The Seagulls are Coming One morning a shadow will creep in from the ocean / Bringing a sense of doom and the notion / That we can hear screaming off in the distance / That isn’t quite human, but shrill and insistent. / Some of us climb to the rooftops to see / What the cause of this strange atmosphere could be. / There on the horizon and headed this way / Is a swarm that could rival a biblical plague. / Whoa, the seagulls are coming. / Woe to us all, the seagulls come. / They fed on our garbage, our hotdogs and fries / And their appetites grew to a monstrous size. / Now in squadrons of thousands they take to the skies / With a murderous gleam in their pale yellow eyes. / Our cities turn into their personal landfills, / Their copious droppings bring cars to a standstill. / They learn how to kill us with frozen fried chicken parts / Dropped on our heads, then we’re easily picked apart. / We bomb them and poison them, try to find shelter. / The army trucks in weapons grade alka-seltzer. / But we can’t bring the flock down, we don’t even dent it. / Their numbers keep growing and their hunger is endless. / When it’s all over, they’ll drift back to sea. / For the first time in thousands of years there will be / A primeval silence that covers the earth / As the Wal-Marts and highways return to the dirt.

Same Damn Door I find myself suspended, upended, this is not what I intended when I tried to teach myself to fly. / It’s more like hanging or strangling, feels like God has got me dangling on a wire in a vacant sky. / Every night I lie awake and find that I am kicking at the same damn door. / I ring the doorbell and I knock, then I try to pick the lock, but it is shut to me forevermore. / At eleven past seven my appointment was in heaven. In the lobby they x-rayed my soul for sin. / When they checked it and inspected it their divine staff detected it was too much of a risk to let me in. / Every night I lie awake and find that I am kicking at the same damn door. / I try to dynamite it, get some gasoline and light it, but it’s shut to me forevermore. / If you’d kindly not remind me that my shadow’s right behind me nipping at my heels with every step. / It’s important I ignore it or else I might get absorbed into the shadow of my former self. / Every night I lie awake and find that I am kicking at the same damn door. / I try the padlock with a hacksaw, I attack it with an axe, but it is shut to me forevermore. / Every night I lie awake and find that I am kicking at that same damn door. / I bring out the nuclear arms. I try all my girlish charms. Then I beg and I plead, slip a smoke bomb underneath. And I bash it and I scratch it and I hack it whack it smack it and it doesn’t even dent it, I throw all my weight against it, and I dress up like a girl scout, I bring all my very worst out, but it’s shut to me forevermore.

Insect Man He is a philosopher on man. / He owns a colony of ants- three-hundred million- in glass boxes under the stairs. / He is hatching roaches in the sink. / They each have numbers and a name from TV sitcoms. / There’s killing jars full of movie stars. / He lives by himself. / He never needed no one else in his master plan. / But I still wonder how I could ever work things out with the Insect Man. / I live down the hill on the same street. / Sometimes I stop to take a peek at his Indonesian spiders and find an excuse to stay for tea. / Sometimes I wonder if he notices me with my two arms and my two feet. / It’s just a shame my blood’s not green. / What can I do to make him see? / He lies all alone in his small bed. / While moths fly softly ’round his head, he moans and tosses and dreams of a butterfly queen.

Under the Lake I’m standing knee deep in the water as the shadows turn to twilight on the beach. / The lake is smooth and calm, but I’m thinking of John, / Buried out there somewhere in the deep. / We had been planning to get married, but then one night the lake took him away. / All they ever found was the rowboat upside-down / Drifting aimlessly around the bay. / Down under the lake / The world is dark and calm. / The weeds gently sway beneath the waves. / Despite my mistakes, the dark green water holds me tight. / I think I’ll take a walk down there tonight. / My heart’s as heavy as my pockets. I hope I have enough stones to keep me down. / I know that I belong on the bottom there with John. / Maybe I’ll feel good again somehow. / The water’s up above my head, now. I’m sorry, John, for what I did that night. / But I knew you’d been untrue, so I let go of you, / And watched as you sank slowly out of sight.

Kelley’s Theme It just lies there on the floor. / It doesn’t seem to work anymore. / We don’t know what to do with the cables and wires. / We’re gonna have to shut it down completely. / Remember when we saw it first? / The paint was new and the buttons worked, / and we used to just sit there and watch it for hours. / We’re gonna have to shut it down completely. / We tried to treat it right. / Take out the batteries and turn out the light. / Cause it’s worthless. / And now despite our pampering, / the complicated and needy thing / falls apart and leaves bits of itself everywhere. / We’re gonna have to shut it down completely.

