Everyone that I know
Thinks they're
Losing their beauty
Everyone that I know
Thinks nobody is listening
Everyone that I know
Is just so overwhelmed
You know?
Everyone that I know
Hates the government
And nobody that I know
Says they voted for them
Everyone that I know
Is working at least two jobs
And training a machine
To take them away
When I'm in the street and
Sat down to eat my lunch
If someone points skyward
Everyone starts looking up
Somebody I know
Got the news from the doctor
Nobody I know
Wants that kind of news
Somebody I know
Waits in the light of their phone
For word of the cousins
Lost in a war they did not choose
When I was in the city
Waiting for cars to pass
Someone pointed skyward
And everyone started looking up
Then someone
Clutched their breast pocket and
Fell face down to the ground
And everyone I'd never met
Gathered in to help
Everyone that I know
Thinks they're
Losing their beauty
If ever anyone should ask
I just tell them no.
He brings a painting of a flower
To hook upon the wall
In the café, buys a coffee
It will probably never sell
But he loves it
It reminds him of someone
God will be calling him soon
To do the bidding of men
Ten thousand eyes
For a single tooth
For the King says
For the Rich say
Hang the expense
He makes a pastry for the painter
He says it's on the house
Just how his mother made them
And the pumpkins are in season
Smell the spices in the oven
That is love
God will be calling him soon
To do the bidding of men
Ten thousand eyes
For a single tooth
For the King says
For the Rich say
Hang the expense
He reads the paper
To his father
At the table by the door
Two pits behind his glasses
And he doesn't really talk
Describes the colours
Counts the petals
In the flower on its hook
Skipping over pages
God will be calling him soon
To do the bidding of men
Ten thousand eyes
For a single tooth
For the King says
For the Rich say
Hang the expense
Jarvis says you got to have love
In my left ear and right
In a disco time
The woman of the aisle
Looking like she just inhaled
A whole other life
Memento mori raincloud from the train
It's one more for the library
By her big librarian eyes
Sunshine, shadowlines
A little nook in your loft
Our ink and paper fingers
I'm getting old, Jarvis
I'm not half the man
I used to be
But half the one I could have been
That leaves a third, Jarvis
By my calculations
Jarvis says you got to have love
I guess I am in
The you they're speaking of
The woman of the aisle
Stacking books in order of mention
All precarious like
Memento mori lamp and incense train
Am I one more for the library
In her big librarian eyes?
Sunshine, shadowlines
A little nook in your loft
Our ink and paper fingers
I'm getting old, Jarvis
I'm not half the man
I used to be
But half the one I could have been
That leaves a third, Jarvis
By my calculations
I remember the first time
That I bought you home
I was so afraid
You were lying in a tiny chair
I got from the Trading Post
A neighbour brought some diapers and a cake
And sometimes it seemed you were not moving
I spent less time sleeping than awake
Searching for a patter that was soothing
Some nights were more than my heart could take
I remember the first time
That you came home
With a bruise across your eye
Your story was so full of flaws
The first time that you shut your door
A neighbour left a sandwich bag of ice
And I tell you then I contemplated moving
Somewhere far, for you to start again
I got to know the smallest strains and changes in your breathing
Some nights were more than my heart could take
I remember the first time
That you came home
With a smile across your face
I'd never seen your hand
Inside another's
It was your left, below the scars
You brought flowers for the neighbours
And sometimes it seems we are not moving
I can shut my eyes and you're just a babe again
You phone me with a patter that is soothing
But some nights are more than my heart can take