*****
Track 1:

*Three hours from sunrise. Open road. One car, one driver.*

/I stumbled out of bed.
I got ready for the struggle.
I smoked a cigarette,
and I tightened up my gut.
I said, This can't be me,
must be my double.
And I can't forget
I can't forget
I can't forget
but I don't remember what./

*Blonde tips, dark roots. Glassy blue eyes, ribs showing through papery skin.*

/I'm burning up the road.
I'm heading down to Phoenix.
I got this old address
of someone that I knew.
It was high and fine and free;
ah, you should have seen us!
And I can't forget
I can't forget
I can't forget
but I don't remember who./

*The memory of skin hurt like fire and crosses. Having given the gift of solace, allowing a taking of self, and then finding that nothing comes in return. Ever.*

/I'll be there today
with a big bouquet
of cactus;
I got this rig that runs on memory.
And I promise,
cross my heart,
they'll never catch us,
but if they do
just say it was me./

*No place to pull off. Sunrise in an hour. No matter, no worry. No caring. No, must find shelter. Dying means an end to this pain and the beginning of the other. This pain is earned and eternal and what is needed; the other is senseless and there by birthright. This pain is good and true and pure and meant to be felt. This pain feeds life; the other reminds death of life's lack.*

/I loved you all my life,
and that's how I want to end it.
The summer's almost gone.
The winter's tuning up.
Yeah, the summer's gone
but a lot goes on forever.
And I can't forget
I can't forget
I can't forget
but I can't remember what./

*Tired body, tired soul, even in its absence. Shelter is found, convenient and seedy by the side of the road in the form of a motel. Stapled curtains and a muddy shower. Solace and asylum. A pale, naked body, curled on a filthy bed. Tears welling in truth and misery. One word, uttered at dawn.*

--I Can't Forget, Leonard Cohen

*****
Track 2

*Road like tar, hot and sticky. Tires don't want to move. Somewhere between hell and forever, wilderness and gone away notions of love. Hates me. Sire hates me. Cannot bear my flesh. Blood reviled.*

/Just three miles from the rest stop
And you slam on the brakes
You said I tried to be but I'm not
And could you please collect your things
I don't wanna be cold
I don't wanna be cruel
But I gotta find more
Than what's happening with you
If you'd - open up the door/

*Even before, before we were wounded by our pride and their prejudice, you were repulsed by me. Hated me. Hated me for the soul I didn't have. Hated the humanity that clung to me like graveyard dirt. The stench of weakness drove you from me.*

/You said - while you were sleeping
I was listening to the radio
And wondering what you're dreaming when
It came to mind that I didn't care
So I thought - hell if it's over
I had better end it quick
Or I could lose my nerve
Are you listening - can you hear me
Have you forgotten./

*Driving for nothing and heading to nowhere and what do I do now? You didn't want me, Sire mine. Not then, not now, not ever, you said that last time. Slayer said it better, said I was beneath her, but even in your clumsy words and twisting eyes I could see it. Beneath you, not how I want to be but how I was. Writhing but not in ecstasy. In pain from the heart you took, the heart you said I didn't need.*

/Just three miles from the rest stop
And my mouth's too dry to rage
The light was shining from the radio
I could barely see your face
But you knew all the words that I never had said
You knew the crumpled-up promise of this
Broken down man - and as I opened up the door./

*Pull over, feed. Throw up again. Blood won't stay down, won't sit and rot with my soul. Soul doesn't like blood. Broken man, broken vampire. Useless gob of flesh and demon. Even the damned have more than I; the lust of a thousand devils is better than the indifference of one--my Sire. You damned me to salvation. Now what do I do?*

--Rest Stop, Matchbox Twenty

*****
Track 3

*Road construction. Average speed: 5 miles per hour. Number of cars stuck on the expressway: 5.9 x 10*7. Number of road workers on site: 3.6 x 10*8. Number of road workers working: 2, if the flagmen are included in the count.*

*And somehow midnight construction reminds me of Sunnydale. Floodlights making the evening bright as day; the industriousness of such slovenly creatures blinding those of us who thrive in darkness.*

