1. |
Special Ed
04:52
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SPECIAL ED
I have a friend his name is Ed,
now and then he’s playing dead.
It’s like he can’t get out of bed
and women get inside his head,
but he says, be gone you wench
and brandishing a monkey wrench
he chases them around the block
and coming home he puts a lock
on the door and breaks the clock,
or was he born with culture shock.
He turned into a sound technician
messing with the human condition.
Mix it on an audio tape
an 8-track is a great escape
and if you’re human things go wrong
compensating with a song
and your missing life is hidden
in a chord, is it forbidden.
Living is formidable
with some of it inaudible.
THERE WAS A WOMAN, BUT SHE’S NOT THERE.
THEY HAD A LIFE, IT VANISHED IN THIN AIR.
NOW HE WON’T GO THERE.
He lives in Oakland and he drives
a pickup with a sense of dread,
a little tense but he survives
although he sees things in his head.
He’s seeing more in his computer,
“Look at her I want to put her
on the wall, it’s off the wall
these women with no shame at all.”
One night I’m saying where you goin’,
he was goin’ to see Buck Owens.
Drinking whiskey in a warehouse
it can make you so aware
or maybe it’s something in the air
or in your hair, well I don’t care
I only know it’s everywhere.
You’d think there was an electric chair
waiting when we’re getting old,
it’s like your hometown has been sold.
I don’t know if he’s making plans,
his room is full of broken fans.
THERE WAS A WOMAN, BUT SHE’S NOT THERE.
THEY HAD A LIFE, IT VANISHED IN THIN AIR.
NOW HE WON’T GO THERE.
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2. |
Three-Legged Woman
05:57
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THREE-LEGGED WOMAN
She’s a post-atomic mutant
but I think she’s cute,
she grew an extra leg although
it left her deaf and mute.
It’s making her bi-sexual,
the woman has two cunts,
and some men fall asleep when they
have only done it once.
The woman’s hard to satisfy
with three legs in the air,
the men are seeing double but
they probably don’t care.
Because it is unusual
and you should see her walk.
I want to take her out and I don’t
care if people talk.
YOU THINK IT IS A PHANTOM LIMB
YOU’RE SAYING WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH HIM
I LOSE IT WHEN THE LIGHTS GROW DIM
IMAGINE HER INSIDE A GYM
It’s probably good she doesn’t hear
what people have to say,
I bet it wouldn’t take her very
long to run away.
She’s taking it in stride although
the pedicures cost more,
and maybe it’s more stable when
you have three on the floor.
They say I’m sleeping with a tripod
but it isn’t true,
and when she goes to bed I’m waiting
for the other shoe
to drop. A leggy woman and
she has her feet on the ground,
it’s good to know that even the
deformed can get around.
YOU THINK IT IS A PHANTOM LIMB
YOU’RE SAYING WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH HIM
I LOSE IT WHEN THE LIGHTS GROW DIM
IMAGINE HER INSIDE A GYM
Because of natural selection
some kinds have to die,
I never met a girl like her,
I look her in the eye.
Acting normal but some people
think she is deformed,
I used to think the body rules
but I was misinformed.
It doesn’t matter if you have
three legs, you have one heart,
and that should be the focus of
your love, it is an art.
I love it when you walk around
like that, although it begs
the question: why would someone like
a woman with three legs.
YOU THINK IT IS A PHANTOM LIMB
YOU’RE SAYING WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH HIM
I LOSE IT WHEN THE LIGHTS GROW DIM
IMAGINE HER INSIDE A GYM
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3. |
Broken-Field Runner
04:31
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BROKEN FIELD RUNNER
I’ve broken bones and been arrested,
shacked up with a double-breasted
divorcee and walked away,
hallucinated in LA
and landed in a plane in London,
walked the desert with abandon.
Living is an odyssey
involving some immodesty,
I’ve hung out with a naked goddess
and defied the usual odds.
