Hissing Of Summer Lawns

Out on some borderline
Some mark of inbetween
I lay down golden-in time
And woke up vanishing

Sweet bird you are
Briefer than a falling star
All these vain promises on beauty jars
Somewhere with your wings on time
You must be laughing
Behind our eyes
Calendars of our lives
Circled with compromise
Sweet bird of time and change
You must be laughing
Up on your feathers laughing

Golden in time
Cities under the sand
Power, ideals and beauty
Fading in everyone's hand

Give me some time
I feel like i'm losing mine
Out here on this horizon line
With the earth spinning
And the sky forever rushing
No one knows
They can never get that close
Guesses at most
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching

Heatwaves on the runway
As the wheels set down
He takes his baggage off the carousel
He takes a taxi into town
Yellow schools of taxi fishes
Jonah in a ticking whale
Caught up at the light in the fishnet windows
Of bloomingdale's
Watching those high fashion girls
Skinny black models with raveen curls
Beauty parlor blondes with credit card eyes
Looking for the chic and the fancy
To buy

He opens up his suitcase
In the continental suite
And people twenty stories down
Colored currents in the street
A helicopter lands on the pan am roof
Like a dragonfly on a tomb
And business men in button downs
Press into conference rooms
Battalions of paper-minded males
Talking commodities and sales
While at home their paper wives
And paper kids
Paper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid

Yellow checkers for the kitchen
Climbing ivy for the bath
She is lost in house and gardens
He's caught up in chief of staff
He drifts off into the memory
Of the way she looked in school
With her body oiled and shining
At the public swimming pool ...
* * *
The more i'm with you, pretty baby
The more i feel my love increase
I'm building all my dreams around you
Our happiness will never cease
'cause nothing's any good without you
Baby you're my centerpiece

We'll find a house and garden somewhere
Along a country road a piece
A little cottage on the outskirts
Where we can really find release
'cause nothing's any good without you
Baby you're my centerpiece
* * *
...shining hair and shining skin
Shining as she reeled him in
To tell him like she did today
Just what he could do with harry's house
And harry's take home pay

Downtown
My darling dimestore thief
In the war of independence
Rock 'n roll rang sweet as victory
Under neon signs
A girl was in bloom
And a woman was fading
In a suburban room
I said, "take me to the dance"
"do you want to dance?"
"i love to dance"
And i told him, "they don't take chances
They seem so removed from romance"
"they've been broken in churches and schools
And molded to middle class circumstance"
And we were rolling, rolling, rock n' rolling

Downtown
The dance halls and cafes
Feel so wild you could break somebody's heart
Just doing the latest dance craze
Gail and louise
In those push-up brassieres
Tight dresses and rhinestone rings
Drinking up the band's beers
Young love was kissing under bridges
Kissing in cars, kissing in cafes
And we were walking down main street
Kisses like bright flags hung on holidays
"in france they kiss on main street"
"amour, mama, not cheap display"
And we were rolling, rolling, rock n' rolling

Downtown
In the pinball arcade
With his head full of pool hall pitches
And songs from the hit parade
He'd be singing "bye, bye, love"
While he's racking up his free play
Let those rock 'n roll choir boys
Come and carry us away
Sometimes chickie had the car
Or ron had a car
Or lead foot melvin with his hot-wire head
We'd all go looking for a party
Looking to raise jesus up from the dead
And i'd be kissing in the back seat
Thrilling to the brando-like things that he said
And we'd be rolling, rolling, rock n' rolling

Rousseau walks on trumpet paths
Safaris to the heart of all that jazz
Through i bars and girders-through wires and pipes
The mathematic circuits of the modern nights
Through huts, through harlem, through jails and gospel pews
Through the class on park and the trash on vine
Through europe and the deep deep heart of dixie blue
Through savage progress cuts the jungle line

In a low-cut blouse she brings the beer
Rousseau paints a jungle flower behind her ear
Those cannibals-of shuck and jive
They'll eat a working girl like her alive
With his hard-edged eye and his steady hand
He paints the cellar full of ferns and orchid vines
And he hangs a moon above a five-piece band
He hangs it up above the jungle line

The jungle line, the jungle line
Screaming in a ritual of sound and time
Floating, drifting on the air-conditioned wind
And drooling for a taste of something smuggled in
Pretty women funneled through valves and smoke
Coy and bitchy, wild and fine
And charging elephants and chanting slaving boats
Charging, chanting down the jungle line

There's a poppy wreath on a soldier's tomb
There's a poppy snake in a dressing room
Poppy poison-poppy tourniquet
It slithers away on brass like mouthpiece spit
And metal skin and ivory birds
Go steaming up to rousseau's vines
They go steaming up to brooklyn bridge
Steaming, steaming, steaming up the jungle line

The big man arrives
Disco dancers greet him
Plainclothes cops greet him
Small town, big man, fresh lipstick glistening
Sophomore jive
From victims of typewriters
The band sounds like typewriters
The big man he's not listening
His eyes hold edith
His left hand holds his right
What does that hand desire
That he grips it so tight

Edith in the ring
The passed-over girls are conferring
The man with the diamond ring is purring
All claws for now withdrawn
One by one they bring
His renegade stories to her
His crimes and his glories to her
In challenge they look on
Women he has wanted grow old too soon
He tilts their tired faces
Gently to the spoon

Edith in his bed
A plane in the rain is humming
The wires in the walls are humming
Some song-some mysterious song
Bars in her head
Beating frantic and snowblind
Romantic and snowblind
She says-his crime belongs
Edith and the kingpin
Each with charm to sway
Are staring eye to eye
They dare not look away
You know they dare not look away