Puddle Dive

names and dates and times

i know so many white people
i mean where do i start
the trouble with white people
is you just can’t tell them apart
i’m so bad with names
and dates and times
but i’m big on faces
that is except for mine
i believe you when you tell me
that we’ve met before
but this time you got my interest
this time you got the floor
why don’t you go and tell me
something i don’t already know
give me something to remember
you by when i go
i eat too much i laugh too long
maybe i’ll like too much of you
when i’m gone
let’s go over to the window
and sit in the neon light
let’s go out walking
you know it’s garbage night
let’s go down to the east river
and throw something in
something we can’t live without
then let’s start again
the more you talk
the more i get
the sense of something
that hasn’t happened yet
the more you talk
the more i want to know
the way i’ll remember you
when i go
i eat too much
i laugh too long
maybe i’ll like too much
of you when i’m gone
i am so many white people
i mean where do i start
i got lots of personalities
i just can’t tell them apart
and i never remember anything
except for those things
that i never forget
there’s no in between
i’m big on your face
yeah it’s big in my mind
you’re like the rest
of the human race
you are one of a kind

anyday

i will lean into you
you can be the wind
i will open my mouth
and you can come
rushing in
you can rush in so hard
and make it so i
can’t breath
i breath too much
anyway
i can do that anyday
i just wish i knew
who you were
i wish you’d
make yourself known
you probably don’t realize
i’m her
the woman you want
to call home
i’ll keep my ear to the wall
i’ll keep my eye on the door
cause i’ve heard all
my own jokes
and they’re just not funny
anymore
i laugh too much anyway
i can do that anyday
have you ever been bent
or pulled
have you ever been played
like strings
if i could see you
i could strum you
i could break you
make you sing
but i guess you can’t really
see the wind
it just comes in and fills the space
and every time something moves
you think that you have
seen its face
and i’ve always got my guitar
to play
but i can do that anyday
4th of july

you gotta have
the right tools
for every job
so invite myself in
through the hole
in the fence
i am tripping thru
the junkyard scanning over the piles
the thin cats raise their skin
in defense
i know he’s watching me
i can see him thru the
cracks
his eyes are small
and shy on my back
he says his name
is jason
he lives in the last
trailer on the right
he tells me he’ll be
7 on the 4th of july
only the people
who live here
know the name
of this place
my path thru iowa
would be hard to
trace
all the adults
in this town
try not to frown
when i walk by
but jason smiled
at me he met my eye
he met my eye
he don’t ask me
where i’m from
or why i came
here alone
we all go looking
for paradise
then we go back home
we cut out the small talk
and got right to the way things are
he showed me his squirrel skull
i told him i locked myself
out of my car
so there goes the only friend
i have in iowa
his hand flapping behind him
waving goodbye
his name is jason
he lives on the last
trailer on the right
and he’ll be 7
on the 4th of july

willing to fight

the windows of my soul are made of one way glass
don’t bother looking into my eyes if there’s something you want
to know just ask
i got a dead bolt stroll
where i’m going is clear
i won’t wait for you
to wonder
i’ll just tell you why
i’m here
‘cause i know the
biggest crime
is to just throw
up your hands
say this has nothing
to do with me
i just want to live
as comfortably
as i can
you got to look outside
your eyes
you got to think outside
your brain
you got to walk outside
your life
to where the neighborhood
changes tell me
who’s your boogie man
that’s who i will be
you don’t have to like me
for who i am but we’ll see
what you’re made of by
what you make of me
i think it’s absurd that you think i
am the derelict daughter
i fight fire with words
words are hotter than flames
words are wetter than water
i got friends all over this country
i got friends in other countries too
i got friends i haven’t met yet
i got friends i never new
i got lovers who’s eyes
i’ve only seen at a glance
i got strangers
for great grandchildren
i got strangers for ancestors
i was a long time coming i’ll be a
long time gone
you got your whole life to do something
and that’s not very long
so why don’t you give me a call
when you decide you’re willing to fight
for what you think is real
for what you think is right

