World Without End

I remember where I came from
There were burning buildings and a fiery red sea
I remember all my lovers
I remember how they held me
World without end remember me.

East. The edge of the world.
West. Those who came before me.

When my father dies we put him in the ground
When my father died it was like a whole library
Had burned down. World without end remember me.
 

Tightrope

Last night I dreamed I died and that my life had
been rearranged into some kind of theme park.
And all my friends were walking up and down the boardwalk.
And my dead grandmother was selling
cotton candy out of a little shack.
And there was this big ferris wheel
about half a mile out in the ocean,
half in and half out of water.
And all my old boyfriends were on it.
With their new girlfriends.
And the boys were waving and shouting
and the girls were saying Eeek.

Then they disappeared under the surface of the water
and when they came up again they were laughing
and gasping for breath.

In this dream I'm on a tightrope
and I'm tipping back and forth trying to keep my balance.
And below me are all my relatives
and if I fall I'll crush them.
This long thin line. This song line. This shout.

The only thing that binds me to the turning world below
and all the people and noise and sounds and shouts.
This tightrope made of sound
This long thin line made of my own blood.
Remember me is all I ask.
And if remembered be a task forget me.

Remember me is all I ask.
And if remembered be a task forget me.
This long thin line. This long thin line.
This long thin line. This tightrope.

Remember me is all I ask.
And if remembered be a task forget me.
This long thin line. This long thin line.
This long thin line. This tightrope.
 

Strange Angels

 They say that heaven is like TV
A perfect little world
that doesn't really need you
And everything there
is made of light
And the days keep going by
Here they come Here they come
Here they come.

Well it was one of those days larger than life
When your friends came to dinner
and they stayed the night
And then they cleaned out the refrigerator -
They ate everything in sight
And then they stayed up in the living room
And they cried all night

Strange angels - singing just for me
Old stories - they're haunting me
This is nothing
like I thought it would be.

Well I was out in my four door
with the top down.
And I looked up and there they were:
Millions of tiny teardrops
just sort of hanging there
And I didn't know whether to laugh or cry
And I said to myself:
What next big sky?

Strange angels - singing just for me
Their spare change falls on top of me
Rain falling Falling all over me
All over me
Strange angels - singing just for me
Old Stories - they're haunting me
Big changes are coming
Here they come
Here they come.

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The Dream Before

 (for Walter Benjamin)

Hansel and Gretel are alive and well
And they're living in Berlin
She is a cocktail waitress
He had a part in a Fassbinder film
And they sit around at night now
drinking schnapps and gin
And she says: Hansel, you're really bringing me down
And he says: Gretel, yu can really be a bitch
He says: I've wated my life on our stupid legend
When my one and only love
was the wicked witch.

She said: What is history?
And he said: History is an angel
being blown backwards into the future
He said: History is a pile of debris
And the angel wants to go back and fix things
To repair the things that have been broken
But there is a storm blowing from Paradise
And the storm keeps blowing the angel
backwards into the future
And this storm, this storm
is called
Progress

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