TO THE LIBRARY - the bibliophile

On a sunny day like this one today,
I like to get a corn dog & soda,
and a package of beer nuts to wash it all down
as I walk to the library.

The trees & flowers are beautiful, I guess.
I really can't see all that well.
Instead, I do what I like to the best.
I go to the library.

The pack on my back is full of big books,
so I really don't walk that fast.
My mind is full of turned-inward thoughts.
I like my library.

No one I know is likely to show up,
so I carefully step over the cracks.
I crunch the last beer nuts & read the wrapper.
No food in the library !

I like the building here & the friendly pigeons.
They get the last of my bun.
I swing the pack off my shoulder % smile.
I'm here at the library.


INSIDE THESE BOOKS - over the library PA system

Inside these books, all the riches of the world await.
You have only to reach to make the wildest dream come true.
Nothing can be unknown.
Nowhere is out of reach.
Anything is possible, to a dreamer with a book
bound in leather, linen, silk, paper, parchment, foolscap.

On these shelves live a thousand worlds.
Each one is unique & incredible.
But there is something even more strange...
That book on the top shelf, untouched by human hands,
where did it come from ?
How did it get here ?
Go on, pick it up. Open it up.

I'M PUTTING IDEAS IN YOUR HEAD - the book

I'm putting ideas in your head.
Maybe things aren't quite as they appear.
Maybe there's a deeper truth than the talking box makes clear.

I've been Amsterdam & Zanzibar,
Superstar & Leper's scar,
River rouge & Hammurabi, too.
River rat & Jungle cat & Tri-corn hat & baseball bat.
Been the colors red & white & blue.

I've been albacore & Baltimore
Student Nurse & gypsy's curse,
El Dorado, Colorado, excess cargo, & Zhivago.
Solarcaine & driving rain & runaway trains &
Citizen Kane & heads with pain & stopped up drains &
Patricide & Revere's ride & beaver hide & Pilgrim's Pride.
Been shredded files & domiciles & false smiles &
Herding goats & stolen votes & missing notes &
Nasty jokes & sunken boats.......

There's an awful lot going on that we never hear about.
But the more I tell you, the more you'll see
there's plenty of room for doubt.

The secrets don't come out until years too late.
There's nothing that can be done.
But I'm going to change all that !
I'm going to speak out.



LIBROS - a far away place made real by the book

Libro de mano izquierda, como una Frida en cinta
ó una limosnera rica,
como quien no sabe
que los libros son margenes escritos por los pobres.

Libro canto, canto libro, hecho de tortillas de harina
con tinta de niño bolero, rebalozo, zapatero,
imprenta de visiones, pesadillas,
zapatos por bolear en cualquier esquina de un recuerdo.

Las torillas de harina

Libro del saber,
que hubiera podido escribir,
imprimir, redimir, el pulquero de México,
que aquí es esquirol.

Libro sin dientes, con sonrisas, con corrientes de papel.
Lisas
por los años de ser comparado con el pan Bimbo,
Libro conocimiento de muchos.
Te hago, te como, te leo, te veo.
te veo en los ojos,
te veo.

Quisiera y no puedo. No te tenemos.
No te podemos meter en lo más profundo
de la ciencia, en la ciencia de la que vende pantalones
de casa en casa.

Libro de media tarde, cuando la gente sale de trabajar.
Libro de media noche, cuando al no poder dormir,
jugamos a las canicas
con la mente.

&#-191; Y porqué no ?

Libro decente
de los que dicen,
de los que saben que &#-171; debemos hablar mejor &#-187;
Libro de la gente.
Libro de las manzanas.
Libro para cualquier ocasión o cualquier día.
Libro como baile de un huerfano
al que se le olvidó la cumbia
Libro de mano izquierda.
Cobija de los pobres.

THING IN MY HAND - the bibliophile

I have this thing in my hand & I don't understand it.
It looks so ordinary, but there's more inside than meets the eye.
If you open it, you won't believe your senses.
You could see what you believe.
You could touch something very true.
You could unleash a storm.

I'm gonna keep it under my arm.
It won't go out of my sight.
This thing has the power of veracity stronger than reality.

It's starting to get warm here.
If you were me, you'd feel it, too.
This thing could shape my life,
or turn the world upside down.


DENUNCIATION - the politician & the book (through the bibliophile)

My fellow citizens, I'm proud to be here today.
My experience with this library goes back a long way.
In high school & college, I was here every night,
learning about America, and morals, and rights.

In high school, you cheated on your final exams.
In college, you cashed in on fraternity scams.
You only got your first job 'cause your old man had bucks,
& you backstabbed & brownnosed your way to the top.

