who stands before me in the cooling air of night where I've wandered off so far above the city's light and now I'll ask you stranger to tell me if you can who are you that neither is shade or living man "who I am you'll understand at least before the end but for now it's getting dark, it seems you'll need a friend death has found so many here, with none to hear a sound when the leaves of autumn fall and lay upon the ground" I know the dangers all too well and venture just the same the valley cannot be my home for the suffering and shame I've the call of solitude, far from peoples strife in the shadow of the lesser light I'll lead a hermits life "as you are I once was, and like me you're stubborn with pride oh who has let you down so far that now you run and hide but right or wrong night and day or just a bleak grey sky the way you've come is really no place to live or die so speak of horror and paradise, then name your enemies well you may try the way that I have done and send them all to hell but first you'll have to see the world, much more than you'd like to know and the hour is at hand, now it's time to go"

I stepped out of a bus into the misting rain when the sun lit up the station wall in the land of Logan where the Tomosaur roamed where the fruits of my family tree fall where it’s never that bad and it’s never that good and no seems to notice at all the empty courtyards hide high up on the mountain side but there you wont find intelligent souls try in the cornfields, storage units by the mall in the foodstamp office without any goals oh they got their beer and they got their weed and their religion was always rock and roll by the tracks along the bay Francisco made his way to where the artists grow like weeds as an alien I watched until he recognized me so much stronger than tonys coffee were my needs he said there’s no lying or in further trying find a better place to sow your seeds so it’s goodbye to the land to free to give a damn like lovers who’ve tried everything oh people are not known for their great attention spans and I’ve got at least eight more songs to sing like it was a curse, it could have been worse a town that’s eternally spring

distant lovers like prisoners in jail waiting for a letter to arrive and so it was because of the mail I headed south on interstate 5 handn’t a dollar but I left anyway I didn’t know how I’d survive but how clearly I remember that day I headed south on Interstate 5 they say the Devil is giving out rides and you’d be lucky to get out alive and surely with him and me beside we flew down the banks of interstate 5 bound by the tale that tells your fate it wrapped me twice on my dive I had a few friends coiled seven and eight so far from home on interstate 5 people are lonely because of their crimes and from a distance it’s easier to contrive those tender moments and happier times held apart and estranged by interstate 5 how can a girl know for who cares with so many men talking their jive I quietly slipped from her affairs last seen on the entrance to interstate 5

down in old Sedona that hot and dusty land out among the towers and walking in the sand I turned to my companion who guided me so far said I’m hoping that you know just where in hell we are he turned to me and smiled, said “now don’t you get pissed how can you be in hell if you’re Zii-catcherist” well no one said that Zia didn’t have a hell it seems to be the whole of earth as far as I can tell and what about you ‘christian’ or so they’d like to say did you have any idea that it’d turn out this way he turned his face away said “you don’t know yet you must have no idea how bad it’s going to get” it’s hard to be let down when you expect the worst but you can do it anyway, you wouldn’t be the first so the I said no really wher have you been since you were first here on earth and now you’re back again “you’ve heard of that place with the deadly black manna I was sitting with the china men in De Lorde Manzana” well we could get no further, I’ll tell you no lies before us stood the biggest hog I’ve seen with my own eyes all hairy like a llama and it weighed five hundred pounds barring us some bloody tusks and very threatening sounds gnawing on the carcass of some kind of wild beast much too late to let him know we want none of his feast” then from all around us there came a wailing cry from at least one hundred coyotes frighteningly nearby they had us in a circle until the pig made for a break and I’m fairly certain that was his last mistake then the chase began and quickly out of sight so the buzzards glided down from their safer height now I have to ask you while we quickly flee why it is that you’ve come back to walk along with me “you’ve heard there is a goddess of addiction and fame she said she wanted… something, then she told me you name” I looked up to the stars just starting to show you know I’ve got a date with her somewhere in mexico

when I arrived in Oregon I went upon a spree with money at last I spent it fast, got drunk as drunk can be I had no place to lay my head, my friends all answered no I had to be blind and make up my mind to go back to pharmaco I hopped a train through Idaho and hitched my rides from there for a train can’t beat the dessert heat, it’s something to beware and when I reached that texas line I still had so far to go but it was too late to turn back then I was bound for pharmaco I arrived in austin from two weeks on the road walking the street with shufflin’ feet, my pack a heavy load if your sleeping under a bush in the park it’s best not to let it show you’d better bath in a bathroom stall to get in pharmaco I screened for a study on mixing drugs and then I got the part with no coffee or alcohol waiting for the start well do you find it strange I ask what people will do for dough I bet you’d find it stranger still inside of pharmaco all dressed up in a spotted sheet, looking so forlorn 16 guage needle stuck in my arm at four o’clock in the morn just sitting there the tv’s blare, the hours go by so slow cross the days off one by one locked in pharmaco so all you wayward wanderers listen to my song if you want easy money I’ll have you not go wrong it’s harder in fact than sticking it out and months to undergo your blood’s worth more than they’ll pay you for, forget about pharmaco

