Waste Of Paint
Bright Eyes
I have a friend, he is made mostly of pain.
He wakes up,
drives to work,
and then straight back home again.
He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper.
I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover.
And I tried to tell him he had a sense
of color and composition so magnificent.
And he said «Thank you, please
but your flattery
is truly not
becoming me.
Your eyes are poor.
You are blind.
You see,
no beauty
could have come from me.
I am a waste
of breath,
of space,
of time.»
I knew a woman, she was dignified and true.
Her love for her man was one of her many virtues.
Until one day, she found out that he had lied
and she decided the rest of her life, from that point on would be a lie.
But she was grateful for everything that had happened.
And she was anxious for all that would come next.
But then she wept.
What did you expect?
In that big, old house
with the cars she kept.
«Oh!» and «such is life,» she often said.
With one day leading
her to the next,
you get a little closer to your death,
which was fine with her.
She never got upset
and with all the days she may have left,
she would never clean
another mess
or fold his shirts
or look her best.
She was free
to waste
away
alone.
Last night, my brother he got drunk and drove.
And this cop pulled him off to the side of the road.
And he said, «Officer! Officer! You got the wrong man.
No, no, I’m a student of medicine, the son of a banker, you don’t understand!»
The cop said, «No one got hurt, you should be thankful.
And you carelessness, it is something awful.
And no, I can’t just let you go.
And though your father’s name is known,
your decisions now are yours alone.
You are nothing but a stepping stone
on a path
to debt,
to loss,
to shame.»
The last few months I have been living with this couple.
Yeah, you know, the kind that buys everything in doubles.
They fit together,
like a puzzle.
I love their love and I am thankful
that someone actually receives the prize that was promised
by all those fairy tales that drugged us.
And they still do me.
I’m sick, lonely,
no laurel tree,
just green envy.
Will my number come up eventually?
Like Love is some kind of lottery,
where you scratch and see
what is underneath.
It’s «Sorry»,
just one cherry,
«Play Again.»
Get lucky.
So I have been hanging out down by the train’s depot.
No, I don’t ride.
I just sit and watch the people there.
They remind me of wind up cars in motion.
The way they spin and turn and jockey for positions.
And I want to scream out that it is all nonsense.
And that their lives are one track,
can’t they see how it is all pointless?
But then, my knees
give under me.
My head feels weak
and suddenly
it is clear to see
it is not them but me,
who has lost my self-identity.
As I hide behind
these books I read,
while scribbling
my poetry,
like art could save a wretch like me,
with some ideal ideology
that no one can hope to achieve.
And I am never real;
it is just a sketch in me.
And everything I made is trite
and cheap
and a waste
of paint,
of tape,
of time.
So now I park my car down by the cathedral,
where the floodlights point up at the steeples.
Choir practice was filling up with people.
I hear the sound escaping as an echo.
Sloping off the ceiling at an angle.
When the voices blend they sound like angels.
I hope there’s some room still in the middle.
But when I lift my voice up now to reach them.
The range is too high,
way up in heaven.
So I hold my tongue,
forget the song,
tie my shoe
and start walking off.
And try to just keep moving on,
with my broken heart
and my absent God
and I have no faith
but it is all I want,
to be loved
and believe
in my soul.
in my soul
in my soul
in my soul