"Natural To Me"

The secret of my life cannot be found
it's buried up in heaven
six feet in a cloud
the doctors want to pull and drink my blood
they think they finally found
the cure to love
I guess my DNA was spelled all wrong
well maybe the assembly line is too long
but when they broke the mold, I was still inside
they didn't even wait for the wax to dry

I came into this world, no hesitation
I took a firm stand 'cause the seats were taken
it just seemed sort of natural to me

I'm naked in this dream that I always have
and no one seems to mind does that sound bad?
it probably doesn't mean what I think it does
in fact I can't remember just what that was
it's open to interpretation now
I think this thing is bigger than me, somehow
a universal truth inside us all
they sell it in a booth at the down-town mall

you can analyze love until you hate it
simplicity itself is complicated
it just seemed sort of natural to me

if you're dying to change your life: you will
you would die anyway, if you just sat still
you could live your life in love, or in ignorance
that I've been living to kiss you,
if only my love made sense

the way I got it figured it works out fine
to get from A to B in a nice, straight line
you told me that it's good my faith is strong,
except that everything I ever believed is wrong
we'll really never know, unless you're right
do you want to find the snake in the garden tonight
victory is sweet and it's low in fat
I never had a chance to tell you that

high self-esteem is over-rated
and inner peace is boring if you contemplate it
it just seemed sort of natural to me

everything is yours, unless you want it
everybody's got a theory on it
it just seemed sort of natural to me

"Belly Button!"

belly button
I love your belly button
belly button
your belly button loves my
belly button
you love my belly button
you know what? so do I,
so do I

BELLY BUTTON
My belly button is clean, baby ain't nothing dir-ty abouuuut it
BELLY BUTTON
it took such good care of me
when I was in the womb,
that's where the food came through
BELLY BUTTON
so I take good care of it,
gently lifting out the lint, finger-polish with spit
ain't nothing dirty about it
nothing dirty about it
nothing shirty,
nothing flirty,
(maybe just a little bit)

belly button
I love your belly button
belly button
your belly button loves my
belly button
you love my belly button
you know what? so do I,
so do I

BELLY BUTTON
my belly button is pure - ain't nothing shameful about it
BELLY BUTTON
I'd like to share it with the world,
but I can't really wear a shirt that high
BELLY BUTTON
it's just this cool little dude
pink and happy in his place, got a good attitude

ain't nothing dirty about it
nothing dirty about it
nothing shirty,
nothing flirty,
(maybe just a little bit)


belly button
I love your belly button
belly button
your belly button loves my
belly button
you love my belly button
you know what? so do I,
so do I

you know what? so do I,
so do I

you know what? so do I!
So do I.

How old are you supposed to be?

How old are you supposed to be?
just interested, it's nothing but
a number, sure - but nonetheless
I can't even begin to guess:
you act like you were seventeen
you talk like you are thirty-one
you dress like you are twenty-three
(with class and taste beyond your years
and budgeted beyond one's means)
you reminisce as if, as if
you're middle-aged (or further, wow!)
you kiss as if you're younger, though:
say forty-five, and at a woman's sexual peak
you fuck as if
we're both just kids
and doing something dirty, sweet
and undiscovered, 'til just now
with you, and me
I can't make out
how old we are
I know we've both got good I.D.!
I saw them let you buy the beer
your other hand obscured the date
at least, it did from over here
your picture looked like you do now
which is to say: so fucking great

"If I must"

If I must lose my mind,
let it be by degrees
- better yet: by percents
of one hundred at least -
I don't want to sit waiting
for three sixty, no

as the horror grows in me
and on me
to know, and
to see creeping increments
carry me off.
Beyond my recall:
what I was, what I lost,
I can no longer grasp
comprehend,
or explain.
I can only sit huddled
in horror and pain,
and confusion: and shrink -
what is left of my "me"
in a corner that shrinks as we speak,
as I see
that what's left of my brain
is a tiny space left, that has cut
all that was of my mind

adrift

and it's gone past recall, can't chase after
can't see

and you won't let me be

no you won't let me be
you come into the tiniest space I have left.
and you reach with your hands and you grasp
and you press, and you do no damn good
because it can't be helped

but you won't let me go

you would lose even yourself.

And nearly do.

but
you won't let me be, through no end of pain, 'til I'm my self
again.

Finish saving my life
at the risk of your own, and then
tell me you can't
be my friend


If I must lose my mind:

let it be by degrees. All of them, in one snap
so you don't follow me,
drawn in slow by the horror of growing love lost
in the slipping away of the one
who you knew from their thoughts
to their heart and their soul -
you could not let them go seeing glimmers alive,
in control - if I must lose my mind:
let it be all at once, with no glimmers of hope
to confuse what you want.

Since I've lost you no matter what,
let's let it be

There's no need to have you bring me back
to me.

