i am walking
 out in the rain
 and i am listening to the low moan
 of the dial tone again
 and i am getting
 nowhere with you
 and i can't let it go
 and i can't get through...
 the old woman behind the pink curtains
 and the closed door
 on the first floor
 she's listening through the air shaft
 to see how long our swan song can last
 and both hands
 now use both hands
 oh, no don't close your eyes
 i am writing
 graffiti on your body
 i am drawing the story of
 how hard we tried
 i am watching your chest rise and fall
 like the tides of my life,
 and the rest of it all
 and your bones have been my bedframe
 and your flesh has been my pillow
 i am waiting for sleep
 to offer up the deep
 with both hands
 in each other's shadows we grew less and less tall
 and eventually our theories couldn't explain it all
 and i'm recording our history now on the bedroom wall
 and eventually the landlord will come
 and paint over it all
 and i am walking
 out in the rain
 and i am listening to the low moan of the dial tone again
 and i am getting nowhere with you
 and i can't let it go
 and i can't get through
 so now use both hands
 please use both hands
 oh, no don't close your eyes
 i am writing graffiti on your body
 i am drawing the story of how hard we tried
 hard we tried
 how hard we tried

 Talk To Me Now

 he said ani, you've gotten tough
 'cause my tone was curt
 yeah, and when i'm approached in a dark alley
 i don't lift my skirt
 in this city
 self-preservation
 is a full time occupation
 i'm determined
 to survive on these shores
 i don't avert my eyes anymore
 in a man's world
 i am a woman by birth
 and after nineteen times around i have found
 they will stop at nothing once they know what you are worth
 talk to me now
 i played the powerless
 in too many dark scenes
 and i was blessed with a birth and a death
 and i guess i just want some say in between
 don't you understand
 in the day to day
 in the face to face
 i have to act
 just as strong as i can
 just to preserve a place
 where i can be who i am
 so if you still know how
 talk to me now

 The Slant

 the slant
 a building settling around me
 my figure female framed crookedly
 in the threshold
 of the room
 door scraping floorboards
 with every opening
 carving a rough history
 of bedroom scenes
 the plot hard to follow
 the text obscured
 in the folds of sheets
 slowly gathering the stains
 of seasons spent lying there
 red and brown
 like leaves fallen
 the colors of an eternal cycle
 fading with the
 wash cycle
 and the rinse cycle
 again an unfamiliar smell
 like my name misspelled
 or misspoken
 a cycle broken
 the sound of them strong
 stalking talking about their prey
 like the way hammer meets nail
 pounding, they say
 pounding out the rhythms of attraction
 like a woman was a drum like a body was a weapon
 like there was something more they wanted
 than the journey
 like it was owed to them
 steel toed they walk
 and i'm wondering why this fear of men
 maybe it's because i'm hungry
 and like a baby i'm dependent on them
 to feed me
 i am a work in progress
 dressed in the fabric of a world unfolding
 offering me intricate patterns of questions
 rhythms that never come clean
 and strengths that you still haven't seen

 Work Your Way Out

 lying on the floor
 four stories high
 in the corridor
 between the asphalt and the sky
 i am caught like bottled water
 the light daughter
 i wonder what you look like
 under your t-shirt
 i wonder what you sound like
 when you're not wearing words
 i wonder what we have
 when we're not pretending
 it's never-ending, haven't you heard?
 i don't need to tell you
 what this is about
 you just start on the inside
 and work your way out
 we are all polylingual
 but some of us pretend
 there's virtue in relying
 on not trying to understand
 we're all citizens of the womb
 before we subdivide
 into sexes and shades
 this side
 that side
 and i don't need to tell you
 what this is about
 you just start on the inside
 and work your way out
 undressing for the fan
 like it was a man
 wondering about all the things
 that i'll never understand
 there are some things that you can't know
 unless you've been there
 but oh how far we could go
 if we started to share
 i don't need to tell you
 what it is about
 you just start on the inside
 you just start on the inside
 and work your way out

 Dog Coffee

 perpetrating counter-culture she is walking through the park
 first light ugly and more muscular than the dark
 pushing poems at the urban silence
 drawing portraits of the passers-by
 sitting on the curb
 combining traffic sounds
 getting dirty looks and dirty jeans
 on the dirty ground
 she says i can't figure out what kind of life this is
 comedy or tragedy i just know it's show biz
 and what if i don't agree
 with the lines i have to read
 they don't pay me enough
 the way i see it

 freedom and democracy

 that's the word from washington every day
 the america's asleep
 with warm milk and cliches
 and people are expendable along the way
 your dollar is dependable
 what more can we say
 would you like some dog coffee
 it's all that we've got
 you can have some
 you can have not
 would you like some dog coffee
 it's all that we've got
 we're taking care of big business
 and meanwhile some of the beans rot