egos like hairdos

i saw on the poster
that my name was printed
just a little bit smaller
i can tell you need to stand
just a little bit taller
no one ever talks about it
but no one can disguise
the cloud of competition
that is hanging behind their eyes
there’s more bad blood
in this bar
than there is beer
it’s subtle but it still sucks
and i want out of here
we got egos like hairdos
they’re different every day
depending on how we slept
the night before
depending on the demons
that are at our door
they told me you wanted
to play last
that every profession has a system of castes
so they reverse the order that we go on
then you stand at the bar and you
talk through my songs
we got egos like hairdos they’re different
every day depending on how we slept
the night before
depending on the demons that are at our door
everyone loves the underdog
but no one wants to be him
they say the press will fatten you up
and then they’ll dig their teeth in
it’s cool to discover someone
it’s hard to support them everyone is playing life
like it is some stupid sport
we got egos like hairdos they’re different every day
depending on how we slept the night before
depending on the demons
that are at our door
i got my kitchen stocked, i got my door unlocked
there ain’t no demons here and i don’t really care
whose name is printed in bigger type
i live in a world full of hope
not a world full of hype
i ain’t no saint i help
myself to what i need
but i help other people too
you know i sleep soundly

back around

my lipstick jumped ship
to a styrofoam cup
the coffee gone
the conversation strong
all i got left to give
baby is up
but sentiments like
shadows grow long
guess i gotta go
don’t get up don’t cry
it’s really very simple
just kiss my cheek
and say goodbye
i never really
go anywhere anyway
i just pass thru
from time to time
bye bye baby
baby bye bye
maybe i’ll see you
next time i’m in town
maybe when i’m thru
falling off the face
of the earth
i’ll come back around
you know i’d love
to come back around
ten hours of driving
will make your mind
kind of numb
but it’s better than
ten dollars an hour
slammin’ a hammer on my thumb
and it’s better than five dollars an hour
selling people shit i wouldn’t buy myself
at least at the end of the day
i’m always somewhere else
bye bye baby baby bye bye
maybe i’ll see you next time

i’m in town
maybe when i’m thru falling off
the face of the earth
i’ll come back around
you know i’d love to come
back around  

blood in the boardroom

sitting in the boardroom
the i’m so bored room
listening to the suits
talk about their world
they can make straight lines out of almost anything
except for the line of my upper lip when it curls
dressed in my best greasy skin and squinty eyes
i’m the only part of summer that made it inside
in the air-conditioned building decorated with a corporate flair
i wonder can these boys smell me bleeding thru my underwear
there’s men wearing the blood of the woman they love
there’s white wearing the blood of the brown
but every woman learns how to bleed from the moon
and we bleed to renew life every time it’s cut down
i got my vertebrae all stacked up high as they can go
but i still feel myself sliding from the earth that i know
so i excuse myself and leave the room
saying my period came early but it’s not a minute too soon
i go and find the only other woman on the floor
it’s the secretary sitting at the desk by the door
i ask her if she’s got a tampon i can use
she says oh honey what a hassle for you sure i do you know i do
i say it ain’t no hassle no it ain’t no mess
right now it’s the only power that i possess
these businessmen got the money
they got the instruments of death
but i can make life i can make breath
sitting in the boardroom
the i’m so bored room
listening to the suits talk about their world
i didn’t really have much to say the whole time i was there
so i just left a big brown blood stain on their white chair

born a lion

i’m not hurting anyone
i’m just telling my own truth
if there
if there is something wrong
then maybe
maybe there’s something wrong with you
what’s the big deal, get over it, relax
just ‘cause i do up in your face what other people
do behind you back
why we all gotta look, why we all gotta act the same
i say if your born a lion don’t bother trying to act tame
everything i do i do for the first time
i got a big crush on you, it is crushing my mind
can i follow you home and listen to you think
leave my lip prints on your cups
leave my hairs in your sink
they think i’m out there
out there living on
the fringe
what if this is
my world
and i invited
them in
they should
try living by
my rules for a day
nobody would die
and there’d be lots
of stuff to say
i’m not hurting
anyone no
i’m not hurting anyone