"As Some Were Sane"

the universe,
(a single singularity)
to ease its pain,
came into being
suddenly -
a big mistake,
as some were sayin'

invisible hour

it's time to sip a sweetly sick and bitter cold clear triangle
that's held upright on stem of glass, with stick of wood
through olive hole

straight through the red pimento man "hey!
there's a little guy in here!"
have 1 more? Yes, I can
for sure, I think

it's getting cool in here

black box with a bow

the top of my head
and the bottom of my heart
part ways all day, and I'm in the dark
'til I lay there in bed, decompress,
compare notes -
they were on the same page, each step
so close!

like the tip of my tongue,
and the back of my mind
have an absolute black out
deaf dumb blind
cut connection
between them
yet still it leaps out,
without anything between
to conduct my mouth

It's a mystery to me how the whole thing works.

let alone
any of it at all,
from what's first
to what governs in the end.
Let the whole thing be
well enough alone
it does its job

okay by me.

Paging Ozymandias

Of what you could once have accomplished in life,
just counting ten years -
you've rung less than a tithe.

Can you sit back and dream,
and imagine your skills, in a world where you gave a shit
what you could build? The sharper you'd be, the farther
you'd throw! The higher you'd stand on the shoulders of your
own colossal Bysshe-Shelley-esque self-monument

My works,

and despair -

I could mean, I have meant.
I could bend, I have bent

but my shoulders shrug most
of the burdens off left and off right, and I coast.

I was born more for hammocks than hammers
and tongs, though I sometimes wish
I had one more of me on
double-duty for two
me the master:
he slave

Somebody should give everything that God gave to me back

- back to everything,
everyone,

all.

I'm sorry. I owe an apology:

To that high self
who I am, who I
could have been, who
really truly deserved
to stand ever so tall.

I think that he could have been better than I

could ever have been.

He would not mind the fall.

whose exes have all had such virtuous names

Where Faith
failed, Hope came in,
restored

what Charity's lack
had left ignored

'til Grace, her good name
destroyed

left me to burn
in arms of Joy

to aspire

when I grow up
I'll want to be
the universe
- and I don't mean
that I'll "expand
my consciousness"
to some damn point
(until it fits)

hedge

I'll take that bet!
if I win, I'll collect
if I lose I'll be dead -
but I'll pay, I suspect.

for you

When people say "I'm a fool for you"
I don't think they mean it
literal and true
that they are a fool, and they're cool
with it. I don't think that they mean that,

but I do:

I mean at the end of all things, if you turn
and you say it was all some fun joke -
you were toying with me,
you played me like a tune
as you cracked me,
eggs for omelettes
sizzling to be consumed
(some things just have to be done)

- I'd be fine with that.
Based on what I'm feeling
right now, I would be
fine. The risk is acceptable, and
even the tradeoff
would be.

So great! So good. Best feeling
ever, out of a lifetime of feelings
severed. And yes, it would be well worth being made

a fool,
to be with you.

But of course, I know you'll
never do that, oh you'll
never do that, oh you'll
never do that, oh
you'll never do that.

the theist

is it any wonder why I believe in God?
step back as I step into light,
and conduct the orchestra: the universe
is a masterpiece of beauty and order
and everything in accord,

except me!

So do I believe

because it is necessary to believe? Need some infinite
dude? To explain the beauty and order? God,

no. I don't need you

to explain the beauty and order.
Seems perfectly explicable to me.
Did you create a numbskull? Shoot.
As if.

Do I need you to comfort me with solace and comfort,
and solace? Redundantly, over and over through life's throes
and woes? Well, no. Or as some one to plea to, to grant me my wish?

All such charity is,
of course,
appreciated! But probably: no. I don't need you
for that.

No.

Do I need

- No.

I don't need
God
for any of that.

I sure do love God,
though. How can you love
a being you don't believe in?

choice of words

lucky's alright. We're
blessed, I bet -
but if I lose,
I will never be
fortunate

get through somehow

In a hundred years, we'll all be dead
and it won't matter much how bad our head
or our heart or our body or soul aches now
- there's a point where we'll stop.
We'll get through somehow.

do without

we could do without all
of the things we need
if you could just get what you want

from me

and if I could just learn this one thing

from you

we could do without all
of the things we knew

patter & rapport

for my last trick, I will have played
the previous song
with my eyes closed

almost entirely. If my mouth strayed
too far from the microphone,
I hope

some kind hand gave my shoulder a shove.
I couldn't have noticed.
The moment took all

my attention, yes even with eyes squeezed shut,
it took all my attention and effort to keep
from meeting your gaze,

which would sure shut me up.

