Sunday, December 16, 2007

Favorite Poems Today


Thought I'd share- hopefully you've heard the readings...
I've been in a very melancholy, dark mood all week. And these and dancing has been the only thing making me light.

(This one is dedicated to Adam and Danny- remembering a certain ocean suicide I wished for and never got a few years ago...)


The Ocean Doesn't Want Me Today
By Tom Waits

The ocean doesnt want me today
But Ill be back tomorrow to play
And the strangles will take me
Down deep in their brine
The mischievous braingels
Down into the endless blue wine
Ill open my head and let out
All of my time
Id love to go drowning
And to stay and to stay
But the ocean doesnt want me today
Ill go in up to here
It cant possibly hurt
All they will find is my beer
And my shirt
A rip tide is raging
And the life guard is away
But the ocean doesnt want me today
The ocean doesnt want me today

(This one is dedicated to Tim and our soaring Wings of Desire... and maybe Skippy too, since I can't seperate Skippy from Circuses- for which I will forever be simultaneously grateful and irritated... and to the word "spittle")

Circus
By Tom Waits

We put up our tent on a dark
Green knoll, outside of town by
The train tracks and a seagull dump
Topping the bill was Horse Face Ethel
And her 'Marvellous Pigs In Satin'

We pounded our stakes in the ground
All powder brown
And the branches spread like scary
Fingers reaching
We were in a pasture outside Kankakee

And One Eyed Myra, the queen of
The galley who trained the
Ostrich and the camels
She looked at me squinty with her
One good eye in a Roy Orbison
T-shirt as she bottle fed
An orangutan named Tripod

And then there was
Yodeling Elaine the
Queen of the air who wore a
Dollar sign medallion and she
Had a tiny bubble of spittle
Around her nostril and a
Little rusty tear, for she had
Lassoed and lost another
Tipsy sailor

And over in
The burnt yellow tent
By the frozen tractor, the
Music was like electric sugar
And Zuzu Bolin played
'Stavin' Chain' and Mighty
Tiny on the saw and he
Threw his head back with a
Mouth full of gold teeth
And they played 'Lopsided heart'
And 'Moon over Dog Street'

And by the time they played "Moanin Low"
I was soakin' wet and wild eyed
And Doctor Bliss slipped me a
Preparation and I fell asleep with
'Livery Stable Blues' in my ear

And me and Molley Hoey drank
Pruno and Koolaid and she had a
Tattoo gun made out of a cassette
Motor and a guitar string and
She soaked a hanky in 3 Roses
And rubbed it on the spot
And drew a rickety heart and
A bent arrow and it hurt like hell

And Funeral Wells spun
Poodle Murphy on the target
As he threw his hardware,
Only once in Sheboygan did he miss
At a matinee on Diamond Pier and
She'd never let him forget it

They were doing two shows and she
Had a high fever and he took
Off a piece of her ear and
Tip Little told her she should
Leave the bum
But Poodle said, "He fetched me
Last time I run."
But I'd like to hammer this ring into a bullet
And I wish I had some whiskey and a gun
My dear

And I wish I had some whiskey and a gun
My dear

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