When I decided public office was my calling in life,
I came here to plan my strategy, & here I met my wife.
We spent hours in discussion of a platform to stand
On a solid foundation, a visionary plan.

In your first run for office, you bought the nomination,
& you made quite a killing on illegal contributions.
You condemned your neighbor's property to build that landfill.
You rented them you own, & you're collecting from them still.

In my years as your servant, state employment increased.
I attracted big industries, and that's not the least.
My record on the environment stands by itself.
I've increased productivity, & therefore you wealth.

When you got to the Senate, you supported legislation
to build nuclear weapons plants in your con-sti-tu-a-shun.
Of course, you collected from consultants & PACs,
& the contractors were happy to provide the kickbacks.

So it gives me great pleasure to stand here before
you & dedicate the new wing of the library for
the continued education of the young & the strong.
They'll be standing in my shoes before very long.

And if they learn their lessons well, as I did in my youth,
They will believe, just as I do, in the power of the truth.
As I cut through the ribbon, you can rest assured today
that our country will continue on it's glorious way.

You're a cheat. You're a liar. You're a slob & a thief.
You're a slumlord cashing in on the innocents' belief.
You've got tentacles for fingers, you've got blood-sucking teeth.
You fuck up the environment.
You're a fiend from hell.
You cause poor babies to be born with small brains.

SHOCK & RAGE - a bystander

It's hard to make sense of what I just watched.
It just doesn't figure.
That guy was on top of the world.
He couldn't be much bigger.

I used to look at him and wonder
How a shmuck could get so rich
Did he make a devil's deal
or bargain with a witch ?

Now I find that jerk's been climbing
Climbing up our backs
Yeah he's been making lots of deals
and hiding lots of facts.

I knew there was something sleazy
I could smell a rat
While we were getting thin,
he was getting fat

That dog sold us swamp land
that fink sold us slums
that jerk took our money
that weasel was having fun

He took the plate with all the pie
we were begging for a little piece
he took the bacon to his house
and left us the grease

I am so mad at that fucking bastard
I could grind my teeth to bits
He's stripped naked now
I wonder how he likes it ?

TRUTH CONTROL - the bibliophile

When push comes to shove, I can't let go.
Under the influence of truth control.

It's like a giant magnet, or the force of gravity.
It makes me move and I forget
where I've been and what I've seen.

It doesn't really talk to me.
It's a reflexive command.
It pushes me through doorways.
It pulls me by the hand.

Sometimes when I'm afraid, it makes me read a page.
The words flow like a river, pulling me downstream.
I am the truth's receiver, awakened from a dream.


ON THE TRAIL - press corps reporter

There was no doubt about it. The man from the capitol had turned to massive doses of novacaine as a last resort. The only remaining question was, when did he start ? But nobody could answer this one, and I was not able to ask the candidate myself because I was permanently barred from his campaign after that incident on the Sunshine Special in Florida, and the guy with the book. He had always taken pride in his ability to deal with hecklers. He has frequently challenged them, calling them up on the stage stage in front of big crowds and forcing the poor bastards to debate with him in a blaze of TV lights. But there was none of that in Florida. When the boo-hoo began grabbing at his legs & screaming, he went all to pieces, which gave rise to speculation among reporters familiar with his campaign style in '88 & '92 that he was not himself. It was noted, among other things, that he had developed a tendency to roll his eyes wildly during TV interviews, and that his thought patterns had become strangely fragmented, and that not even his closest advisors could predict when he might suddenly spiral off into babbling rages or neo-comatose funks. In retrospect, however, it is easy to see why he fell apart on that caboose platform in the Miami train station. There he was, far gone in a bad novacaine frenzy. Suddenly pushed out into a rainstorm to face a sullen crowd, attacked by a snarling lunatic with a book going for his legs while he tried to explain why he was the only Democrat who could beat the President.
It is entirely conceivable, given the known effects of Novacaine, that his brain, almost paralyzed by hallucinations at the time, looked out at the crowd and saw gila monsters instead of people, and that his mind snapped completely when he felt something large and apparently vicious clawing at his legs.
We can only speculate on this, because those in a position to know have flatly refused to comment on rumors concerning his disastrous experiments with Novacaine. I tried to find the Brazilian doctor on election night in Milwaukee, but by the time the polls closed, he was long gone. One of the hired bimbos at the Holiday Inn headquarters said a man with fresh welts on his head had been dragged out a side door and put on a bus to Chicago, but we were never able to confirm this.
The final straw was the result of an unpublished but carefully leaked poll taken by Oliver Quayle at the behest of Senator Jackson & the local AFL-CIO. The poll showed him losing 70 % of his support in Wisconsin in the previous two weeks. According to the poll, the one-time front-runner slipped from 39% to 13%. Midway in the final week of the campaign, he began dropping hints that he knew he was doomed. At one point, during a whistlestop tour of small towns in the Fox River Valley near Green Bay, he fell into a public funk and began muttering about "needing a miracle." When the sense of depression began spreading like a piss puddle on concrete, he invited the press regulars to help him celebrate his 58th birthday in a small hotel on a snowy night in Green Bay. But the party turned sour when his wife mashed a piece of the birthday cake in the face of Newsweek reporter Dick Stout, saying," One good turn deserves another, eh, Dick ?"