*All I ever wanted was what anyone else craved; a gentle hand, a full cup, an abiding lover to howl the moon's beauty with me.*

/Ah we're drinking and we're dancing;
and the band is really happening,
and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high.
And my very sweet companion
she's the Angel of Compassion;
she's rubbing half the world against her thigh.
And every drinker every dancer
lifts a happy face to thank her,
the fiddler fiddles something so sublime.
All the women tear their blouses off,
and the men they dance on the polka-dots,
and it's partner found, it's partner lost,
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops;
it's closing time./

*I loved that madhouse, the blood and dancing and longing glances. You never saw them; too caught up in your madness you left me fallow when I was ready, open and wanting you to make me over into something new and pretty and now the chance is gone and I'm alone. Alone, inching forward on this fucking highway, listening to a raven's chorus of irritated car horns and trying not to cry at the acrid stench of asphalt and tar. And it's all your fault, you and not anyone else, for not loving me when I gave you all I had, more than everything I borrowed from others to give you more but you didn't care.*

/Ah we're lonely, we're romantic,
and the cider's laced with acid,
and the Holy Spirit's crying, "Where's the beef?"
And the moon is swimming naked
and the summer night is fragrant,
with a mighty expectation of relief.
So we struggle and we stagger
down the snakes and up the ladder
to the tower where the blessed hours chime.
And I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss;
the Gates of Love they budged an inch.
I can't say much has happened since
but closing time./

*Now me and my eternal companions, Tweedle demon and Tweedle soul, we're striking out on a lost(found) highway running scared and sad, because you don't love us, can't love all three of us the demon the soul and the man because that would take effort, something you don't expend in my direction. No, the three of us, we're not worth your time.*

/I loved you for your beauty,
but that doesn't make a fool of me:
you were in it for your beauty too.
And I loved you for your body,
there's a voice that sounds like God to me
declaring that your body's really you.
And I loved you when our love was blessed,
and I love you now there's nothing left
but sorrow and a sense of overtime.
And I missed you since the place got wrecked
and I just don't care what happens next.
Looks like freedom but it feels like death;
it's something in between, I guess.
It's closing time./

*You claimed me before I knew what it meant to be wanted; you wrote your name on my heart and my cock in both my blood and yours. You swore you'd know me forever, but you lied. I'm here alone, sitting in the middle of some godforsaken nowhere, lucid for the first time in weeks, smelling the putrid odor of stale piss on the pavement, glad that I'm not human because they're living things and the efflux of eliminatory substances makes me sick. You, you're cozy at home, secure in that void you call your mind, sure of yourself and your place and all that you call to yourself as your own. And I have a cooler of stale goat's blood, since that was all the butcher had left in the last town and he wasn't asking questions and I wasn't volunteering answers. I hate you, almost as much as I love you.*

/Yeah we're drinking and we're dancing,
but there's nothing really happening,
and the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night.
And my very close companion
gets me fumbling gets me laughing;
she's a hundred but she's wearing
something tight.
And I lift my glass to the Awful Truth,
which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth,
except to say it isn't worth a dime.
And the whole damn place goes crazy twice;
and it's once for the devil and once for Christ.
But the Boss don't like these dizzy heights,
we're busted in the blinding lights
busted in the blinding lights
of closing time./

*Pathetic it may be, but if I had a phone right now I'd call you just to hear your condescension and loathing, just to hear you spit my name as you curl up with whoever's keeping you distracted. Yeah, I'm a worthless git, wanting to smell the roses before they wilt, dip them in blood and lay them on your neck, just for the contrast. I'd carve my heart out and place it on your tongue if I thought you'd love me.*

*But it's not enough, is it?*

--Closing Time, Leonard Cohen

*****
Track 4

*Midday sun, cowering behind cheap polyester curtains. Air conditioner's broken; the frail vampire draped over the room's only chair is sweating--a sympathetic reaction to the suffering of all the humans around him. Too white, too thin skin sticks and slides over garish orange naugahyde.*

