| Like a shadow on a shadow, a phantom in a film strip
|
| Faint glimmer of the past trapped in mother’s old slides
|
| Sits still in the apartment while sifting through some pictures
|
| Of the child that he once was and the sense of hope they framed
|
| «It's a shame»
|
| And I fear that fate while the humming from the street keeps me awake
|
| He says, «I let life get twisted
|
| Get worn out, torn up, and late with the rent. |
| And
|
| Now nothing makes sense except the bench and that piano
|
| A feeling nearing order when I’m pressing down the chords.»
|
| And he plays
|
| And it swells and breaks, but what’ll it take to make my life sound like that
|
| And brings a fever, a dream of sweat and ecstasy
|
| A kiss on every hammer hit that follows as the keys fall down and
|
| Bring an order first, then chaos, then a calm, that
|
| Paints every shift in murals on the wall. |
| And
|
| It presses to your neck
|
| It clutches to your hips
|
| Softly sings to you of fireworks and God and art and sex and it’s strange-
|
| That it feels so right when nothing else does
|
| But all the while he’s playing there’s a humming
|
| Coming up and through the window from outside
|
| And even he has to admit a certain melody in it, but then why can’t he
|
| harmonize?
|
| It’s like the city’s got it’s own song but he can’t play along
|
| He sees the notes as they fly by but always plays them wrong
|
| And in the bathroom it gets blurry, gets warm and distorted
|
| Like light pushed the orange of the pillbox he poured in
|
| His palm. |
| It falls to the floor, he smiles as it hits
|
| «Sounds a little like an instrument.»
|
| Like a voice in the choir, that hum and that drumbeat of life as an art-form and
|
| Fire through the streets that keep moving us in silence to phantom baton sweeps
|
| Keep tapping to the tempo of our feet
|
| And all the ones who seem to fit the best into the chorus never notice there’s
|
| a song
|
| And the ones who seem to hear it end up tortured by the chords when they fail
|
| to find
|
| A way to sing along
|
| And when you sing the wrong thing it all starts collapsing
|
| Starts to ring out and feedback, starts lapsing and crashing, on notes that
|
| don’t clash
|
| But that never quite feel like they match
|
| And I never quite feel like mine match
|
| There’s a melody in everything
|
| I’m trying to find a harmony but
|
| Nothing seems to work
|
| Nothing seems to fit
|
| There’s a melody in everything
|
| I’m trying to find a harmony but
|
| Nothing seems to work
|
| Nothing seems to fit
|
| There’s a melody in everything
|
| I’m trying to find a harmony but
|
| Nothing seems to work
|
| Nothing fits |