I've held your hand and sunk your ships
And I can read our future in the whiskey on your lips
Watch this ice a-melting; cool glass magnify my palms
And from the church on Sunday evening comes the sifted sound of psalms

Things they go and then come around to stops
Now my baby’s just a breeze through the treetops

Glass in my hand, my back to the door
My one consolation is I ain’t your man anymore

The Drop

Oh, I worry just about the drop
Oh, I worry just about the drop
'Cause it's not the fall that kills you,
But, the sudden stop

Machiavelli on the door
The shogun dropped his chopsticks in the bowl
Oh, you might be a pastor, but you never pay the toll

I'm flippin' from left to right
Oh, I'm flippin' like a moth tonight
I could never ask your baby,
I'll wish for you tonight
I'll wish for you

I worry just about the drop
I worry about the drop
'Cause it's not the fall that kills you,
It's that sudden stop
That sudden stop, now

Is she alligator
Yeah, she's a crocodile
She got that ancient ?
That's just hanging out of her smile

When she called you at the keyhole, brother
She knew it all the while
Oh, I worry just about the drop
Oh, I worry (I'm so worried, mama) about the drop
'Cause it's not the fall that kills you,
But that sudden stop

There she goes, on down the beach
Just like the moon, she’s out of reach
Losing my mind, already lost my girl
Blew the top right off my pretty world

Oh, she used to be mine
She used to be mine
She used to be mine
‘Til I saw her with another man
‘nother man
‘Til I saw her with another man
hand in hand
‘Til I saw her with another man
‘nother man
‘Til I saw her with another man
hand in hand

Oh, there she goes, on out of my life
She’s my ex, thought she’d be my wife
Kept my ring, my wedding band
Keeps it on the same finger but on the other hand

Oh, she used to be mine.....

I can taste her mouth
Taste her tears
I can hear what she used to say
She’d be looking up from her coffee cup
And through the steam I can see her glance away

I miss her hand on my hip
Tongue on my lips
Lips on my cup of tea
I miss the way she’d lie
And the way she’d sigh
When she’d lie right down
Just next to me

Oh, she used to be mine....

She don’t hear me when I think her name
She don’t see what you could look right through
All she really does is make me blue
She’s not you

She don’t hold a candle to the stars
She don’t hold the pink up to the blue
She don’t hold my horses the way you do
She’s not you

She’s not you
No matter what she do
(She’s not you)
I love her too
But she’s not you

Diamonds shine like starlight next to glass
Moon light shines like silver in the dew
It doesn’t matter what you compare her to
She’s not you

She’s not you......

Evening was a shimmer in your hair
Time was just a button on your gown
Many’s the torture I’m going through
She’s not you

Moonlight through the chicken wire, humming windowpane,
Lukewarm water gasping down a rusty drain
Big town's in need of mending, street lights make tooth some seams
Denim shadows shuffle in between the beams.

Different strokes for different folks so
Mind your manner and easy on the ethnic jokes
It's a dumbbell curve, your trying to tally,
All the way down to shin bone alley

Streets are metacarpal and flesh of asphalt calm
Buildings rise like fingers from a concrete palm
Yellow lit apartment trickle through the drapes
Windows frame each history hidden even from the fire escapes
Sullen winter sparrow lends wing to expanse of grey
Six-thirty-two in the morning on Thanksgiving day
And the bums they hit their corners, the thunderbird rubs their bones
And the crack addicts stare at the snowflakes zigzagging down to greet jones

Different strokes for different folks so.....

Seven-thirty-two on the same day, your bare feet on the parquet
And the light so papery white shining past the microwave
Knuckles to eyeballs and elbows on the table
Spend the day gazing from the window gable....

???

What you don't got I can't give to you
You got calamities to live through
Just when the nickels come a jingling down
You’ve got to use them all to get out of town

That's the queen you been dancing with
That's my kid sister Sisyphus
That's the queen you been dancing with
That's my kid sister Sisyphus

Hey sissy baby, why you all alone?
You got both your hands upon your big old stone
Hey sissy baby push that stone towards the sky
Hey sissy baby why you curtsey so high?
That's the queen you been dancing with
That's my kid sister Sisyphus
That's the queen you been dancing with
That's my kid sister Sisyphus

You're the kingpin in your end of town
My kid sister come and take you crown
Just when you think you got your system down
What you got going up and come around

That's the queen you been dancing with
That's my kid sister Sisyphus
That's the queen you been dancing with
That's my kid sister Sisyphus

Lights on the bridges and a smokestack far away
Smoke turns to indigo in the ending business day
The taxicabs' assault on the potholed asphalt
They parry and lunge 'neath the thin winter sun who's
Painting the bedroom grey

Computer Mage, the plastic age
Someday all this will be a road
"Where will it take us?"
"It's got seventeen lanes."
"Where will it run?"
"It's an interstate parkway."
"Where will it go?"
"It's a boot print of progress."
"Where will it take us?"
"It's gonna be a road, be a road."

"Domesticated primates," the Leary Convict sez
Sewn up together in paper foil like a pack of Pez, of course,
School was a fine bunch of rehashed lines, there was
Nothing really said, I could have stayed home in bed and watched
Reruns of Desi Arnaz

"Time is just a concept," sez Einstein's kid, the dunce.
"People's way of keeping everything from happening at once
Overtake the light, and time is in your sight
And black holes bend the beams so nothing's where it seems and
Finding out the truth could take you months."

It's a funny way to tell you baby,
What could I do?
I've been talkin to the preacher,
And he sent me to you.
There's a penny on the sidewalk,
But you stepped on a crack
Mama's singing in the kitchen,
But she's clutchin' her back
There's a funny wind a-blowin'
Down the rays you your hair
Everybody doin' cartwheels baby,
But you're still in bed
You can tell me it's your nature, girl
But I don't buy that
I can tell you like to lie
Just by the tilt of your hat

One guy's laughing,
One guy's weeping,
One guy's twitchin'
And you lay sleeping

Tell me why you sleeping baby
One guy's laughing, mama,
One guy's weeping,
One guy's twitchin' down on the floor, mama
Tell me why you sleeping baby

I've been talking in the kitchen,
And I'm skinning a cat
I know you you wanna see my jackknife,
But I'm using a bat
Put the mutton on the table,
There's a fork by your plate
Someone told me you're starving,
But I know you just ate.

One guy's laughing,
One guy's weeping,
One guy's twitchin'
And you lay sleepin'

Zephyr through the awning shadow
Star-like glimpse upon the weeping leaves
Rest yourself my weeping widow
With the your news of grave defeat
With the shafts of each fraction
Beneath your head in rays of hair
Fire hand the mango nectar
And the news is good

Sleep oh,
Sleep oh,
Lay down your head and sleep oh, sleep
Lay down your head and

Across these fields of amber grain
Never that we've reached the dawn
You whispered that your vows to him
Were crushed as the shafts we played upon
Then came the news, I knew it'd come
It was a cruel and clever thief
Devised this cunning tragedy
Stole you for me to love sweetpea

Sleep oh,
Sleep oh,
Lay down your head and sleep oh, sleep
Lay down your head and

(repeat above verse and chorus)