I don’t approve of foreign wars,
I never paid to have a whore,
I’ve read a book or two of Proust
and still remember getting juiced
in New York City, fallen asleep
in the Sierras, had a deep
debate with someone who’s no longer
living. Does it make you stronger
all of this, the repetition
adding to your reputation.
I have been around for half
a century and heard the laughter
of a woman in the dunes,
and when I telescoped the moon
it was enlightening. In fact
I don’t know how a man should act
and so I tend to improvise
and simplify and count the lies
or write a poem, analyze
the mass psychology of crowds
and turn up my guitar so loud
it doesn’t think. I’m spilling ink
inside of a behavioral sink,
the agents and the editors
are warped, but I’m a man of letters.
The cognizance, it never quits,
don’t blow your mind you need the circuits,
you don’t want to be uncouth,
I’ve seen the moonlight in vermouth,
and near encounters with Vermeer,
a composition like a rear-view
mirror and it tells the truth.
I also heard it in a phone booth
from a woman, a rejected
writer, I have been inspected
and neglected, redirected,
on a full moon I’m connected
and politically incorrect.
But I’m polite when I’m erect,
a man and what can you expect.
I never took apart an engine
looking for the origins
of love and hate, I had to wait
for hours in an altered state,
I’m nearly broke and vacillating,
others may be salivating
at the sight of socialites,
I’m more concerned with satellite
intelligence, it makes my night.
I broke up with another woman
and I’m drifting, it’s an omen
of the discontinual,
and life is full of mental cruelty
although I can’t complain,
I made it to the south of Spain.
With your intensity intact
and a foundation of the facts
a person can, as Faulkner said,
endure a lot of living. Dead men
walking don’t do much for me,
but I was never in the Army.
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4. |
Coming To
04:15
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COMING TO
People say I’m self-promoting,
others say that I’m show-boating,
but I get so tired of it,
everyone is full of shit
who doesn’t see the way I see it,
I’m for real, I guarantee it.
We’re all going through the motions,
motion is a magic potion,
fooling the authorities
and tooling the sonorities,
it even comes in handy when
I hang around sororities.
Come on, we have a lot in common,
but you’re nothing but a come-on,
so come on it ain’t communion.
Would you rather be a commie
in a coma, would you rather
be communing with the common
man. I’m common as they come
and I’m coming to a neighborhood
near you. I’m coming to…
I’m coming to… I’m coming to.
They say that I’m a hollow man,
another man without a plan,
who needs a plan when it’s my planet,
I own the world and you’re all in it.
Every morning I’m in orbit,
anything less is just too morbid.
I’m living large, I got the lips,
I don’t live in an eclipse,
I shoot my mouth off, go on trips
inside my head, reality slips
and rolls around and comes out here
and it becomes you, in one ear
and out the other, so’s your mother,
I just wish I had another.
Life is knocking me unconscious,
everyday the naked lunches
take their toll and now my soul
it wants to crawl into a hole.
You think I’m going to extremes,
you’ve never heard a woman scream.
I have although I won’t say where,
a woman pulling out her hair
and finally I said what’s wrong,
she said oh baby I love that song.
You think that we could get along,
I asked. Well what do you mean by long,
she said. I said, however long
before I’m out the door.
Come on, we have a lot in common,
but you’re nothing but a come-on,
so come on it ain’t communion.
Would you rather be a commie
in a coma, would you rather
be communing with the common
man. I’m common as they come
and I’m coming to a neighborhood
near you…
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5. |
Smokey
03:48
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SMOKEY
On top of my girlfriend
my head in a cloud,
the woman is smoking
no smoking allowed.
On top of my girlfriend
and we’re in love
the smoke is below me
and then it’s above.
On top of old Smokey
I’ve so much to learn,
while she is exhaling
I do a slow burn.
On top of old Smokey
obscuring the view
I said I can’t breathe,
she said who are you.
I said I’m your boyfriend,
I’ve been here all night,
she said if you hate it
then turn out the light.
