"I was in high cotton just a-bangin' on my six-string
A-kickin' at the trash can, walkin' skin and bone"
John Prine

If God hadn't intended us to write love songs, He wouldn't have shaped the heart like a guitar pick.

Because the future is a concrete bird bearing down on all of us, the songbirds in the park have scattered.  The ashes of the muse are blowing like confetti through the cold, concrete streets.  Is that a cloud of smoke, or a mirage?  How long shall we live in this morbid,

Monochrome garage?

Tattoos for women have gone out of vogue, but it doesn't bother me.  I don't have any tattoos myself, but I don't mind them.  The girl from Buenos Aires had tattoos.  Amy Winehouse had tattoos.  The girl upstairs is a tattoo, and was wearing a Motorhead T-shirt today.  Fortunately, she didn't want to talk to me either.  I'm not going to sleep with any of these tattooed, rock & roll cigarette girls, but it would be disingenuous of me to look down on people who have a past.  I have a past.  I understand now why rich people used to bring huge trunks on transatlantic boat rides.  When you have no past, you pack so light you have to use your pajamas as a bathtowel, but by the time your life becomes an epitaph, y'know...  You've got 4 or 5 bellmen scurrying around a huge stack of suitcases, luxurious emotional baggage made of endangered materials no one wants to touch for legal reasons.  Ivory, mahogany, monkey puzzle, love.  Anything that will get you killed or thrown in jail.  Love poachers are everywhere.

We used to call them songwriters.

Why shouldn't our baggage be lined with silk?  Misery laced with milk.  The city is a river

Of poverty and money.  The streets are flowing

With heroin, and honey.  

The road indeed looks rocky, but it won't be rocky long.

"Yeah, the road looks rocky,
but it won't be rocky long (Rock, rock)"
Mimi Roman

Mimi Roman is the border czar of my heart.  My heart is a duty-free shop that sells illicit, endangered woods and emotions to damaged, angry girls with a past.  You can walk out of the shop without paying a tax, but the chick singer border patrol might shake you down.  Mimi Roman, Amy Winehouse, and Judee Sill patrol the empty halls of the desert beating in my chest.  They hold the keys to the heart-shaped guitar pick pumping ashes through my veins.  They have the power to imprison and destroy any trespassers they find.  There is no rule of law.  If Amy Winehouse shakes you down for some rare, endangered feelings made of mahogany or monkey puzzle, give them to her.  If Judee Sill demands a tribute to cross the bleak expanse of wasted faith, it's not a metaphor.  The uninhabitability of the environment just outside the doors of the duty-free shop is real.  If Mimi Roman saunters up to your car smoking a cigarette with automatic weapons akimbo, it isn't to debate the merits of your legal documents.  Your registration and insurance are not valid here.  If you push it, it will be adios amigo for you.

Since all songs are love songs, the only way to survive is to keep the love alive.  Since we're all emotional migrants, far away from home, there's no reason not to roam.  If your suitcase is a casket, make sure you never ask it

To comply with the mirage, and never wear your camouflage

For the monochrome garage.

Because if God never intended us to write love songs, He wouldn't have shaped the heart like a guitar pick.

Thanks for listening.