scraps of lyrics not doing much good in a box in the closet

Paul Sullivan
paulebm at gmail.com

cleaved asunder, besieged and plundered
Within my cell of solid rock,
I linger on the ground.
I have no thought but Hell.
People pass and quickly yell,
“Boy, go on from there.”
To them, I seem adrift
in a forest mist,
a haze soon dispelled…

~~~~

In a world of ever changing planes
I'm bound to stumble and fall
Because I ain't got nothing, nothing left to give

….

You can babble on forever bout
Life gettin better, but you know
That you never had it all so together before

~~~~

I don’t know why I have to go far -
a steel string guitar
and a library card
that’s all I’ll need
with a job that’s not hard.

longer scrap

I guess I'm fine 'bout the way things worked out
A couple of months more wouldn't have meant a great deal
Iowa's good & it's ever so real
My life could be spent watching wind on a field

But I needed the city around me again.
the tension that's tight & exquisite at once
nickel on an edge or a horn honked too long
10,000 faces each day break o'er mine.

I say babe
I say babe
I say whatever you want me to
I'm a truck w/o brakes coming down off a hill
a ball off a bat or a jab from the champ
All I can say is go out of my way

And then I falter again; I thought you friend
I may have left you in some kind of need
But, honestly, babe, I didn't leave on a whim
Weather & love can turn on a dime
and you were turning on me

This love is worth more than a single goodbye
You may never know me & I may never care
A distant response to a simple remark
How in the Hell can it tear us apart?
Could we cherish the glimpses & try til we die?

I say babe
I say babe
I say whatever you want me to
I'm a truck w/o brakes coming down off a hill
a ball off a bat or a jab from the champ
All I can say is go out of my way

Darling, come east and give me your hand
I live in a dump with the noise from the street
& the stench in the air
& my God, they're raising the rent.

inside a week you could find us a place
way up & high w/ the sun coming thru
them big old kind of windows
onto hard wooded floors
& people the size I can deal w/ of a morn.

I say babe
I say babe
I say whatever you want me to
I'm a truck w/o brakes coming down off a hill
a ball off a bat or a jab from the champ
All I can say is go out of my way

~~~~~~~~

I had a vision of beauty and lightness;
you had a notion of need now.

I don't condemn us for trying to find out
where our worlds might have met

'cept that you tore at the faith in myself
until you left me cold and so mean.

I don't believe in the love that we shared, yeah
I don't believe our love's gone now

You were a girl with a light on above you
Every cliche in the book

I was just a man without claim or ID
An actor in a role ‘til the show closed

More than just once, I just wanted to see you
to hang by your side for a while.

but I'd nothing to say and I felt like I ought to
You made me feel like I should

I don't believe in the love that we shared, yeah
I don't believe our love's gone now

You teased me tender for wide-eyed devotion,
scorned my kneeling knees unable to take

Before you raised me up to see all around
unpledged, unpromised, unleashed, unkept