"the note"

guys
if I should commit suicide
It would not be the fault
of the one I wrote

I here call
(and permanently)
"BULL SHIT:
on myself
at the point
(and it's so remote)
(I hope)
where I say
I cannot go on"
and I have to live on, but I can't:
so I won't.
call a halt.
Call a toast:

Out of all of the days since I'm born,

if you

are the person I name,
on the note,

you have blessed me most.

move right

whine whine whine like an ambulance,
but no emergency
just flashing lights
his own mobile bad-mood discotheque -
high-speed,
cut you off
on the way to a wreck

countdown

I'm T-minus ten
but I don't know when
I'll be coming to earth
where you said you would wait

for I have been detained
at a quarter to sane
and my brain

will keep stalling 'til it's too late

time loss

you passed right through
and over it
it never touched you
though it flailed and grasped
you were far too quick
and too high as well
there was no 26th

when I saw you last

the day that you never had - I
lived through
still
I feel as though
I might have missed
more

than you.

birthright

my daddy stopped dancing when I was conceived
and my mom had faith
until I believed

I'll walk straight through the world with my song to sing,

let this cute little tune
ruin every thing

"coulrophilia"

your face drawn on with bold black lines
then colored in with purest white
outside, and brightest red within
- and royal blue,
around blue eyes

so all the people too far back
atop the furthest bleacher rows
can see your face as you smile wide,
and you go through
your stunts and throws

but in your throes,
your sticky kisses
leave such smears,
streaked pinks and grays
dear, you're a mess! Yet anyone
could see that smile

from miles away

what if I told you

what if I told you
in words that were so perfect
that they betrayed every feeling I had

for you

to you

not
what I would want to say,
or what I would want you to believe -
but all of it, with everything bad! all
my doubts, and my certainties: all
the thoughts that scream, oh! God,
hell, this
could not work out anyway.

it's too far to reach

could it?


What if I said

all of it. All of that. All
the bad, swimming underneath
plus all the ways that you make me feel
better than I've ever been, but not
better than I am

all the ways that I want you, too

and the ways that I wish you were mine,
despite knowing you almost certainly don't deserve
the kind of crap you'd be in for,

if only I could tell
you
in such perfect words
that you would somehow know in an instant,
and be sure.

I don't even know what you'd be sure of.

You would be sure
of everything
that those words add up to.

You would take it all in, and tell what it's worth:
every side of my mind, where you're concerned

you would know what to put last
and what comes first

do proselytize

If I had to live in heaven forever,
I would find a way to make it as much like earth
as the materials would allow

I am no Jehovah's Witness, but
I have a certain sympathy for how they want the earth to go on
forever, in place of Heaven,
and call it The Kingdom.

If I could only live forever, right here,
as I've known it - and me in my body,
as I've known it, why

I'd need just one woman beside me
and I know who she is.

But if she's hearing this -
she thinks it's a lie

comfy

I wish to make good use of you
to catch these scattered pieces up
and stitch these half-lost half-lived bits
into a crazy quilt
that fits

fishers

The wider one casts one's net, one gets
all the fish too big to swim through the holes
but we've each only got just so much rope. So, we know
the bigger we weave,

the more we let go

A penance,

In atonement for all of the times I was right
I should spend at least half of the rest of my life
proving all of you people who doubt yourselves wrong
for believing in me, when you knew I was strong
but you should have believed in yourselves then, in spite
of how strong I had seemed, in what I knew was right.
For each time that you chose to cave in to my rant,
I should spend my life proving you right, but
I can't.

to some freaks

dear funk freaks, please keep on dancin'
dear sex freaks love the one you're romancin'
dear human rights freaks keep keeping me on top
dear democracy freaks let your voice not stop
dear food freaks please give me pointers where to eat
dear alcohol freaks let your demons take a seat
as I buy them all a drink, I will pick up the tab
freak on everything that's good
'cause that shit is not bad

dear extremacy freaks, please, you could be scaled back
dear supremacy freaks, well, you know you're all that
but humility freaks well, take notches up a couple, cuz -
'cause you are worth as much as any of the aforementioned
was.

Believe you're in love.

Oh, no, you...
you're not sure.
You know how you feel,
you just don't know how you should.

So you're left
self-confused.
You should try this test -
there's nothing to lose:

Think of one name
(the one you're thinking of),
and use it to complete a three-word sentence
that starts:
"I love"

Then say it out loud,
just give it all that you've got.
Say it with some meaning!
Say it with some feeling!
- does it make you happy or not?

'Cause you can't believe you're in love
if you're not in love.
No you can't believe you're in love,
if you're not in love.

It's as simple as that -
an easy read.
Don't try to trick yourself,
you'll only succeed.

There's a million things
to complicate...
but that's not what you wanted to know.
They can all wait -

just think of one thing:
and do you want it the most?
If it isn't worth it, babe!
You don't deserve it. Go.
Let it go. Let it go.

Just let that thought sink in.
Does it hurt worse than death?
Then maybe reconsider
what you need to give, or admit
you don't know best.

'Cause you can't believe you're in love
if you're not in love.
No you can't believe you're in love,
if you're not in love.
Can't believe you're in love -
if you're not in love.
No you can't believe you're in love,
if you're not
- in love.

Think of one name
(the one you're thinking of),
and use it to complete a three-word sentence
that starts:
"I love"

Then say it out loud,
just give it all that you've got.
Say it with some meaning.
say it with some feeling:

Does it make you happy or not!