EVERYBODY'S HOUNDING ME - the politician

Everybody's hounding me. I hardly know my own name.
I've had to shave my head and hang my head with shame.
I had my face on Newsweek as this year's Man To Blame.
Me, the man of ten thousand lies, rising up in fame.
Lies & truths, once they were to me the same,
but the truth's been after me. It's been a deadly game.

That little man has followed me. He, and that ugly little book.
They questioned my about my kickbacks, & everything I took.
Nothing gets me more uptight than being called a crook,
or that I was having sex with children while California shook.

That's why I've called you here today to face some ugly facts :
That, well, it's true I've been a bad man, and cheated on my tax.
I've been trading heroin from the fascists to the blacks.
I've even killed a communist in a flag-waving sneak attack.
I've made little kids sell street-corner drugs like PCP & crack.
Bhopal in India was a factory I arranged.
You might not believe it, but I am really not deranged,
When I tell you that I've been chased from Washington to here
For each & every single speech I've made so far this year.

There. I said it. I did it. I'm done.
Now, you can really have some fun.
I have to dress up like a nun.


SPREAD THE TRUTH - the book

You & I, we've done the job, & said what needed to be told.
Stripped the lies from a nasty little man.
Let's let the entire truth unfold.

Now, I'll pick you up on paper wings, and carry you through the sky.
You'll see the lies in every place.
You will gnash your teeth & cry.

You'll see the tiny wretched children
suffering from famine & disease.
You'll see the tanks & bombs & guns.
You'll see the blighted trees.

I will show the smallest details of the meanness & the lies.
That laid the victims in open graves & covered them with flies.

You will come to understand there are no accidents.
There is a grave, grave difference between
what's right & what makes sense.

You & I, we've got a job to say what must be told.
To uncover evil men & recover stolen gold.

We'll drop the truth on everyone as we go flying by.
We'll shout the truth from lofty peaks,
and burn it in the sky.

We'll put a book in each child's hands,
and we'll write it on the moon.
Greed & calumny & deceit will cease !
The truth is coming soon !


GIVE ME THAT THING -the bibliophile's mom

Now, I'd like to have a quick word with you, young man.
I've told you time & time again, but you don't seem to understand.
Will you put down that book & look at me for once ?
Just because I watch T.V., I am not a total dunce.
Imagine my shock & disbelief when I saw you on the news.
You must be someone's son, but I really wonder whose.
Since you brought that book home, you've been reading night & day.
You don't seem to eat or sleep. How did you get this way ?
What the hell's so good about that book, that you won't talk to your mother ?
I want to see that stupid book. Give it to me or I'll tear off the cover !
Give it. Give it here, give it, I say ! Give it to me.

I HATE THE HATE YOU MAKE -the politician's spouse

This time, I cannot look the other way.
This time, I know for sure.
Something's wrong with your world.
Something's far from pure.
This time, no neutral corner.
This time, no cure.

Once I loved you. You talked a good game.
You always come off a winner.
But, oh god, you're a sinner.
The evil, the evil you've done for the money.
The blindness, the blindness I had for the money.

This time, I cannot look the other way.
This time, the wrong's too great.
Something's wrong. See how your lip has curled.
This time, no cure.

My conscience is guilty. No wonder I loved you.
I share in your shame.
The evil, the evil you've done for the money.
The deafness, the deafness I had for the money.

My senses have returned.
I can no longer turn a blind eye to the things you've burnt.
My feelings are awake.
I can no longer turn a deaf ear to the hate you make.
I hate the hate you make.

THE END - the politician

The blows rained down, one after another.
The truth has been twisted like a knife in my back.

My best laid plans have all gone awry.
The courts ruled against me.
The deck was stacked.

But greatness comes not from the easy path.
True greatness comes when you're tested with fire,
because only when you have been in the deepest valley
can you know how magnificent it is to be high,
(on the mountain, I mean)

I've come to the end now.
I'm leaving my post.
It's time for anothet to walk in my shoes.
History may exonerate me,
or bury me in shame as it chooses.

(directly quoted from an interview with Richard Nixon)



EPITAPH - the book

Your soul has lain open like a book.
Your lies highlighted on the evening edition.
Before the truth, all your deeds
And all your lies will fade.