Aliens
-
Meet me at the coastline
Take my reservations on holiday
Don’t forget the lotion
Dear i’m looking ghostly and it’s only may
Summer tears and sandalwood
Loved you in the way I could
Loved you in the way I could
Sorry that it wasn’t good for you
You were pressed for more time
Never understood i was standing there
Interactive aliens
Born and raised on different displays of care
Summer tears and sandalwood
Loved you in the way I could
I don’t think i’m any good
I don’t think i’m any good for you
-
Baking in the heat of a teen sun
Summers’ gonna bleed me dry if I
leave this street let the colors run
I don’t need a shoulder,
I just wanna peek at what’s to come
Caught it in my throat and i could breathe for once
I’ll depart when the park is overrun
Bad faith in your good graces
Green grass seems miles away
and yet you take up all the public places
Sparrow up ahead like a sinew
Fighting from a hunters bite in
the wide set eyes it was born to
I don’t need a shock to the system,
I just wanna clear clear view
Caught it in my throat that i don’t need you
i’ll depart when the park is overrun
open heart baby i’m not here for fun
How hollow, only i could know
. . .
You’re wearing off, you’re wearing off on me
You’re wearing off, on and off on me
-
I don’t wanna give you all of me all of me
Sipping cola at the bar
Feed your sugar loaded greed for a part of me
Evolution of a scar
Pedestal to stand or fall from
Never step in one direction
Terrified to speak my mind
for fear I'll crumble
Hard time remembering dreams
you say i’m what you’ve been needing
Cannon ball to ease my ego
I’m not here to dive
I don’t wanna fill the soda cup any more
Tuck you in or pick a fight
You can walk me down the block to the corner store
Just don’t hold me to the light
Pedestal to stand or fall from
Never step in one direction
Terrified to speak my mind
for fear I'll crumble
fear i’ll crumble
-
sips her gin and tonic in panic as if it’s the
last she’ll taste of juniper forevermore
spying on neighbors across the way
as daylight wanes from the penthouse floor
alone in the city
is never alone really
And Things
-
In a short lived stolen moment
between coming from and going
On the island of Manhattan
where the strangest things can happen
You’ll be sitting sipping coffee looking pretty as always
And the sight of you will stop me in my tracks
Oh Samantha, I had plans but
Never knew that needed saying
Oh Samantha, I wrote anthems
Just to drown the sound of waiting
Well I’ll ask about your work and you’ll ask me how my tours been
And we’ll toss those softball questions for a while
But too many years divided can only lead to forced politeness
Check your watch and leave me with a smile
Oh Samantha, I had plans but
Never knew that needed saying
Oh Samantha, I wrote anthems
Just to drown the sound
No need to be forthright
Seem you had a nice life, and I did too
But in the back of my mind
In another timeline
I had a better one with you
Samantha, I had plans but
Never knew that needed saying
Oh Samantha, I wrote anthems
Just to drown the sound
Just to drown the sound
-
We stand at South Station,
crossed arms and forced conversation
Neither wanting to claim blame for some
altercation I can’t reclaim, but we talk
Yeah we talk, yeah we talk
Cause a bitter fairwell’s bad luck
We argue with crimson violet
Hot stares and cold powered silence
I guess that’s our way, you and me
Tender hearts, temper fits,
And that’s the way it’ll be
Unless we try and change it
But I hate, yeah I hate
How it makes me still feel like a kid
. . . .
At the station I think of Scarlett
An old friend from the farmers market, she’s
encyclopedic on greenery and seedlings and
Likes lots of people but keeps to herself after
Spending the year by a hospital bed and now
Scarlett has no one to argue with
Scarlett has no one to argue with
Scarlett has no one to argue with so I
Start to lose taste for our arguments,
Knowing Scarlett has no one to argue with
-
Just a small child with green eyes
And a complicated love for the spotlight
Only wanting it if you look just right
And never thinking you do
Used to sing out in grade school
Till the other graders made you feel uncool
Wasn’t very faithful to the golden rule
It doesn’t matter either way now
Count your cost, quit your dreaming
Now that Alexandra’s screaming
She saw it from so far off and still
Somehow you’re lost and beaten down
Where’d you find that scathing silence
Addiction to a fiction of self-reliance
Saying “you can’t make it till then”
Will you ever write a wishlist in ballpoint pen?
