Fevers & Mirrors

You turn on a spindle. You are so much looser now but you're not explaining how you gained
such new repose. I touch the clasp of your locket, with its picture held, some secret you wouldn't
tell but let it choke your neck. So we imagine a darkness where all shapes divide, solids
changing into light, with a burst of heat so bright. Well fine, don't you do what I want you to.
Don't degrade yourself the way I do because you don't depend on all the shit that I use to make
my moods improve. Near a sea of pianos, there were waves of chords that crashed against the
shore in one huge and pointless roar. And there were girls bringing water, like a dream they
came to cure the fever of my brain, and soothe my burning throat. And they made me a
necklace, hanging beads of sweat on a string of my regrets, and placed it round my neck and
they were singing, Don't you do what you've wanted to. Yeah, don't destroy yourself like those
cowards do and maybe the sun keeps coming up because it has gotten used to you and your
constant need for proof.

There is a middle-aged woman dragging her feet.
She carries baskets of clothes to a laundromat.
While the Mexican children kick rocks into the street
and they laugh in a language I don't understand.
But I love them.
Why do I love them?
So the neighborhood is dimming as I smoke on the porch
and watch the people as they pass enclosed inside their cars.
And on their faces just anger or disappointment.
I start wishing there was something I could offer them.
A consolation, what could I offer them?
When they are sad in their suburbs robots water the lawn
and everything they touch gets dusted spotless.
So they start to believe that they haven't touched anything at all.
While the cars in the driveway only multiply.
They are lost in their houses.
I have heard them sing in the shower
and making speeches to their sister on the telephone.
Saying, You come home.
Darling, you come here.
Don't stay so far away from me.
This weather has me wanting love more tangible.
Something I can hold because it's getting cold.
So lets hold up our fists to the flame in the sky
to block out the light that is reaching for our eyes
because it would blind us. It will blind us.
Now I have locked my actions in the grooves of routine.
So I may never be free of this apathy.
But I wait for a letter that is coming to me.
She sends me pictures of the ocean in an envelope.
So there still is hope.
Yes, I can be healed.
There is someone looking for what I concealed in my secret drawer,
in my pockets deep,
you will find the reasons that I can't sleep and you will still want me.
But will you still want me?
Well, I say come for the week.
You can sleep in my bed.
And then pass through my life like a dream through my head.
It will be easy. I will make it easy.
But all I have for the moment is a song to pass the time.
A melody to keep me from worrying.
Oh, some simple progression to keep my fingers busy.
And some words that are sure to come back to me and they will be laughing.
My mediocrity. My mediocrity.

Sunrise, sunset.
Sunrise, sunset.
Swiftly go the days.
Sunrise, sunset.
You wake up, then you undress.
It always is the same.
A sunrise and a sunset.
You are lying while you confess, keep trying to explain.
The sunrise and the sun sets you realize
and then you forget what you have been trying to retain.
But everybody knows that it is all about the things
that get stuck inside of your head,
like the songs your roommate sings
or a vision of her body as she stretches out on your bed.
She raised her hands in the air and asked you,
When was the last time you looked in the mirror?
Because you have changed.
Yeah, you have changed.
Sunrise, sunset.
You are hopeful and then you regret.
The circle never breaks.
With each sunrise and sunset there is a change of heart or address.
Is there nothing that remains?
For a sunrise or a sunset.
You are manic or you're depressed.
Will you ever feel ok?
It's a sunrise and sunset, your lover is an actress.
Did you really think she would stay?
For a sunrise and sunset.
You are either coming or you just left but you are always on the way.
Towards a sunrise or a sunset, a scribble or a sonnet.
They are really just the same.
To the sunrise and the sunset.
The master and his servant have exactly the same fate.
It's a sunrise and a sunset.
From a cradle to a casket.
There ain't no way to escape.
The sunrise and the sunset.
Hold your sadness like a puppet, just keep putting on the play.
But everything you do is leading to the point
where you just won't know what to do.
And at that moment you may laugh
but there is someone there who will be laughing louder than you.
So it's true, the trick is complete.
Now you have become everything you said that you never would be.
You're a fool! You're a fool!
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset.
The sunrise and the sunset.
Sunrise, sunset.
Go home to your apartment
and put the cassette in the tape deck and let that fever play.
Sunrise, sunset.
Where are you Arienette?
Where are you Arienette?