*Funny thing about hell dimensions; they look so much like home. Lived my whole life thinking of the hereafter as fire and brimstone, torture and pain and death. Must say, this is not what I expected; curdled, clotted blood caked on my fangs, hair greasy with road dust, the former Scourge of Europe trapped in a no-tell motel that reeks of ten thousand paid-for orgasms, each with their own flavor of condom and unique cheap cologne.*

/Suzanne takes you down
to her place near the river.
You can watch the boats go by,
you can spend the night beside her.
And you know that she's half crazy,
but that's why you want to be there.
And she feeds you tea and oranges
that come all the way from China.
And just when you mean to tell her
that you have no love to give her,
then she gets you on her wavelength
and she lets the river answer
that you've always been her lover.
And you want to travel with her,
and you want to travel blind;
and you know that she will trust you
for you've touched her perfect body with your mind./

*I don't want what we had before, the blood and fucking and hate and dark joy. How can I? The soul is repulsed and the demon is mature, older. It sees the waste, the frivolity in bathing in blood. The man? Well, the man just wants you, however you want. We, the three of us, we just want to kiss you one last time, tell you how much we belong to you. You made us and we worship you.*

/And Jesus was a sailor
when he walked upon the water.
And he spent a long time watching
from his lonely wooden tower.
And when he knew for certain
only drowning men could see him,
he said 'All men will be sailors, then,
until the sea shall free them!'
But he himself was broken,
long before the skies would open.
Forsaken, almost human,
he sank beneath your wisdom
like a stone.
And you want to travel with him,
and you want to travel blind.
And you think maybe you'll trust him,
for he's touched your perfect body
with his mind./

*Would it hurt you so much to let me bow at your feet? What threat am I, huddled in the dust and debris, kissing the hem of your robe? I want only the crumbs unto me you give; I ask for little. Is it too much? I dare not inquire the tithe I owe for even bearing your order, though no matter what penalty you laid upon me I would gladly remit it, even if just to brush your hand as I relinquished everything I ever was.*

/Suzanne takes your hand
and she leads you to the river.
She is wearing rags and feathers
from the Salvation Army counters.
And the sun pours down like honey
on our Lady of the Harbor.
And she shows you where to look
amidst the garbage and the flowers.
There are heroes in the seaweed,
there are children in the morning;
they are leaning out for love
and they will lean that way forever,
while Suzanne holds the mirror.
And you want to travel with her,
and you want to travel blind.
And you know that you will trust her,
for she's touched your perfect body
with her mind./

*So the sun sets again. Peel away the naugahyde, choke down rancid sustenance. The road awaits and so do you. On good days I wish you and the road were together, the road leading to you and you at the end of it. On bad days I know I'll never see you again.*

*Today is looking bad.*

--Suzanne, Leonard Cohen (sensing a patttern yet?)

*****
Track 5

*There are those who would say that a vampire standing in the middle of a lumberyard was a damned fool. They're probably right.*

/It's four in the morning,
the end of December.
I'm writing you now
just to see if you're better.
New York is cold
but I like where I'm living.
There's music on Clinton Street
all through the evening./

*Moonlight becomes you; funny how i think of that when the Lady is dark and the mist holds no pale. I remember the one time you took me in that fountain in Madrid, lightening all around us, people rushing by. They never noticed a couple of blokes going at it underneath that God, or if they did they were more concerned with their own mortality than two pagans' debauchery.*

/I hear that you're building
your little house
deep in the desert.
You're living for nothing now.
I hope you're keeping some kind of record.
Yes, and Jane came by
with a lock of your hair.
She said that you gave it to her
the night that you planned to go clear.
Did you ever go clear?/

*Probably not smart for a suicidal vamp to be wandering around 84 Lumber, lusting after pressure-treated pine 2x4s. That's not why I'm out here, though. I'm lost. Oh, shut up. No, really lost; there was a detour and now I'm stuck in the middle of goddamned nowhere.*

/The last time we saw you
you looked so much older.
Your famous blue raincoat
was torn at the shoulder.
You'd been to the station
to meet every train
but then you came home
without Lili Marlene./

