cheek harshly, claiming it is love, and tell me life is cute and useful.
Do not want more than the lump of me, more than you can put in your pocket
And defect with.
Do not stand with your arms folded. They will not protect you as you puzzle,
Trying desperately, to sort it out.


True Romance At The World's Fair

A whispered remark changed a girl's life.
Make no mistake, there was a difference. She had a war job and mother-in-law trouble,
A jitterbug wedding, and an itch that started quick.
Dressed in the most attractive of rubber suits, posing as a girl, unmarried and unkissed,
She set out to answer questions: "How red is Hollywood?" and "What brings out the beast in men?"
By the seaside, by the bandstand, she sighs and says: "Too many blondes spoil the crowd,"
As sound systems loom over the city. Electric, anesthetic, and that mad shine is drilled into the moon
Which is masculine at night, but this ain't no musical romp, no screwball comedy.
This is just dog-collar loneliness.
The world -- the world is not a wild place.



Tonight

Tonight there is no moonlight; no fragrance, no rawness, no luck
And lovers retreat to the Ego motel.
At times, colored birds would leave their nests, go espionage hunting for something hard
Sex or jazz or both. But not tonight.
Yesterday, a deaf man stole a car, attracted by the garter hanging on the rearview.
Tonight, he sleeps in a normal bed, dreaming of empty beehives.
The compulsive are not leaping plead naked into the lake.
There are no fresh bridges to jump from.
A conspiracy among the unborn. Procrastinate another day. All kicking in the labor room,
Flattens to a hum. And that light in the sky isn't Venus, but the lost signals of a flashlight
That the meterman dropped at noon. 


Please Respect Our Decadence

Everybody's dying, so we send them flowers.
After their funerals, we go out to dinner, and then we try to forget about it.
We're all committing suicide, and everybody points it out to us:
Is that a coffee you're drinking? Is that a cigarette you're smoking? Is that meat you're eating?
Is that air you're breathing? Have you no self-respect?
No, but we're having fun, quick, before we drop dead. We don't mind your great concern.
But please, send flowers instead.

Heat Wave 

Sunday is a killer. I want a festive time, a darling illness
Hands playing staccato violin, while the theme from Psycho fills the room.
Instead, the day's as vacant as an infant's dumb stare.
In Mexico, the toreadors are having their day, torturing bulls that would rather be sleeping.
But here, the only things being tortured are the lawns, wet down by their owners
'Til soggy and numb. Yesterday, while shopping, I saw three men on crutches
Buying galoshes for the women they loved.
But today the only thing I hear are the ethnics outside.
They're walking to church to bless baskets of eggs,
Immobile things that will smell bad with time in this heat, this humidity,
That has closed down even the stripper joints.
It's sad to consider how much sweat is wasted today, produced by our own simple breathing.
Even sadder is when the night turns so arid.
Nothing can shimmy. Nothing can dance.

No War Bride

From somewhere back, a light keeps flashing:
A billboard asking me to sleep.
Downstairs, my neighbor is bathing. I hear him humming a polka. I hear him thinking about me:
"What does she do when I can't hear her marching?"
I'll never tell him I dream of the army.
I could've enlisted, been a sergeant by now.
Downing brown whiskey and cursing civilians.
If I were a soldier, I'd be sleeping by now, my helmet full of rumble and letters from Mother.
Instead, I am wakeful,
Remembering you in your white, loose, all-over summer and constantly giggling.

Let's Transact

Always, when my sound becomes too free to keep
I forget to say I've snuck you into my stories, both told and not, all dangerous.
Tonight, I dress in black and order something dark like Bailey's and bourbons.
Something hard to forget. I know you'll show up, and if the time is right,
I'll pull one on you. That's what we all want, isn't it?
And you'll follow me around, asking, "What did you mean by that?"
It'll cost you dearly for me to tell. Perhaps a kiss or a bathroom encounter.
Perhaps a swearing of eternal adoration. Perhaps a replacement story to hold in my throat
As ammunition.


Lethargy

Everyone is so boring. No cure for colds, no car lot chases.
Nothing to make this a faster asteroid. Even your fever-giving drone makes me pensive,
Puts me at a melancholy pace as if I were embodied in an egg.
I should gloss like a glass fish: freeze oxygen at night and thaw it at dawn
Plow the fields just to make the earthworms nervous.
But instead, I'm ready to throw bricks. But only something as dull as bricks.
Pardon me. Pardon me while I. Pardon me while I strip and melt.


Amusing Oneself

A fever crawls into you. A colorful one. Scarlet? Yellow? Too soon to tell.
Restless and itchy, you grab any rumor that's lounging around.
Blame it on boredom or the position of stars. Perhaps the good weather has made your brain crazy.

You write "Warsaw was raw" in lipstick on your old lover's letter,
Hold it up to a mirror, and delight in yourself.
It's easy, like sending a card to yourself on your birthday
And crying when you get it, 'cause "someone remembered!"
Like when you empty a bag of groceries onto the kitchen floor:
When the last apple stops rolling, you call it still life.

Recalling The Last Encounter

 There is an anemic embrace on the street.
A kiss is thrown, meets another, drops to the sidewalk and goes for a tumble.
You warn of tight clouds that wriggle like armyworms,
A form of algebra suicide, I guess. I want to telephone the sailors,
Curse their songs of gasoline as the light in the booth turns me hideous.
I want to become hydraulic. Hit the newsstands, national exposure,
Feel the world crawl into me through the fingers as the traffic outside locks, stops, and goes soft.
I want to talk about milk, about the invisible bones of the face,
About this brain that sits too close to the skin.
While I hear you tell me we could be chainsaws under the stars.
Under what stars?

Seasonal Zombies

Would winter in China be so innate?
With flashlight and desk globe, I pretend I'm the sun.
The earth is turning an impolite child and I can't take care of it all.
I yawn at the man who's delighted by snow
Collects it in jars that are stored in the freezer, labeled by year, and fearing a blackout.
It's time to go nowhere.
In the overstuffed chair
Wearing the dunce cap and waiting for wisdom to hit.
This winter chews up my life, paralyzes my father, makes things so idle.
Not even the stars pulsate.
Like nervous eyelids.
This winter has numbed us like a fly in an ice cube.
No bobbing, no hearing chatter
This season reminds me of some tedious death
Where you listen and listen and there's nothing to dance to
Nothing to signal an impending good time
Even danger is dormant, brewing its core.
I'll join it, waiting for spring and its millions of noises.

Agitation

Not afterglow, but overglow. Not moonlight, but spotlight.
The crooning has grown cold, while I have shrunken in my old age and gone soft all over.
Give me the morphine sleep I crave, that slap in the face for hysteria.
Replace my bones with plastic joints; remove my breasts so I can slip through gates.
Give me knees so weak I have to roll and boys that make suicide impossible.
I don't want to have to go out in peace. No talking, no snoring, no dreaming.
And my lungs collapsing in unison.