You know what they say, don’t yuh?
Can’t live with em, can’t live without em
But don’t get me twisted, I’m not talking about women
though the skin beneath my tongue’s still sore
my heart’s still heavy and well
there’s nothing quite like seeing her smile come morning
but anyway like I was saying to this jug of doom
in the evening gloom where I choose not one but two
and then two more to boot because, well, hell
who am I kidding? Nobody but the moon this evening
cause it’s this bitter sweet feeling
the kind you feel deep down in the rumbling, stumbling night
where it all gets so far gone, where nothing meaningful is born
where it all makes some sort of convoluted sense
and alas, once again I am but the floorboards dull creak
where I am like the riverbed flowing calmly and discrete
where life is but a dream and I am dreaming once again
of you dear friend, rustling like the leaves at my front door.
Oh dear friend, how I long to walk the beach again.
How I long to hear your sick, silly, sweet voice again
like those long ago up all Friday nights of old
all those Brooklyn winter blue’s and yellow streetlights
guiding us home, or at least to Crown Fried Chicken where
like two youthful bums we’d scavenge our pockets for change
enough to buy a couple chicken wings, coke, and pint
enough to settle the bone, cold, sidewalk snow till home
where we’d fall arm and arm up stairs
to that old wood, smoke filled, railroad apartment you’d call Grove.
And though I don’t often pray, in my own little way
I do for you now as I did then, driving back to my Long Island apartment.
I pray this little song of self, this little song of you, this small token of my appreciation
for your boundless soul and effortless style and class.
I ate too much cheese, I’d shout while holding a kitchen knife to my throat!
Where in a Polaroid our youth is kept,
where so many nights while you slept I wept,
where you’d give me your bed for a smile,
where I’d talk with Forest about everything and nothing for a while,
long enough not to feel alone in that maddening, crazy New York glow.
So I write this little poem, not enough but enough to show you
I’m still listening through the terror behind the walls.
Dear friend,
How are you?
I can’t live with you, but hell, I can’t live without you.
Manhattan’s in the Village
God knows we never had the scratch, aligned
I feel inclined to take this time and offer you my best
impression not impressed?
CALL ME SPIDER! CALL ME SPIDER!
I just had to get these salami’s off my back.
I just had to sing this short praise of you Mac.