*I used to want your attention, even if it was only to beat me bloody and spit on my face. Then all I wanted was for you to leave me alone, let me go; it wasn't that I didn't love you, but it was too fucking hard to see you that way, pain turned inward instead of out. You started torturing yourself instead of your family, and that wasn't right. You selfish bastard, you took the only thing I got from you and made it your own.*

/And you treated my woman
to a flake of your life.
And when she came back
she was nobody's wife.
I see you there
with a rose in your teeth,
one more thin gypsy thief.
Well, I see Jane's awake.
She sends her regards./

*Car's waiting; full tank of gas and some backtracking to do. I am not staying in another rent-by-the-hour motel in the morning, even if I have to dig myself a hole. You're not worth it; wanting you isn't worth it. Besides, it's hard to wank yourself when everything around you smells like desperation and pity. Unless you're my Dark Princess. She liked that.*

/And what can I tell you
my brother my killer?
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you.
I guess I forgive you.
I'm glad you stood in my way./

*What do you think about, when you're guzzling your cow's blood? Do you wonder if the cow suffered? Or does it matter at all; the stupid animal died for human consumption and your meal is a convenient benefit. If humans were cannibals, would you start drinking their blood again?*

/If you ever come by here
for Jane or for me,
I want you to know
that your enemy is sleeping.
I want you to know
that his woman is free.
Yes, and thanks
for the trouble
you took from her eyes.
I thought it was there for good,
so I never tried./

*One thing I do know is that this soul seething inside me doesn't make me good, just like yours doesn't make you a knight in notso-shining armor. You bought into the image, the dream of redemption. I don't want that. I was born for the gutter, stars be damned.*

/And Jane came by
with a lock of your hair.
She said that you gave it to her
that night that you planned to go clear.
Sincerely,/

--Famous Blue Raincoat, Leonard Cohen

*****
Track 6

*And I want it. I want what we never had, the hands not raised in anger. No calculating looks. What we never could give each other.*

/One and one-half wandering Jews
Free to wander wherever they choose.
Are traveling together
In the Sangre de Cristo,
The Blood of Christ Mountains,
Of New Mexico.
On the last leg of the journey
They started a long time ago.
The arc of a love affair,
Rainbows in the high desert air.
Mountain passes slipping into stones;
Hearts and bones./

*Cold water lapping at alabaster skin. The salt feels different here; colder, darker and less pretentious. The ocean here is less blustery. The last time I was here, I hated it, thought it was ugly. Now I know better. This is the ocean I prefer, the one I know. You, you can have the other.*

/Thinking back to the season before;
Looking back through the cracks in the door.
Two people were married;
The act was outrageous,
The bride was contagious,
She burned like a bride.
These events may have had some effect
On the man with the girl by his side.
The arc of a love affair;
His hands rolling down her hair.
Love like lightning shaking till it moans;
Hearts and bones./

*In this water my tears make no noise. You'd like that; not able to hear me and my lurid heart breaking over you. My love scares you, but I don't know why. It might be the only pure thing I've ever possessed. Pure and clean even keeping company with the demon. They play cards, you know, this queer foursome--at least when the demon, the man and the soul can get my love for you to get out from under the table. Kind of a shy type, you know. Got beaten a lot when he was a kid.*

/And whoa whoa whoa
She said:
Why?
Why don't we drive through the night,
And we'll wake up down in Mexico?
Oh I
I don't know nothin' about nothin'
About Mexico.
And tell me why,
Why won't you love me
For who I am,
Where I am?
He said:
'Cause that's not the way the world is baby.
This is how I love you, baby.
This is how I love you, baby./

*So here I am, as far from you as I can get without sprouting wings. Been escorting my love for you out this way, hoping time and distance would bring it back to me, help it get over that stuttering and the tic it gets when your name is spoken. And I wish I could tell you it was working, that my love for you was getting better, would be ready to leave the hospital soon. Strike off on his own, you know.*

/One and one-half wandering Jews
Return to their natural courses;
To resume old acquaintances.
Step out occasionally,
And speculate who had been damaged the most.
Easy time will determine if these consolations
Will be their reward.
The arc of a love affair,
Waiting to be restored.
You take two bodies and you twirl them into one;
Their hearts and their bones,
And they won't come undone.
Hearts and bones./