my IQ

when i was 4 years old they
tried to test my i.q.
they showed me this picture
of 3 oranges and a pear
they asked me which one
is different and does not
belong
they taught me different
is wrong
but when i was 13 years old
i woke up one morning
thighs covered in blood
like a war like a warning
that i live in a breakable
takable body
an ever-increasingly valuable
body
that a woman had come
in the night
to replace me
deface me   
see...
my body is borrowed
yeah i got it on loan
for the time in between
my mom and some maggots
i don’t need anyone to
hold me i can
hold my own
i got highways for stretch marks
see where i’ve grown
i sing sometimes
like my life is at stake
‘cause you’re only as loud
as the noises you make
i’m learning to laugh
as loud as i can listen
‘cause silence is violence
in women and poor people
if more people were screaming
then i could relax
but a good brain ain’t diddly
if you don’t have the facts
we live in a breakable
takable world
an ever available possible
world
and we can make music
like we can make do
genius is in a backbeat
backseat to nothing
if you’re dancing
especially something
stupid like i.q.
for every lie i unlearn
i learn something new
i sing sometimes for
the war that i fight
‘cause every tool is a
weapon
if you hold it
right

used to you

i’m still here because
i got nothing else to do
you’re an asshole but i’m
getting used to you
i like the fact that you
talk incessantly
i got a thing for assholes
who tell good stories
i think that drinking
is the only thing that you do right
you’re gonna self destruct
i think that’s what i like
you like me so you try and make me
feel like shit
i think it’s kind of funny yeah
i kind of enjoy it
if you’re gonna do it, overdo it
that’s how you know you’re alive
go ahead, take yourself a coma nap
take a puddle dive
you said, this is my bedroom window
you said, this is my view
you said, lie down here with me
and see the things that i do
like you were trying to tell me something
about the way you live
like you would give me something
if you had something to give
and for all your talk you don’t say
much that’s real
i think i know more than you
about the way you feel
i understand your anger and your apathy
i think if i was you, you are just who i’d be
i’m still here because
i got nothing else to do
you’re an asshole but i’m getting used to you
i could love you
yeah i’ve entertained the thought
but i could never like you
so i guess i’d better not

pick yer nose

how come i can pick my ears
but not my nose
who made that rule anyway
how come you say that’s
the way it is
that’s just the way it goes
why don’t you decide for yourself
what you can do
and what you can say
how come i can pick my friends
but not my enemies
what is it about me that offends
what is it about me
you know i’m only five foot two
and i’m giggly wiggly
tell me again what did i do
why are you scared of me
i fight with love
and i laugh with rage
you gotta live light enough
to see the humor
and long enough
to see some change
i think shy is boring
i think depressed is too
i think pretty is nice
but i’d rather see something new
all those plastic people
got their plastic surgery
but we got a big big beautiful
we got it for free
who you gonna be
if you can’t be yourself
you can’t get it from t.v.
you can’t force it on
anybody else
you know they come to clear cut
they come to stripe mine
they come for some of my big but my big brain or just a little time
they wanna take me home to dinner
they think i’m a bitch if i don’t go
seems like the people who actually like me don’t allow me to say no
your idea of a conversation is the third degree
i don’t really know you and i don’t really wanna talk about me
‘cause i’m not going to pretend that i don’t pick my nose
that’s just the way it is my friends
that’s just the way it goes
this is who i am what i do and what i say
if you like it let it be
if you don’t please do the same
i fight with love i laugh with rage
you gotta live light enough to see the humor and long enough to see
some change

god’s country

state trooper  thinks i drive
too fast
pulled me over to tell me so
i say out here on the prairie
any speed is too slow
i miss brooklyn i miss my crew
let’s start over i missed my cue
guess i forgot
who i was talking to
i should have recognized
that fierce look in his eyes
i’ve seen it in my mirror
so many times
he’s gonna put two
cents in
‘cause he’s got a gun
but i’m gonna put in three
‘cause history owes me one
guess i came out here
to see some stuff
for myself
i mean why leave the telling
up to everybody else
this may be god’s country
but this is my country too
move over mr. holiness
let the little people thru
thank you
for serving and protecting
the likes of me
thanks for the ticket
now can i leave
you know i have left
everywhere that i have
ever been
i don’t really recommend
it though
not like anybody asked me

maybe you and i
will meet again  some day
i’ve been known to
come down this road
maybe it’s destiny
and then again
maybe not, i don’t know