 Lost Woman Song

 i opened a bank account
 when i was nine years old
 i closed it when i was eighteen
 i gave them every penny that i'd saved
 and they gave my blood
 and my urine
 a number
 now i'm sitting in this waiting room
 playing with the toys
 and i am here to exercise
 my freedom of choice
 i passed their handheld signs
 went through their picket lines
 they gathered when they saw me coming
 they shouted when they saw me cross
 i said why don't you go home
 just leave me alone
 i'm just another woman lost
 you are like fish in the water
 who don't know that they are wet
 as far as i can tell
 the world isn't perfect yet
 his bored eyes were obscene
 on his denim thighs a magazine
 i wish he'd never come here with me
 in fact i wish he'd never come near me
 i wish his shoulder
 wasn't touching mine
 i am growing older
 waiting in this line
 some of life's best lessons
 are learned at the worst times
 under the fierce fluorescent
 she offered her hand for me to hold
 she offered stability and calm
 and i was crushing her palm
 through the pinch pull wincing
 my smile unconvincing
 on that sterile battlefield that sees
 only casualties
 never heroes
 my heart hit absolute zero
 lucille, your voice still sounds in me
 mine was a relatively easy tragedy
 now the profile of our country
 looks a little less hard nosed
 but that picket line persisted
 and that clinic's since been closed
 they keep pounding their fists on reality
 hoping it will break
 but i don't think there's a one of us
 leads a life free of mistakes


 Pale Purple

 pale purple nipples
 goose pimpled
 she shivers shifts from a walk to a trot
 alone in the city
 infested with faces
 immune to new friendships
 interested in places she's never seen
 she says everything is gray here
 and nothing is green
 the girls from down the street
 sixteen, seventeen years old
 you can smell them getting pregnant
 you can hear their rock and roll
 that's america
 you have to be tough
 like a glad trash bag
 the government's an old nag
 with a good pedigree
 but pedigree's don't help you and me
 i see the precedent is gray here
 and nothing is green
 unless something unforeseen happens
 i'm surrounded by the haves
 they say i can have some too
 just because of what i do
 do they think a lot
 about those who have not
 or does it just distract them
 from what they do
 most of us have gray
 except for those who can pay
 for green
 i'm torn
 i'm torn
 rejecting outfits offered me
 regretting things i've worn
 when i was still playing roles
 to fill holes
 in my conception of who i am
 you know, now i understand
 it's not important to be defined
 it's only important to use your time well
 well time is something nobody can buy
 and nobody can sell you
 so don't let anybody tell you
 they have the advantage
 because all the gray people can say every day
 doesn't mean anything
 if your mind is green

 pale purple nipples
 goose pimpled
 she shivers shifts from a walk to a trot
 alone in the city
 infested with faces
 immune to new friendships
 interested in places she's never seen
 she says everything is gray here
 otherwise i'd stay here
 but i'm looking for green
 just like every human being

 Rush Hour

 rush hour
 and the day's dawning
 the rain came
 and pushed me under the awning
 the puddles grew and threw themselves at me
 with every passing car
 i'm shielding my guitar
 and there were some things that i
 did not tell him
 there were certain things
 he did not need to know
 and there were some days
 when i did not love him
 he didn't understand me
 and i don't know why
 i didn't go
 he said change the channel
 i've got problems of my own
 i'm so sick of hearing about drugs
 and aids
 and people without homes
 and i said, well,
 i'd like to sympathize with that
 but if you don't understand
 then how can you act
 i expected summer to be there in the morning
 i woke to the alarm
 but she was out of arms reach
 sneaking out
 on silent thighs
 that were spent and sore
 from the hot nights that came before
 he said i looked for you
 i don't know why
 i said i was wearing black so you could
 see me against the sky
 take your big leather boots
 and your buckles and your chains
 put them on a downtown train
 i expected he would be there in the morning
 i awoke to the alarm
 he was still in arm's reach
 but his body was just a disguise
 his mind had wandered off long ago
 you see in his eyes
 love isn't over when the sheets are stained
 in my head there remains
 so much left to be said
 make me laugh, make me cry, enrage me
 but just don't try to disengage me