*And I love you.*

*And that is all that matters now.*

--Hearts and Bones, Paul Simon

*****
Track 7

*Ran out of money today. Had to kill a rabbit for its blood. Only have half a tank of gas. Figure it's about time for me to find a source of...income. Or I could just wander down the road, hitching rides. Don't need much blood anymore.*

/Oh the sisters of mercy,
they are not departed or gone.
They were waiting for me
when I thought that I just can't go on.
And they brought me their comfort
and later they brought me this song.
Oh I hope you run into them,
you who've been travelling so long./

*I fucked her, you know. That blonde girl you loved so much. Then again, I fucked just about everything you ever did. Dru, even Darla once, though that was her idea. They were empty and so was I. We couldn't fill each other, though we tried. Funny how a human can want a vampire to make her feel alive. I couldn't do that, couldn't bring it back to her. We were just pounding out our grief. She wanted back into heaven. I guess she wanted to get there by digging down so deep she came out the other side. Me, I wanted the rush, the black emptiness, where it's not you or me but just nothing. Buried inside her, so hot and wet and blood pounding, she wasn't you. And that was a good thing. At the time.*

/Yes you who must leave everything
that you cannot control.
It begins with your family,
but soon it comes around to your soul.
Well I've been where you're hanging,
I think I can see how you're pinned:
When you're not feeling holy,
your loneliness says that you've sinned./

*And I tried to rape her too. Actually, I wonder if she ever told you, or if any of her friends did. I just wanted someone to love me, to give one single damn if I fell to dust. I'm not proud of it; hells if I didn't think it was just a cop-out I'd stake myself. I've never, *never* had to force myself on anyone. Ever. It wasn't about the fucking. You told me once I needed to grow up. I did, about five minutes after I found myself on her, tearing at her clothes. The man let the demon take over. The demon still doesn't know what was wrong with forcing her. But don't worry; the soul and the man are working him over. My love for you chimes in occasionally, just for a tangy ribbon of loathing.*

/Well they lay down beside me,
I made my confession to them.
They touched both my eyes
and I touched the dew on their hem.
If your life is a leaf
that the seasons tear off and condemn
they will bind you with love
that is graceful and green as a stem./

*So now you know, or you would if you were here to hear me. I'm sorry, by the way. She didn't deserve it, to be treated that way. Used, hurt and wanted(not wanted). But for one shining moment, she, the Slayer, knew how I felt, have felt ever since that first night in London, when you took me every way you could.*

/Then I left they were sleeping,
I hope you run into them soon.
Don't turn on the lights,
you can read their address by the moon.
And you won't make me jealous
if I hear that they sweetened your night:
We weren't lovers like that
and besides it would still be all right./

*There's an old man across the street. He's staring at me, probably wondering what a disgusting bum like me is doing parked across from the town square, car running and the radio on. I'm not changing the station just to appease him, though. My hell, my great end, at least let me pick the soundtrack.*

*Well, there's one down. I've only got a few thousand more sins to confess, Sire(Father). Will you give me absolution when I'm done?*

*****
Track 8

*New York is an odd place to be right now. It's not like I remember it, but it's exactly the same. I suppose I've changed too much to like it anymore. The people used to amuse me, thrill me. All those happy meals, rushing about fearlessly. They still do that, still glare at you out of the corner of their eyes, daring you to do something to them and give them the opportunity to kick the living hell out of you.*

/Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free./

*I took a cue from you yesterday and cased a butcher's shop. The owner paid me ten bucks and a gallon of fresh blood for hanging up sides of beef. No questions asked, and come back on Monday for the next shipment. A gallon'll do me over he weekend, as cold as it is. If I don't throw it all back up again. Drink slow, and no cigarettes.*

/Like a worm on a hook,
like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee./

*Do you ever wish it got cold in Los Angeles? I never told you, or Dru, but I hate warm weather. I liked London's dreary precipitation and winters. There's something dangerously cheerful about constant pleasantness. Brazil nearly killed me; at least I got to leave when Dru kicked me out. Of course I just went back to Sunnyhell, which isn't much better. Figures that the mouth of hell would be somewhere so fucking unpleasant.*

