herstory

Padraig, poet that he is, likes to send his friends poems that he thinks we'll connect with... sometimes by his good self, sometimes by others...and on occasion i've been known to return the favour...

here are not poems, but lyrics... narratives, if you will, that i like to inhabit, but which have me today thinking of an ongoing conversation we are having... or at least to me they do... i always enjoy these exchanges - to show him stories that i carry with me and to hear what he sees there... he perceives ::humanity:: like no one else i know...he helps me understand why they speak to me, or as one friend put it, the ongoing revisiting relationship i have built with these stories... to allow them to keep evolving in meaning and interpretation... this past year some of these tracks have taken on very differnet significance and the characters in some are now played by different actors from my life than before...

so, my love, 4 very different lyrics from 4 songs on a compilation i was listening to this morning... and which all had me thinking of our conversation one way or another... there's green and magenta, and indeed charcoal, here in wombfuls... 4 women... all i'd settle to be reincarnated as... 4 very different stories... the kristen hersh one was a gift from chris - an anthem for last winter. he encouraged me to live through this by having frequent interactions with this track...

i'm weaving them into the themes we've been discussing... these undercover goddesses... adding their tales to our own...


::

Invisible Ink

There comes a time when you swim or sink
So I jumped in the drink
Cuz I couldn't make myself clear

Maybe I wrote in invisible ink
Oh I've tried to think
How I could have made it appear

But another illustration is wasted
Cuz the results are the same
I feel like a ghost who's trying to move your hands
over some ouija board in the hopes I can spell out my name

What some take for magic at first glance
Is just sleight of hand depending on what you believe
Something gets lost when you translate
It's hard to keep straight
Perspective is everything

And I know now which is which and what angle I oughta look at it from
I suppose I should be happy to be misread-
Better be that than some of the other things I have become

But nobody wants to hear this tale
The plot is clichéd, the jokes are stale
And baby we've all heard it all before
Oh I could get specific but
Nobody needs a catalog
With details of a love I can't sell anymore

And aside from that, this chain of reaction,
baby, is losing a link
Though I'd hope you'd know what I tried to tell you
And if you don't I could draw you a picture in invisible ink

But nobody wants to hear this tale
The plot is clichéd, the jokes are stale
And baby we've all heard it all before
Oh I could get specific but
Nobody needs a catalog
With details of a love I can't sell anymore

Invisible Ink, Aimee Mann


::

Polaroids

Please no more therapy
Mother take care of me
Piece me together with a
Needle and thread
Wrap me in eiderdown
Lace from your wedding gown
Fold me and lay me down
On your bed
Or liken me to a shoe
Blackened and spit-shone through
Kicking back home to you
Smiling back home
Singing back home to you
Laughing back home to you
Dragging back home to you


I was so wary then
The ugly American
Thinner than oxygen
Tough as a whore
I said you can lie to me
I own what's inside of me
And nothing surprises me anymore
But forests in Germany
Kids in the Tuileries
Broken-down fortresses
In old Italy
And claiming his victory
Shrouded in mystery
He went running away with me


Back in our home New York
Walking these streets forlorn
We all in our uniforms
Black and black
Doing that slouch and jive
The artist must survive
We've got all we need we cried
And we don't look back
Thinking we had it made
Poised for the hit parade
Knee deep in accolades
The conceptual pair
But ever the malcontent
He left without incident
Vanished into thin air


Now I am always amazed
Words can fill up a page
Pages fill up the days
Between him and me
But the vows that we never keep
From bedrooms to business-speak
Make me remember how cheap
Words can be
And the letters I wrote you of
Were those of the desperate stuff
Like begging for love in a suicide threat
But I am too young to die
Too old for a lullaby
Too tired for life on the ledge


But I had a dream last night
Of lovers who walked the plank
Out on the edge of time
Amidst ridicule
They laughed as they rocked and reeled
Over the mining fields
Coming to rest on this ship of fools
But he just took polaroids
Of her smile in the light
Of the dawn of the menacing sky
And before they went overboard
She turned and held up a card
And it said Valentine


Polaroids, Shawn Colvin

::

Deep Wilson

Slipping down railings
And balconies
With a sleepy ease i never knew
I never gave my way to you

Indigent darkness
Thick as a dream
A liquid party underneath
Though i'm still shaky and weak

Knees pressed against the leather couch
I couldn't find my bra
You were so familiar
I think that i lean out too far
I wouldn't have if my heart and my stomach hadn't fallen
So hard

That's some hat trick
An effortless move
That tearful frantic creature seems far away from here

My new orleans nickel ring
Your deep wilson tattoo
Under the bullshit radar
I came to find you

Knees pressed against the leather couch
I couldn't find my bra and
You were so familiar
I think that i leaned out too far
I wouldn't have if my heart and my stomach hadn't fallen
So hard

::

Hyperballad

We live on a mountain
Right at the top
There's a beautiful view
From the top of the mountain
Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like car-parts, bottles and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying around
It's become a habit
A way to start the day

I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you

It's real early morning
No-one is awake
I'm back at my cliff
Still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make
On their way down
I follow with my eyes 'til they crash
Imagine what my body would sound like
Slamming against those rocks
When it lands
Will my eyes
Be closed or open?

I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you


Hyperballad, Bjork
::

LB, x