Mortal City

She never should have rented this apartment in the Mortal City
The cold comes though evey crack she puts her hand up to
The radiator's broken, so she has to use electric heat.

And tonight was the first date with the brother of the guy she worked next to
He lived a couple streets awa
He listened, he had things to say
She asked him up for dinner sometime
Sometime was tonight

The radio gave updates on the ice storm while she made the dinner
They said, from all the talk, you shouldn't drive or even walk
And this just in -- We're asking everyone to turn off their power
They need it at the hostpital.

She ran around pulling plugs, then she called him up
Maybe now they shouldn't meet, he said that he would brave the streets
She met him at the door with a blanket and a candle
Saying, I heard it on the radio, I had to turn my power off.

He said you're not the only one, the streets were dark tonight,
It was like another century
With dim lamps and candles lighting up the icy trees and the clouds and a covered moon.

She said what kind of people make a city
Where you can't see the sky and you can't feel the ground?

I tell you something, I have this feeling that this city's dying
He said, it's not dying it's the people who are dying
She said, yes yes I think the people are dying and nobody cares.

We had all this technology our dreams were bold and vague
And then one city got bad planners, one city got the plague.

He asked why did you move here? She said, for the job
For the job and I've been so lonely here, so lonely
There's no one I can talk to, you know I don't even know your brother.

He smiled and said, sometimes at night I walk out by the river
The city's one big town, the water turns it upside down
people found this city because they love other people
They want their secretaries, they want their power lunches.

And think about tonight, I heard the same newscast you did
I unplugged everything, I looked out the window
And I think the city heard, I watched as one by one the lights went off
So they could give their power to the hospital

They ate in silence while she thought this over,
They sat together in a dark room in the Mortal City
Shifting in their blankets so they wouldn't get spaghetti on them.

Then came the awkward moment after dinner, what to do,
The ice was still falling, the streets were still dangerous
The cabs were not running and this neighborhood was not the greatest.

They both looked at the space where a couch would've been
She felt her stomach sink, she felt like she could hardly think

She said, I never should have rented this apartment in the Mortal City
The cold comes through eve crack I put my hand up to
The radiator doesn't work, I have to use electric heat.

That settled it, they would both sleep in her bed
It was a matter of survival.

She brought out teeshirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, socks, hats
If there was ever any thought of what would happen in that bed tonight
There wa no question now
They could barely move
They were wrapped up like ornaments waiting for another season.

They lay in bed, they listened to the pelting ice
He said my brother's not a bad guy, he's just quiet
I wished you liked this city
She said, maybe I do.

I think I have a special kind of hearing tonight
I hear the neighbors upstairs
I hear my heart beating
I hear one thousand hearts beating at the hospital
And one thousand hearts by their bedsides waiting
Saying that's my love in the white gown,

We are not lost in the Mortal City
We are not lost in the Mortal City

If you're gonna get your heart broke, you better do it just right,
It's gotta be raining,a nd you gotta move your stuff that night,
And the only friend you can reach isn't a good friend at all,
And you know when he says 'Now who dumped who?' that you never should have made
that call.

I had the blessings, there's nobody there, there's nobody home,
Yeah the blessings, at the moment I was most alone
And aimless as a fulltime fool, the joke was on me,
I got all those birds flying off of that tree, and that's a blessing.

And the blessings were like poets that we never find time to know,
But when time stopped I found the place where the poets go.
And they said, 'Here have some coffee, it's straight, black and very old,'
And they gave me sticks and rocks and stars and all that I could hold,

I had the blessings, a moment of peace even when the night ends,
Yeah the blessings, can we meet? Can we meet again,
At the crossroads of disaster and the imperfect smile,
With the angel in the streetlamp that blinks on as I walk on a mile, the blessings.

And the best ones were the ones I got to keep as I grew strong,
And the days that opened up until my whole life could belong,
And now I'm getting the answers, when I don't need them anymore,
I'm finding the pictures, and I finally know what I kept them for,
I remember, I can see them, see them smiling, see them stuck,
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings.

I was fast asleep at three in the morning when I got the payphone call,
And she said, 'Did I wake you up,' I said, 'Hey, no, not at all.'
And she said, 'I got this suitcase and I don't know what to pack,'
And I said, 'You can take anything you want, just wait and see,
It's not a release, not a reward, it's the blessings,
Its the gift of what you notice more,'
And I walked out and I watched her kick the big pile of the night,
And we sat down and we waited for that strange and empty light.
Yeah the blessings...

See them smiling, see them stuck,
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings.

I threw your keys in the water, I looked back,
Theyd frozen halfway down in the ice.
They froze up so quickly, the keys and their owners,
Even after the anger, it all turned silent, and
The everyday turned solitary,
So we came to February.

First we forgot where wed planted those bulbs last year,
Then we forgot that wed planted at all,
Then we forgot what plants are altogether,
and I blamed you for my freezing and forgetting and
The nights were long and cold and scary,
Can we live through February?

You know I think Christmas was a long red glare,
Shot up like a warning, we gave presents without cards,
And then the snow,
And then the snow came, we were always out shoveling,
And wed drop to sleep exhausted,
Then wed wake up, and its snowing.