/If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you./

*Do you feel guilty for making me? For changing a whiny, foppish idiot into a whiny foppish vampire? Is that why you can't look at me? You're guilty, ashamed of your childe? Did I disappoint you?*

/Like a baby, stillborn,
like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me./

*You'd be happy to note that I've given up drinking and smoking. Becoming every bit the responsible adult, hmm? I say 'please' and 'thank you' and hold the door open for others. Finally got some more clothes--today in fact, with some of my cash. The rest filled up the car. I didn't get black, you know. Thrift store emperor, that's me. Dark corduroys and a jumper even you'd wear. I feel like a poncy bugger, but at least I don't smell like cheap motels anymore.*

/But I swear by this song
and by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee./

*I don't think I'm gonna stay here very long, maybe another week or so. Enough time to store up some blood in the trunk and take off. Head north a bit and maybe west a little. Canada's supposed to be a nice enough place. At least, the eastern part.*

/I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
she cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"/

*I'd take pictures for you; I know you like to see new places, or at least you did. Can't tell me the soul killed that off; I've seen it in your eyes, that wanderlust. Must've gotten a bit of that with your blood, 'cause I sure didn't have it as a human.*

/Oh like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free./

*Maybe I'll get one of those postcards, with a montage of Toronto on it. I doubt you get many of those.*

--Bird on the Wire, Leonard Cohen (againn)

*****
Track 9

*I have a vision of you imprinted on the back of my eyelids. I use it when I wank. I might have mentioned this before; I can't really remember. It's something I think about when I'm on the wide open road, driving the Gaspe peninsula.*

/Field Commander William, he was our most important spy.
Wounded in the line of duty,
parachuting acid into diplomatic cocktail parties,
urging Fidel Castro to abandon fields and castles./

*Toronto was very much you. Lovely streets, many people to save and demons to slay and a breath of manufactured hope that tells me all about the pain that you feel that I cannot.*

/Leave it all and like a man,
come back to nothing special,
such as waiting rooms and ticket lines,
silver bullet suicides,
and messianic ocean tides,
and racial roller-coaster rides
and other forms of boredom advertised as poetry./

*This place, however, is me. Wild, rough. I've seen the pictures that say how lovely it is in the summer, when life flows fertile. I say it's perfect now, in the coldest part of winter, the bitch of winter screaming out her scorned-woman hatred. She tells me I am hers, I belong in her womb with the other wretched, capering, madly dancing damned souls.*

/I know you need your sleep now,
I know your life's been hard.
But many men are falling,
where you promised to stand guard./

*Here needs you too, though. Devils from hell and demons from heaven fight and quarrel here just as they do in Los Angeles where the weather is deceptive. Here, here is truth. Care, they do not, the locals. Their love is cold and mortal, leaving with the toss of a leaf on the wind and it is obvious. Always obvious. Just as the cold. And the frozen water, lying upon the fallow ground. Cold. Hard. Sleeping until someone with a warmer heart than I comes to tell it to rise. Come, order this land into being.*

/I never asked but I heard you cast your lot along with the poor.
But then I overheard your prayer,
that you be this and nothing more
than just some grateful faithful woman's favourite singing millionaire,
the patron Saint of envy and the grocer of despair,
working for the Yankee Dollar./

*You said I was shallow, said I chased only my own pleasure. Well, you can see right through me now. Look, please, and tell me what you see. I see nothing when I look, you know. Nothing. Put something in the blank that is my heart. At least give back what I gave you if you don't need it anymore. Please, Angel, Angelus, Liam, whatever you call yourself today, let me go, cut me loose. Please, for the sake of all the gods vampires aren't supposed to believe in, give me freedom. I can't even kill myself.*

/Ah, lover come and lie with me, if my lover is who you are,
and be your sweetest self awhile until I ask for more, my child.
Then let the other selves be wrong, yeah, let them manifest and come
till every taste is on the tongue,
till love is pierced and love is hung,
and every kind of freedom done, then oh,
oh my love, oh my love, oh my love./

*You do not have to take me upon the altar of your lust; I do not ask that much. Let me be the altar, I will take any rag unto me you give. Bless me, even if it is with nothing but your disdain and your hatred. Tell me you think of me, you remember the abortion that is your youngest childe, the horror and the beast that is this your last creation, your lowliest, the worm underneath your boot. Can't you see? Please, Angel, please my Father my Lover my Sire my God my Everything--*

--Field Commander Cohen (with name changge). Guess who?

