1. |
Paper Cup
04:30
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Paper Cup
Late Sunday night,
few cars on the road,
leaving New York,
going slow.
I gave her the wheel.
“Why?”
For I’d done it before:
a hundred and twenty red
lights turning green, green, green.
“Who keeps score?”
Not I.
But I like how these words add up,
it’s just a paper cup,
I got a strange lonely reason
for how it speaks to me.
And when this is through,
I’ll serve you too:
We Are Happy to Serve You.
-
The bells on the door
alert the loving virgin,
but this moment is hosted by Mariah,
the living daughter of a
nurse and a surgeon.
So shake out your dollars,
shake the glass from your collar,
for the voluptuopposite of
his ultimate breath,
the light between the guy we both knew
and death.
It’s just a paper cup,
I like how these words add up:
We Are Happy to Serve You.
-
Waves in the night
kiss against the shore, sing for
every bridge suspended
a couple lives upended,
for shed no tear does a big idea.
So I beg and I steal.
“Why?”
For I’ve done it before:
a hundred and twenty red
lights turning green, green, green.
“Who keeps score?”
Not I.
We are happy to serve you.
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2. |
Man Needs Cave
04:39
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Man Needs Cave
Kill the lights when
you leave,
this man, he don’t
want you to see.
He’s going to run, jump
and fall,
and run this heart
along his sleeve.
Every Neanderthal
needs a place that he can call
his home from those more highly evolved.
-
If he grins
and bares his teeth,
give him his millennium
to grieve,
far from Carlos
and Jesús,
where he’s the fittest
on the loose.
Man needs cave,
where he ain’t no slave,
where he can do no wrong.
This glyph represents,
this picture reads,
these figures run,
these colours bleed.
This engine needs the dark
to locate the spark,
and bring it in a lantern that’s true.
She’s all cute,
and she’s all fun.
She goes to forage
in the sun.
Her slender fingers
and her thumbs
give her the grip
to get things done.
A corner needs two walls,
a phone needs calls.
I don’t hear it ring.
And reflected
in her knife, is how science
saves a life,
and how its method
is betrayed, by sudden rattlesnakes and
earthquakes.
Every modern ape
needs to swing through the landscape
that was once wet and green.
This glyph represents,
this picture reads,
these figures run,
these colours bleed.
This engine needs the dark
to locate the spark,
and bring it in a lantern to you.
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3. |
Nadia Comaneci
03:45
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Democracy is Nadia Comaneci
In 1976, a fourteen-year-old Romanian gymnast earned seven perfect tens at the Montreal Summer Olympics. Nicolae Ceaușescu was the Cold War Romanian dictator from 1967 until he and his wife were executed on Christmas Day, 1989, a month after Nadia escaped the country, thus putting an end to my dream of helping her defect myself.
1985
The black dot above your lip,
the way you swing your little hips
around the bar.
Put on your heels,
put on your make-up,
slip on your hot pants,
and we’ll slip the guards.
All dressed up like just another
couple on the subway
to disguise our blood
run wild like the rain,
for if the son of the dictator
thinks we’re late now,
he’s got no idea how long he’ll be waiting.
I understand
that it’s not easy
to be the man who
wants to understand you.
Neither is it easy being free,
less I’m free for you.
Gymnast of my dreams,
let’s not go to the beach,
we were not meant to lay down in the sand.
Till that mean man
swings from a tree,
we work on our routines.
December 25, 1989
It’s not out of reach,
It’s just that
perfection’s resting,
you had your tens,
you will have them again.
Can’t trust them judges,
they’re old and senseless,
they’re beneath beauty,
but above the defenseless.
Gymnast of my dreams
makes it look easy,
Nadia in command.
When at last we see
on State TV, his vessel empty,
we’ll go dancing.
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4. |
Top of the Hour
04:28
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Top of the Hour
The evening is exponential. The morning has potential.
Forget what you have and shift to the edge,
dare to look over her side of the bed.
Stray from the centre, there where it’s warm,
the creak of the floor signals a storm.
A shimmering draft sails through the crack
to remind you of more as you drift to the door, and…
she can’t be gone,
your information is wrong.
-
With Columbus sailing the world,
beyond the horizon and better than girls,
or seven great wonders, there’s more to behold
than the limits to beauty imposed by the old.
Set your sights high and
read by the sky,
and the thoughts from your room,
they will dip and will swell, and
wherever you venture,
there you’ll be held, and...
she can’t be gone,
your information is wrong.
-
Like Lydia leaning and lit from within,
reflecting the busboy’s licorice skin,
then to Japan to be gently fanned,
and lovingly linger and wistfully land.
Like poems about blossoms
to remind me how awesome,
as you shift in your seat, and
I watch you eat, you tear me to
bits, piece by piece, and…
she can’t be gone,
your information is wrong,
just check and call back in an hour,
I’m at the top of a tower,
watching another fall…
-
And we’re just trying to get over you.
Send us a sign, we’ll get over you.
Standing on a distant shore.
-
Here where each morning is a day to be born,
you start with one life and you win even more,
and maybe you learn over time there’s a form,
when the moon blocks the sun and opens the door.
Sail past the myth of the man on the mount,
the tablets of stone that taught you to count,
and the myth of the wave that
in just one day…
There’s just no way to account for this!
She can’t be gone,
your information is wrong,
just check and call back in an hour,
I can’t let go of the power.
Please,
not
just
yet.
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5. |
A Thousand Words
02:25
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A Thousand Words
A thousand words,
a thousand dollars,
it ain’t worth it,
you in a picture,
in a locket,
like you’ve been framed,
like you’ve been collared,
put on a leash,
like you’ve been tamed.
A thousand words,
a distant holler,
it ain’t for me,
you in a picture,
in a wallet,
already saw it.
I don’t want you
in a portrait,
I want you free.
All you ladies, what you think of love?
You want to put it in a little tea cup.
Why you want cute when you can have handsome?
I see a photo, I see a ransom.
A bunch of words,
another phone call,
a royal highness,
a declaration,
a delegation, signaled with a bell.
Not every question
needs an answer,
not every partner
gets a dancer.
Too many words,
too many pictures,
too much to choose from,
too much filler,
too many itches,
not enough fingers,
I want a body,
I want a breather,
I want an invite,
I want to tease her.
All you ladies, what you think of love?
You think it wiggles like a flat-faced pug,
looking at photos all through the day,
making little idols to which you pray.
All you ladies, what you think of love?
You want to put it in a little tea cup.
Why you want cute when you can have handsome?
I see a photo, I see a ransom.
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6. |
Double Blue Lullaby
03:16
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7. |
Edge of a Smile
05:17
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Edge of a Smile
They say that I’m lonesome; the verdict is true.
The motive unknown is you.
They whisper a wreck should lay by the sea,
not drift with the wind on the street.
Say it’s just a secret; it ain’t a lie.
A question that’s cornered
in the edge of a smile.
All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men,
the tall lonesome pines and the moon.
And “I Fall to Pieces”, I sing it to them,
saving them all for who?
Say it’s just a secret; it ain’t a lie.
A question that’s cornered
in the edge of a smile.
You can’t measure lonesome,
to try is to lose.
It’s set like a table for two.
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Kurt Chaboyer Montreal, Québec
Montrealer Kurt Chaboyer came from Vancouver via NYC for good times and to make music.
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