once I was out walking late in the night maybe I was dreaming when I saw a sight a bolt of lightning streaked across the hazy sky I saw distant tower standing up so high blacker than a shadow long before the dawn lit up for an instant and then it was gone this is the feeling, it feels just like the end see it flash across the face of my old friend no one talks about it but it wont be denied sooner or later your rage must be tried police and angry dogs may tear you apart but there is greater danger inside your own heart then I was a sailor way out on the brine and my rusty vessel a ford econoline swinging in the hammock or lying on the deck always further distant in the aging wreck well living is a triumph when hazards are so nigh yet each night I layed me down and heaved a heavy sigh in the absence of the grinding that I couldn’t face there was a lack of meaning not replaced anger and betrayal on that endless ride turned sullen and distant then ate me up inside I became so bitter, in bitterness I kept all the tears of sorrow that I should have wept When I crossed that river I saw with my own eyes but it’s heavy lesson I didn’t realize it seems so still and peaceful though it is so wide but you’d never make it across to the other side for underneath the surface hidden currents flow no one can survive it, pulled down below long after repression there is a bloody stain where the ghost of violence will surely remain to find another victim to make an enemy to enact a vengeance from its tyranny many heavy stones there are for you to haul to think that you’ll be safe behind a stone wall I came to a city when the moon was high a homeless man was grieving and I asked him why he said the one he followed for years now was dead I looked to a newspaper and that’s what the headline read with misery now shared it made me satisfied to learn the great enemy had prematurely died demoralized and hungry there is no point in fear the land is full of shadows the tower’s looming near so I asked my companion silent with a frown why am I so cruel to with them all brought down he said “fortune’s blind and swift, your plight does not relate plain enough to see that it’s just yourself you hate”

oh there is a city but I don’t hear a sound look down the road and I don’t see nobody hangin’ around the theatre is dark and the winows are all smashed but it must have been a beauty somewhere in some far distant past standing up against the sky rusty old iron looms right next to the motel that seems to have plenty of rooms going on a piece further to find me some gas then on to the highway, down it so quickly to pass oh there is a station but it worries my mind for the pumps are all empty and there is no one there to find so it’s off to the pawn shop to ask for the way out of this wasteland where I’ve wandered off so far astray hello, hello I’m calling through the open door look to see some fellow lying face down upon the floor to life a man is born and with it he copes he may ask for mercy, sometimes elsewhere he sets his hopes

there is a land where you can’t find gun by friday night the beatings and brawlings have begun oh they call It Canadia and if you are there just standing on the corner, you’d best beware of falling lumberjocks spilling beer and their blood into the rancid gutter swelling up to flood and so I ask the boatman, where does this all go it ends up in that river that flows to Ohio walking down the tracks just kicking with my shoe squinting my eyes as men at dusk will sometimes do I spied someone coming and soon it was quite clear it certainly was Jesse who suddenly was near my heart it did stop beating for I saw a ghost way out on the trestle along the old sea coast he said as he passed me in a voice all hushed and low “just waiting for that train, takes me back to Ohio” no good deed goes unpunished, or so I’ve read but that’s not exactly what the police man said I promised to pay him to politely decline his offer to take me in if I didn’t have the fine well I may be missing out on such a grand old town but I’ll leave Manhattan before the sun goes down a drunk old hobo told me forget what you owe eventually all roads lead back to Ohio pat regained consciousness and he quickly found he had wet himself and his hands and feet were bound in his mind was the foggy image of a bar then he realized he was in Dan Johnsons car looking out the window the first thing he saw was a green sign that said next exit Wichita he fainted dead away before he could know that his destination was a barn in Ohio there stands old Johnny gnawing on his hand he’s been known to do that since he lost his band and so behold Ozzy born of the false cow as near enough to Gibby as safety will alow they’re waiting for Black Francis to come down the skies to renounce john the baptist and make mars their prize he’s due any minute, right after the show they’re standing in a field somewhere in Ohio so all you good people I’ll have you understand if you ever set you feet down on the promised land in that holy moment with no words to say if in life you ever live to see that day just knowing that you have anyone to blame you might find within you at least an ounce of shame well that’s the kind of baggage that you shouldn’t stow throw it in the river that flows thorough Ohio

down by that river that runs so brown watching as it endlessly spirals down I turned and asked Lou Reed if he’d like to go to town he said “away pimp, there’s no woman to trick here” up across the bridge and down to where it goes all covered with a mold offending eye and nose there in that sticky vapor I met the wilted rose whose favor I’d found beyond all measure I came across a priest who was lying in a ditch he asked me for a quarter as if I was that rich then he bought me a few drinks and we wondered which was which just who was selling who was buying for a man who wished his fortune I pulled out a card said “your head’s on backwards” and “times will get hard” “beware a cruel virgin” and “don’t cross the eighth ward” he said “if notoriety was noble maybe I’d pay you” hey Dante I said how come this stone bears my name to end up this low would surely be a shame he said “sitting on feather cushions brought one to fame” “to church with the saints, the rest for the tavern” counting up the times that you nearly died is one way to show off all your neighborhood pride and surly there’s nowhere better in this world so wide now is anybody in this bar from here in the one legged chapter of that three legged verse a lounge lizard may hide two eggs in a purse when the bearsnake will rise from the ocean with a curse but hey, it all tastes like chicken New Orleans take joy for you are known so well by land and by sea you name resounds through hell of you charms and your virtues I’m often heard to tell but perhaps you thought I wasn’t versed in logic a done deed finds it’s purpose if you succeed or fail and I heard that they locked old Bub back in jail so I’ll drink in the daytime and pull down the last veil because to a man prepared delay is always harmful I would not advise attempting to grieve for all the treachery and fraud that you may perceive against the tide of tourists you may never leave the only way out is straight through the bottom

well the moon it lies beneath our feet as we ride down the highway to a city we soon shall come I pray you’ll listen to what I say born for sorrow there they came to the shore of the old salt sea may it pain them that the whole world knows it’s a land of misery when thought is coupled with ill will there’s no refuge for mankind and the creatures of confusion will follow the prophets mind treacherously painted up like Indians who were wild robbing travelers of their gold slaughtering woman and child since you neighbors will not punish you may the mountains tumble and fall then damn the rivers flowing west and so drown you all I did not live nor did I die but maybe was insane when I left that place that I was raised crawled down that shaggy mane