*****
Track 10

*I can't do this anymore. The gods know I've tried, but every face I see is yours; every drop of rancid pig's blood becomes the sweet honey of your veins. The wind is your voice.*

/It's true that all the men you knew were dealers
who said they were through with dealing
Every time you gave them shelter.
I know that kind of man.
It's hard to hold the hand of anyone
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender,
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender./

*There is no place in this world for me; I've looked. Searched and asked and wanted and needed and I've found nothing. Nothing but you, and you don't want me. Never did, never will.*

/And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind,
you find he did not leave you very much;
not even laughter.
Like any dealer he was watching for the card
that is so high and wild;
he'll never need to deal another.
He was just some Joseph looking for a manger.
He was just some Joseph looking for a manger./

*This soul, this man, this demon and this hopeless love for you, we're playing poker and waiting for the end. I've tried. Tried to meet the sun, drink the water of god, embrace the son, partake of the blessed rowan. But I can't. My life is yours, not mine. There is no reprieve but by your hand.*

/And then leaning on your window sill,
he'll say one day you caused his will
to weaken with your love and warmth and shelter.
And then taking from his wallet
an old schedule of trains, he'll say,
I told you when I came I was a stranger,
I told you when I came I was a stranger./

*You are the word made flesh; I am the flesh made word. Word waiting to be spoken, waiting to be made real by your blessing. Anoint me, Father; bring me to being, Sire; take me as yours, Lover. Anything, please.*

/But now another stranger seems
to want you to ignore his dreams,
as though they were the burden of some other.
O you've seen that man before,
his golden arm dispatching cards;
but now it's rusted from the elbows to the finger,
And he wants to trade the game he plays for shelter,
Yes he wants to trade the game he knows for shelter./

*Tomorrow, I'm doing it. Getting in this damned De Soto and coming to you. Coming to face you, to hear my coda. Closure; I know I have no right, but when did I ever? As you've said, it's my way to demand, to want what I have not earned.*

/Ah you hate to see another tired man
lay down his hand
like he was giving up the holy game of poker
And while he talks his dreams to sleep
you notice there's a highway
that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder.
It is curling just like smoke above his shoulder./

*Will you give it to me? This rest, this first step into the hell that's waiting for me? Can you forgive me enough for that at least? I don't expect any more than that; the time for love is past, I cannot earn it--if I ever could have.*

/You tell him to come in sit down,
but something makes you turn around.
The door is open you can't close your shelter.
You try the handle of the road;
It opens do not be afraid.
It's you my love, you who are the stranger
It's you my love, you who are the stranger./

*And then you'll be freer, lighter and that much closer to human, without this your wretched creation sullying the world you so love. My dust will be a welcome thing.*

/Well, I've been waiting, I was sure
we'd meet between the trains we're waiting for.
I think it's time to board another.
Please understand, I never had a secret chart
to get me to the heart of this
or any other matter.
When he talks like this,
you don't know what he's after.
When he speaks like this,
you don't know what he's after./

*I found the perfect patience of mountains somewhere in the Canadian Rockies. It flows through my veins where blood used to; that sour fluid is no longer a part of me. Like liquor and cigarettes, I've shed my last bad habit. If vampires stop drinking blood, do we become less evil?*

/Let's meet tomorrow if you choose,
upon the shore, beneath the bridge
that they are building on some endless river.
Then he leaves the platform,
for the sleeping car that's warm.
You realize, he's only advertising one more shelter,
And it comes to you, he never was a stranger.
And you say ok the bridge or someplace later.

And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind ...

And leaning on your window sill ...

I told you when I came I was a stranger./

*I love you, Angel. Goodbye.*

--The Stranger Song

~fin~