Say you’re wounded when the truth is
That’s a bead along a string of excuses
You meet her in the bathroom each time
The villain and the victim on either side
Count your cost, quit your dreaming
Now that Alexandra’s screaming
She saw it from so far off and still
Somehow you’re lost and beaten down
Alexandra’s screaming now
Fracture’s in the steps peak out
To keep you from your temple
When will it get simple
Tell me it gets simple
-
Dust on the steeple, warry-eyed people
Filling the streets with dreams and mistakes
City life leaves you wearied and green too
Nobody needs you but everyone takes
Day in, day out
Signs say “stay in,” “stay out”
John and Cece make it look easy
Bread in the morning and songs in the evening
Up in the hills where the air gets lighter
And the sounds of the freeway taste
Like the waves they catch on weekends
I keep their home fit while they’re away
watering their children
Finding magic hidden everyday
in love notes they’ve written
Soon they’ll head back west for summer
I’ll be gone by their return, hanging daisies on
Whatever door I next call mine
A lesson learned in taking time
John and Cece make it look easy
Pack in the wagon and drive to the beach and
Out where the sea sways to meet the horizon
The same glisten they find in each other's eyes and think isn’t this something
Isn’t this paradise
All we need’s this sunset and guitar
The height of luxury is sitting where we are
-
New York, you’re bad to me
You spend my money and my energy
Change my plans without apology
When nothing’s running express
New York, you don’t treat me right
Cars and sirens keep me up each night
And your diamond studded pavement’s a trick of the light
Ooh, you put my love to the test
I’m tied up like a pretzel
Trying to be what I’m not
You should make me feel special
But I’m just a drop in your pot
Someday I’ll settle down
With some sweeter, cleaner, greener town
And I won’t mind having all that space around
But you’ll be hard to forget
I’m tied up like a pretzel
Trying to be what I’m not
You should make me feel special
But these sorry-starry eyes are on every city block
Someday I’ll settle down
With some sweeter, cleaner, greener town
And I’ll make my waves while all your new lovers drown
And the train keeps running and the world spins round
But something will be missing it’s true
Oh New York there’s no getting over you
Oh New York there’s no getting over you
-
Late afternoons on miracle mile
Let’s take a break from the day for a while
You grab your skateboard, and I’ll do my best
To keep up on my own two feet
Smile at the neighbors, smell all the flowers
Point out the houses much nicer than ours
“We’ll get there someday” you shout back my way
Tracing waves down the street
Yesterday’s troubles can rest in our room
The Ana’s are out and the Anda’s in bloom
Tell mom and papa we’re gonna be fine
Old sunny skies can’t be far down the line
Every day we can greet with a smile is a miracle
-
Through the picture window, winter falls
We tiptoe out as adventure calls
Breyer horse collection, dollhouse chairs
Packed now somewhere
Me and my good friend down the road
We thought our parents would grow old together
There it is, memories we bend to fix in boxes
The dogwood days have come to end
Leave the kitchen light on, one more night
We crowd the island like olden times
Through the picture window, life in limbo
Now that it’s only a launching site
Old tennis rackets and winter coats
Tricolored ribbons and birthday notes
I’ve got a feeling this is only the beginning
There it is, memories we bend
To fix in boxes and never find again
The dogwood days have come to end
To end
-
Every now and then I miss when you were mine
Something extra lonely ‘bout the evening time
And we had lots of problems, but I only
think about those while the sun shines
I went through deleting your old messages
Call it masochism call it cleanliness, and
I almost forgot how much you
Cared before you stopped
I was kind then I was not
Guess we both got what we got
But I made good on my plans, man
Up in Beachwood Canyon
New years of nineteen I couldn’t help myself
You were getting drunk while I kissed someone else
We changed the rules so many times and both lost sight
Of what was feeling forced and what was feeling right
But I made good on my plans, man
Up in Beachwood Canyon
Some days I imagine you a passer by the
Less I know the better of your present life
And you deserve someone who eats up
All your cheesy dance moves
I know, you know I tried
But I made good on my plans, man
Up in Beachwood Canyon
Up in Beachwood Canyon
Early Twenty Something
early twenty-something, cooler from afar
i miss standing tip-toed, reaching for the cookie jar
i didn’t have the words then for searchin’ always searchin’
early twenty-something, apathy is sexy
working on my poker face, i won’t smile till you let me
im undermeditated, overmedicated
sleeping pills cause
sleeping just feels
wasteful and i hate it
take it easy
troubador’s a pipe-dream, im more like a salesmen
making shiny things and begging folks to listen
nomadder where the work ends, searchin’ always searchin’
early twenty-something, i want something different
places that’ll change me, special friends worth missin’
im undermeditated, overmedicated
sleeping pills cause
sleeping just feels
wasteful and i hate it
take it easy
i think im obsessed
with a version of myself
that i still haven’t met
i only see her in passing
i only see her in passing
. . . . .