 Fire Door

 i opened the fire door
 to four lips
 none of which were mine
 kissing
 tightened my belt around my hips
 where your hands were missing
 and stepped out into the cold
 collar high
 under the slate gray sky
 the air was smoking and the streets were dry
 and i wasn't joking when i said
 good bye
 magazine quality men talking on the corner
 french, no less much less of them then us
 so why do i feel like something's been rearranged?
 you know, taken out of context i must seem so strange

 killed a cockroach so big
 it left a puddle of pus on the wall
 when you and i are lying in bed
 you don't seem so tall
 i'm singing now because my tear ducts are too tired
 and my brain is disconnected but my heart is wired
 i make such a good statistic
 someone should study me now
 somebody's got to be interested in how i feel
 just 'cause i'm here
 and i'm real

 oh, how i miss
 substituting the conclusion to confrontation with a kiss
 and oh, how i miss
 walking up to the edge and jumping in
 like i could feel the future on your skin
 i opened the fire door
 to four lips
 none of which were mine
 kissing

 i opened the fire door


 The Story

 i would have returned your greeting
 if it weren't for the way you were looking at me
 this street is not a market
 and i am not a commodity
 don't you find it sad that we can't even say hello
 'cause you're a man
 and i'm a woman
 and the sun is getting low
 there are some places that i can't go
 as a woman i can't go there
 and as a person i don't care
 i don't go for the hey baby what's your name
 and i'd alone thank you
 just the same

 i am up again against
 the skin of my guitar
 in the window of my life
 looking out through the bars
 i am sounding out the silence
 avoiding all the words
 i'm afraid i've said too much
 i'm afraid of who has heard me

 my father, he told me the story
 and it was true
 for his time
 but now the story's different
 maybe i should tell him mine
 all the girls line up here
 all the boys on the other side
 i see your ranks are advancing
 i see mine are left behind

 i am up again against
 the skin of my guitar
 in the window of my life
 looking out through the bars
 i am sounding out the silence
 avoiding all the words
 i'm afraid i can never say enough
 i'm afraid no one has heard me

 and despite all the balls that i've been thrown
 and forced to drop
 on the social totem pole
 i'm preciously close to the top
 they put you in your place
 and they tell you to behave
 but no one can be free
 until we're all on even ground

 and i would have returned your greeting
 if it weren't for the way you were looking a


 Every Angle


 i'm imagining your frame
 every angle
 and every plane
 i'm imagining your smell
 the one that mingled with mine
 once upon a time
 thoughts of you
 are picketing my brain
 they refuse
 to work such long hours without rest
 in unstable conditions at best
 they're out there every day
 holding up there signs
 and thoughts of no other man but you
 could possibly get through
 the picket lines
 to enter into my mind

 i'm imagining your laugh again
 the one you save for your family
 and your very
 close
 friends
 i'm imagining the way you say my name
 i don't know when
 i'm going to hear it again
 my friends can't tell
 my laughter from my cries
 someone tell this photograph of you
 to let go of my eyes

 i'm imagining your frame
 i'm imagining your smell
 i'm imagining your laugh again
 and the way you say my name



 Out Of Habit

 the butter melts out of habit
 the toast isn't even warm
 the waitress and the man in the plaid shirt
 play out a scene they've played
 so many times before
 i am watching the sun stumble home in the morning
 from a bar on the east side of town
 and the coffee is just water dressed in brown
 beautiful but boring
 he visited me yesterday
 he noticed my fingers
 and asked me if i would play
 i didn't really care a lot
 but i couldn't think of a reason why not
 i said if you don't come any closer i don't mind if you stay
 my thighs have been involved in many accidents
 and now i can't get insured
 and i don't need to be lured by you
 my cunt is built like a wound that won't heal
 and now you don't have to ask
 because you know how i feel
 you know how i feel

 art is why i get up in the morning
 but my definition ends there
 and it doesn't seem fair
 that i'm living for something i can't even define
 there you are right there
 in the meantime

 i don't want to play for you anymore
 show me what you can do
 tell me what are you here for
 i want my old friends
 i want my old face
 i want my old mind
 fuck this time and place

 the butter melts out of habit


 Letting The Telephone Ring


 i am letting the telephone ring
 cause i don't want to know why
 i don't want to hear you explain
 i don't want to hear you cry
 i have written so much about you
 so much i thought i knew
 words like water used to flow
 now what could i possibly have to say?
 she is someone i don't even know
 and all the things that you've given to me
 i see now were simply reparations
 they were gifts of your guilt
 they were my preparation
 i know i should be mature
 keep my feet on the floor
 but for some reason,
 i just don't want them anymore
 i know this shouldn't be important
 compared to you and i
 but i can still hear my questions
 and i can still hear you
 i can still hear you
 lie
 now vicariously i have her in me
 i want to peel off my skin
 let the water wash in
 you always said that i was hiding
 that i was hiding from you
 but you are capable of things i could not do
 you are capable of things i could not do
 i remember how you pretended
 how you pretended to touch me
 i remember how i couldn't bring myself to believe
 i remember wondering,
 what was wrong
 what was wrong
 how could i be so naive
 how could i be so naive