So what are you smoking
it smells like a weed,
she said don’t ask questions
it’s not what I need
and if you love me
your love shouldn’t fail.
I said if you swallow
then I can inhale.
Then she proceeded
to blow a smoke ring,
it went around me
and I had to sing:
On top of my girlfriend
my head in a cloud
the woman is smoking
and smoking is allowed.
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6. |
Airplay
03:40
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AIR PLAY
I want air play, you want foreplay,
I want an airplane right away.
I hope you’re not a fake-out, I want to take off
all your clothes someday.
You’re a mystery, I want history
and biology.
I want anatomy, you want autonomy
and psychology.
I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO ANYWHERE I WANT YOU
HERE RIGHT BY ME
I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO ANYWHERE I WANT YOU
HERE RIGHT BY ME
HOLD ME, HOLD ME, ‘TIL I’M ALL OVER YOU
You’re pretentious, I’m unconscious,
you’re my daily dream.
You won’t listen, but I miss you,
nothing is what it seems.
I want to play guitar, you want a seminar,
you’ve got so much to learn.
I like beauty, you like your body,
but it makes me burn.
I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO ANYWHERE I WANT YOU
HERE RIGHT BY ME
I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO ANYWHERE I WANT YOU
HERE RIGHT BY ME
HOLD ME, HOLD ME, ‘TIL I’M ALL OVER YOU
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7. |
One Foot in the Grave
04:53
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ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE
A soldier is expendable and only twenty-one,
although he's feeling older with the shell-shock and a gun.
He has to follow orders and he's treated like a slave,
he goes into a firefight with one foot in the grave.
When you’re getting old it's like you are invisible,
insurance going through the roof, it’s inadvisable.
Women look right through you now, how should I behave?
I'm feeling like some kind of ghost with one foot in the grave.
The woman is addicted, she is constantly depressed,
no matter what a man is doing she is not impressed,
the alcohol is getting to her, some cannot be saved,
for most of her life the woman has had one foot in the grave.
The way some people drive around at 90 miles an hour,
a near-death experience but they like to feel the power.
Now there is a lot of wreckage in the home of the brave
where some have one foot on the gas and one foot in the grave.
The hobos and the homeless are sleeping on the ground
as if they're giving up the ghost, although they get around
and ride the rails. They're not all there, and moving in a daze,
they get a leg up on a freight with one foot in the grave.
If you're an existentialist it means you can't assume
you'll be around tomorrow so you're sitting in a room
and counting off the minutes, they’re coming like a wave,
the footage of infinity with one foot in the grave.
The prophet went around the country talking to the poor
until the men in power couldn't take it any more,
accusing him of propheteering and living in a cave.
They nailed him to a telephone pole with one foot in the grave.
A spider-web and vapor trail are floating in the air
and when a man is lost in thought he is barely there.
His feet are on the ground however, like they're made of clay
and those who're living close to the earth have one foot in the grave.
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8. |
I Want It
02:36
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I WANT IT
I want it, every night,
I want it, turn out the light,
I want it, because you’re mine.
I’ll flaunt it, all over town,
I’ll flaunt it, don’t bring me down,
I’ll flaunt it, because you’re mine.
I’ll haunt you, in the night,
I’ll haunt you, I think it’s right
if I haunt you, because you’re mine.
I’VE BEEN ALONE SO LONG
AND NOW YOU’RE HERE
I CAN’T WAIT ANOTHER YEAR
I CAN’T WRITE ANOTHER SONG
I want it, every night,
I want it, turn out the light,
I want it, because you’re mine.
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Steven Gray Connecticut
Steven Gray lived in San Francisco since before there were computers and people would communicate by sending smoke signals
with their cigarettes. He’s a writer & musician whose recordings have been episodic. He read his work all over town for years, but using 2020 vision he moved to the coastline of Connecticut where he stares at the fire. His email:
telepoetic77@hotmail.com (don't use this site)
... more
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