And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together.
You stopped and pointed and you said, 'Thats a crocus,'
And I said, 'Whats a crocus?' and you said, 'Its a flower,'
I tried to remember, but I said, 'Whats a flower?'
You said, 'I still love you.'

The leaves were turning as we drove to the hardware store,
My new lover made me keys to the house,
And when we got home, well we just started chopping wood,
Because you never know how next year will be,
And well gather all our arms can carry,
I have lost to February.

I've never had a way with women, but the hills of Iowa make me wish that I could,
And Ive never found a way to say I love you, but if the chance came by, oh I, I would,
But way back where I come from, we never mean to bother,
We dont like to make our passions other peoples concern,
And we walk in the world of safe people, and at night we walk into our houses and burn.

Iowa oh ooo oh, Iowa oh ooooh ooo oh I-Iowa

How I long to fall just a little bit, to dance out of the lines and stray from the light,
But I fear that to fall in love with you is to fall from a great and gruesome height.
So I asked a friend about it, on a bad day, her husband had just left her,
She sat down on the chair he left behind, she said,
"What is love, where did it get me? Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine."

Ioway oh ooo oh, Iowa oh ooooh ooo oh I-Iowa

Once I had everything, I gave it up for the shoulder of your driveway and the words Ive never felt.
And so for you, I came this far across the tracks, ten miles above the limit, and with no seatbelt, and Id do it again,
For tonight I went running through the screen doors of discretion,
For I woke up from a nightmare that I could not stand to see,
You were a-wandering out on the hills of Iowa and you were not thinking of me.

Ioway oh ooo oh, Iowa oh ooooh ooo oh I-Iowa
Ioway oh ooo oh, Iowa oh ooooh ooo oh I-Iowa

I'm not a leader, i'm not a left-wing rhetoric mobilizing force of one,
But there was a time way back, many years ago in college, don't laugh,
But I thought I was a radical, I ran the hemp Liberation Group with my boyfriend,
It was true love, with a common cause, and besides that, he was a Sagittarius.

We used to say that our love was like hemp rope, three times as strong as the rope that
you buy domestically,
And we would bond in the face of oppression from big business and the deans,
But I knew there was a problem, every time the group would meet everyone would light up,
That made it difficult to discuss glaucoma and human rights, not to mention chemotherapy.

Well sometimes, life gives us lessons sent in ridiculous packaging,
And so I found him in the arms of a Student Against the Treacherous use of Fur,
And he gave no apology, he just turned to me, stoned out to the edge of oblivion,
He didn't pull up the sheets and I think he even smiled as he said to me,
'Well, I guess our dreams went up in smoke.'
And I said, No, our dreams went up in dreams, you stupid pothead,
And another thing, what kind of a name is Students Against the Treacherous Use of Fur?
Fur is already dead, and besides, a name like that doesn't make a good acronym.

I am older now, I know the rise and gradual fall of a daily victory.
And I still write to my senators, saying they should legalize cannabis,
And I should know, cause I am a horticulturist, I have a husband and two children out in
Lexington, Mass.
And my ex-boyfriend can't tell me I've sold out, because he's in a cult.
And he's not allowed to talk to me.

There's a part of the country could drop off tomorrow in an earthquake,
Yeah it's out there on the cutting edge, the people move, the sidwalks shake.
And there's another part of the country with a land that gently creaks and thuds,
Where the heavy snows make faucets leak in bathrooms with free-standing tubs.
They're in houses that are haunted, the with kids who lie awake and think about
All the generations past who used to use that dripping sink.

And sometimes one place wants to slip into the other just to see
What it's like to trade its demons for the restless ghost of Mrs. Ogilvey,
She used to pick the mint from her front yard to dress the Sunday pork,
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York.

It wants to have a family business in sheet metal or power tools,
It wants to have a diner where the coffee tastes like diesel fuel,
And it wants to find the glory of a town they say has hit the skids,
And it wants to have a snow day that will turn its parents into kids,
And it's embarrassed, but it's lusting after a SUNY student with mousy brown hair who is
Taking out the compost, making coffee in long underwear.

And southern California says to save a place, I'll meet you there,
And it tried to pack up its Miata, all it could fit was a prayer,
Sometimes the stakes are bogus, sometimes the fast lane hits a fork,
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York.

Tempe, Arizona thinks the Everglades are greener and wetter,
And Washington, D. C. thinks that Atlanta integrated better,
But I think that southern California has more pain that we can say,
Cause it wants to travel back in time, but it just can't leave L. A.

But now I hear they've got a theme park planned, designed to make you gasp and say,
Oh, I bet that crumbling mill town was a booming mill town in its day,
And the old investors scoff at this, but the young ones hope they'll take a chance,
And they promise it will make more dough than Mickey Mouse in northern France,
And the planners planned an opening day, a town historian will host,
And the waitresses look like waitresses who want to leave for the west coast.

And they'll have puttering on rainy weekends, autumn days that make you feel sad,
They'll have hundred year old plumbing and the family you never had,
And a Hudson River clean-up concert and a bundle-bearing stork,
And I hear they've got a menu planned, it's trés western New York.