pictures of success

build your own television receiver
staying home can't be that bad for me
cause i'm not scared
but i'd like some extra spare time
easily earn me big money

i'm a modern girl but i fold in half so easily
when i put myself in the picture of success
i could learn world trade
or try to map the ocean

when you're dead
in hospitals and freeways
when you're dead
in resting homes and clinics
when you're dead
it must be nice to finish
when you're dead

i've had it with you
and mexico can fucking wait
and all of those french films about trains
cause i'm not scared
but i'd like some extra spare time
i'm not scared
but the bills keep changing colors

when you're dead
in hospitals and freeways
when you're dead
in dress shirts and neckties
when you're dead
in apartments and on beaches
when you're dead

they say california is a recipe for a black hole
and i say i've got my best shoes on
i'm ready to go

these are times that can't be weathered and
we have never been back there since then

courage

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the deaths of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

Gypsy

You come from far away
With pictures in your eyes
Of coffeeshops and morning streets
In the blue and silent sunrise
But night is the cathedral
Where we recognized the sign
We strangers know each other now
As part of the whole design

Oh, hold me like a baby
That will not fall asleep
Curl me up inside you
And let me hear you through the heat

You are the jester of this courtyard
With a smile like a girl's
Distracted by the women
With the dimples and the curls
By the pretty and the mischievous
By the timid and the blessed
By the blowing skirts of ladies
Who promise to gather you to their breast

Oh, hold me like a baby
That will not fall asleep
Curl me up inside you
And let me hear you through the heat

You have hands of raining water
And that earring in your ear
The wisdom on your face
Denies the number of your years
With the fingers of the potter
And the laughing tale of the fool
The arranger of disorder
With your strange and simple rules
Yes now Ive met me another spinner
Of strange and gauzy threads
With a long and slender body
And a bump upon the head

Oh, hold me like a baby
That will not fall asleep
Curl me up inside you
And let me hear you through the heat

With a long and slender body
And the sweetest softest hands
And well blow away forever soon
And go on to different lands
And please do not ever look for me
But with me you will stay
And you will hear yourself in song
Blowing by one day

But now, hold me like a baby
That will not fall asleep
Curl me up inside you
And let me hear you through the heat

those anarcho punks are mysterious...

we're all presidents, we're all congressmen, we're all cops in waiting, we are the workers of the world, there is the elite and the dispossessed, it's only about survival--who has the skill to play the game for what it's worth, and reach an obscure kind of perfection. let's try and keep as much emotion out of this as possible. let's try not to remember any names. we'll do it for a country, for a people, for a moral vision. united we'll make them remember our history. or how we'd like to be told. how we like to be told. we rock (as in the act of, not the state of being) because it's us against them we found our own reasons to sing, and it's so much less confusing when lines are drawn like that. when people are either consumers or revolutionaries, enemies or friends. hanging onto the fringes of the cogs in the system. it's just about knowing where everyone stands. all of the sudden people start talking about guns, talking like they're going to war. cause they found something to die for. start taking back what they stole, sure beats every other option. but does it make a difference how we get it? well do you really fucking get it?

a rasp in my throat

I posit that raspberries are the best fruit to put in yogurt, as they seem to mostly come stem-free. And they are so soft and other-worldly-looking, especially with those random little hairs.