Arthur Schopenhauer

I could sit here and nod
and look like I care
about what you're saying

can you sleep with that?

and if I fall at this point

will you still pick me up?

shall we dance in the living room again

maybe baby can we could walk danzig town

or head into berlin for the winter

but what's the point

throwing emotion

at something that's dead

I'm heading to the zoo

where universal compassion, even for the chimps

is the only guarantee of morality

and baby I lost all my morals

hanging out with you,

the girl without compassion

White Sugar

I know you're totally pissed when you cry
and somewhere in the back woods,
is a forgotten tree house

And once there was a desk
full of maps, pictures, your degrees and your plans
and now it's all in a storage locker somewhere in this town

I can see the alcohol in you hum
don't cry baby, 
there's still time


we'll find that treehouse and desk
your degrees and your plans
if it's the last thing we do

pop song

A clean snow fall.
As I walk across the parking lot towards my car,
the lone streetlight flickers off.

I make a wish.
I wish that this snow will never stop.
It buries everything deep.

And soon my footprints will disappear,
the only thing that remains
is a memory of where I've been.

I hit the light.
I turn left.
The radio chants another pop song.

You're just a memory my phantom friend
left behind with the tire tracks.
What's your name again?

the western front

driving at two am
with a bottle of rye in between my legs,
with another in reserve in the back seat,
without a mad mother in sight.

and with a granddaddy who watched his brother die at ypres,
and a daddy who bombed the rhine until it shone in the dark,
there's no king or empire with me tonight,
it's all cheap sentiment that ends in some poor bastards death.

all I have is a buzz that wishes that it would never end,
the apostle paul always travels with me,
as he does with those fleeing death in the suburbs of kabul,
from those who say they're there to liberate them

the western front is always around us and moving in

me, you and trois-rivières

We were walking this town
on a another snowy night
and she said
your lies are so big
they have suburbs of their own
and sub divisions full of fibs
you need a transit plan,
to simply get around

so I said
you're an asshole in a bra
and you're becoming the poster girl of your mom
to uptight to get the punchlines
and to lost in the joke
that is your bullet point life plan

we walked past a church
were jesus saves
and jesus bent down
and whispered into my ear
"go ahead and kiss her, you don't know what your missing"

so I did and she said
you're not as clever as mark twain
but you're easy on the eyes
so give me another kiss
and tell me some more tall tales

well there was a corn field near trois-rivières
that used to sing in the rain
and now a box mall stands on the spot
and shits out carbon by the parts per million
crazy enough, its where I fell in love with you

you in a brown coat

It may be a mid sized town
but it's too small a core of government cubicles
centrally located,
downtown,
not to walk past her time to time,
she were walking down bank street,
her coat was brown,
she may have been thinking about lipstick
or she could have been pondering a new place to eat lunch,
so I hid in a crowd on a corner,
next to a pharmacy,
waiting for the light to change,
it was raining
and I became another face
in another grey afternoon
but I know you saw me
you took a hard long look
I would have said something
but you've made it clear
so I crossed with the light
and had to laugh to myself
four years of naive sentiment
a complete metal breakdown
three years of chemical imbalance

two hard years of recovery
a very destroyed reputation
and a lifetime of recovery for being the fool

this is not a love song

I want to thank randy newman
for making that clear
I want to thank him
for simply stating the facts

It was pretty bright
up on the eddy street bridge
and when the cards were dealt
someone had to lose and someone had to jump

I used to run red lights
trying to get arrested
I pictured an angry mother wagging her finger
saying where's a cop when you need one

jesus spoke softly to me
never with malice or judgment
laying the foundation of redemption and rebirth
never a condemning word

I'm running now
I'm getting clean now
and standing outside this bar
wishing I could go in and quickly down a few

but the chemicals have been balanced
and I find myself swimming to the rescue boat
a decent lady offers me a cup of tea
I think this is ain't bad this ain't bad