The fragile keep secrets, gathered in pockets, and they will sell them for nothing a cheap watch
or locket that kind of gold washes off. The sad at like lepers, they stick to the shadows and long
to ring bells of warning to tell of their coming so that the pure can shut their doors. The angry are
animals senseless and savage. They act without order in logical lapses, they stain their mouths
with blood. So take my hand, this barren land is alive tonight. The corn has grown stalks that
form a wall that hides. The wind carries sounds that I can't see from beyond that line. Then the
stalks begin to sway oh stay with me Arienette until the wolves are away. The wicked are
vultures, they bake in the canyons. They circle in sunlight and wait for their victims to collapse
and call to them. The desperate are water. They will run down forever and soak into silence to
just end up together in some dark and distant place. So don't leave me here with only mirrors
watching me. This house it holds nothing but the memories. And the moon it leaves silver but
never sleep. And then the silver turns to gray so stay with me Arienette until the wolves are away.

You follow the footsteps echoes leading down a hall to a room. There is music playing tiny
bells with moving parts. Here the shadows make things ugly, an effect quite undesirable. The
bold and yellow daylight grows like ivy across the wall and bounces off of the painted porcelain,
tiny dancing doll. Her body spins, as she pirouettes again, the world suddenly seems small. On
an off white, subtle morning you stretch your legs in the front seat. The road has made a vacuum
where our voices used to be. And you lay your head onto my shoulder, pour like water over me.
So if I just exist for the next ten minutes of this drive that would be fine. And all the trees that line
this curb would be rejoicing and alive. Soon all the joy that pours from everything makes
fountains of your eyes because you finally understand the movement of a hand waving you good-bye.

The phone slips from a loose grip. Words were missed then some apology like I didn't want to
tell you this it's just some guys she has been hanging out with oh I don't know the past couple
of weeks I guess. Thank you and hang up the phone. Let the funeral start. Hear the casket
close. Let's pin split-black ribbon onto your overcoat. Still laughter pours from under doors in this
house. I don't understand that sound no more. It seems artificial like a T.V. set. Haligh, Haligh,
Haligh, Haligh this weight it must be satisfied. You offer only one reply. You know not what you
do. But you tear and tear your hair from roots. From that same head you have twice removed a
lock of hair you said would prove our love would never die. Well ha ha ha. But I remember
everything the words we spoke on freezing South street. And all those morning watching you
get ready for school. You combed your hair inside that mirror. The one you painted blue and
glued with jewelry tears. Something about those bright colors always made you feel better. So
now we speak with ruined tongues and the words we say aren't' meant for anyone. It's just a
mumbled sentence to a passing acquaintance, but there was once you said you hated my
suffering and you understood and you'd take care of me. You would always be there, well where
are you now? Haligh, Haligh, Haligh, Haligh, the plans were never finalized but left to hang like
yarn and twice dangling before my eyes. As you tear and tear your hair from roots, from that
same head that you have twice removed a lock of hair you said would prove that our love would
never die. As I sing and sing of awful things, the pleasure that my sadness brings as my fingers
press onto the strings you get another clumsy chord. Haligh, Haligh, an awful lie. This weight will
now be satisfied. I will give you only one reply, I know not who I am but I talk in the mirror to the
stranger that appears. Our conversations are circles and always one sided, nothing is clear.
Except we keep coming back to this meaning that I lack. He says the choices were given and
now I must live them or just not live, but do you want that?