The Ballad of Catherine Joy She was born under the sign of the corner five and dime / at the place where 29th Street crosses Spring. / But the blinking neon light showed that something wasn’t right. / Where her hands should be there grew a pair of wings. / As the years went by she turned into a quite peculiar girl. / She’d spend all day perched on the jungle gym. / Then one day to the surprise of the other children’s eyes, / she was carried off upon a gust of wind. / She flew above the town as they tried to call her down, / and she took off for the corners of the globe. / From the jungles of Belize to the Parthenon in Greece, / the treetops and the rooftops were her home. / She was circling one day off the coast of Uruguay / when a sudden tempest blew down from the North. / Her flight began to founder as the dark clouds closed around her / she was carried off upon a gust of wind. / She woke up on the beach of an island out of reach / of anywhere that she could hope to fly. / So she took a look around and resigned to settle down. / Seemed as nice a place as any to live and die. / She spent fourteen hundred days in that lonely lovely place / hunting sea turtles and fending for herself. / Till one morning she awoke to see a little wooden boat / with a tired looking young man at the helm. / He cradled in his arms an old beat-up guitar / and her played for her a haunting minor chord. / She felt all the planets winds were blowing her towards him, / so without a backwards glance she climbed aboard. / She sailed with him in bliss on a sea of songs and kisses, / but it turned out that the boat was much too small / for her wings and for her lover, so she plucked out all her feathers / and found underneath she had hands after all. / They traveled hand in hand never setting foot on land / for seven years or maybe even more. / Till late one misty night they saw the glow of harbor lights / and he turned and said, “It’s time we went ashore.” / With a tightening in her throat she agreed to watch the boat / while he went to town to pick up odds and ends. / But she noticed with alarm that he took his old guitar, / and she realized he would not be back again. / She felt like she would die for she could no longer fly / and her useless arms had nobody to hold. / And though her arms were empty the had never felt so heavy / and she had never felt so old. / She wandered ‘round the town till both her soals wore down. / Each night the street lamps swallowed up the stars. / Then one day she chanced to stop at a little corner shop / where in the window stood her lover’s old guitar. / She took it off the stand in her softly trembling hands / and she placed her fingers on the worn-out strings. / And as a song escaped her lips, she felt her body lift, / for at the moment that she had begun to sing / she’d once again begun to grow a pair of wings.

Brooklyn Bridge I was standing on a window ledge / In the swirling snow, / Such a lovely space between the edge / And the street below. / I was sitting in contemplation / Beneath an open drawer, / All the knives in constellation / On the kitchen floor. / But now I’m in love, / everything will be alright. / No more dreaming of / jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge each night. / And the stars above / Have never looked so bright. / I was lying on the bottom of the pool / On New Year’s Day, / Every firework like a silent jewel / Sparkling through the waves.

Pyromaniac Romance There was this light behind your eyes that I noticed when I saw you realize that the sawdust I’d packed into my heart had just been waiting for that little spark. / It’s been so long. I’ve been so cold. I just thought that it was part of growing old. But you came along and blew up my TV and I felt something ignite inside of me. / Meet me tonight. I’ve got the fuse, you’ve got the light. We might get blown to bits but it’s still worth a chance. We’d both get tires of that softly glowing candle kinda love. Let’s have a pyromaniac romance. / We go together like sodium and water; a little but like napalm, only hotter. We both look good in the glow of burning gasoline; so bring the powder and a match, I’ll bring the kerosene. / Burn down the house. Blow up the car. Set fire to everything we own out in the yard. No structure or reason can withstand the burning of a pyromaniac romance.

Down Once / or twice or maybe three times maybe more. / You know I can’t be sure. / Was / it you that I made love to on the floor? / I know I’ve seen your face before. / Bring me down. / Bring me down. / Bring my feet back to the ground. / I’m getting tired of just floating around. / Why / owe you a thing for anything that’s less / Than my emptiness? / I / solation’s made me harder to impress. / I just like myself too much, I guess. / Wear me down. / Wear me down. / Wear my resistance to the ground. / I’m getting tired of leading you around. / Do / be do be do be do be do be doo / Do you like that song too? / U / niverses open up beneath our shoes / For our worn out soals to fly through. / Burn it down. / Burn it down. / Burn my past down to the ground. / I’m getting tired of dragging it around. / I’ve been living underground with this old piano that I found but I’m getting tired of how I sound. / As detached as I may seem, / I need someone to hold on to me. / I laugh / at the sound of each door closing as I pass. / But there’s no going back. / Half / of me would like to be your better half. / If you’ll let me keep my worse half. / Lay me down. / Lay me down. / Lie here beside me underground. / I could get used to having you around.

Circus Freak I met him at the circus in the sideshow ring. He was the main attraction of the day, or at least he was to me. / They called him the Wolfman. They said he was filled with rage. But he looked at me affectionately as he chewed through the bars of his cage. / You know sometimes I think it’s a shame the only boy I ever loved never told me his name. Oh Circus Freak, I love you just the same. / He showed me ‘round the bigtop, and where the lions and tigers stay. We ate raw meat and pulled trucks with our teeth until the end of the day. / And as the moon was rising above the ferris wheel lights he cradled my head in his paws and he said that he’d love me the rest of his life. / I woke up in the morning and the wagons had rolled away. They’d taken away my true love in a cage, and I’m waiting for him to this day.

Whiskey Let’s ski down the hill at the landfill. / Let’s go bowling in the aisle of the cathedral. / Let’s leave some popcorn out to feed the seagulls / All around the Lexus dealer’s lot. / Let’s play banjos at the metal show. / Let’s build a treehouse in the rafters of Home Depot. / Let’s let a flock of ornery flamingos / Into the lobby of the Marriott. / And we’ll drink a little whiskey when we’re happy. / We’ll drink a little whiskey when we’re not. / Even if we don’t know how we’re feeling, / It won’t matter once we’ve had another shot. / Let’s wear uniforms from the Civil War / And build a barricade around the liquor store. / Let’s plant some ivy in the noses of Mount Rushmore / Like leafy vines of monumental snot. / We could sit here just drinking beer, / But whiskey’s got more fun in every glass. / We could be fine just sipping wine, / But it doesn’t have that same kick in the ass. / Let’s wear roller-skates on the interstate. / Let’s give BB guns and fireworks to the primates. / And in the end when we stand at Heaven’s gates, / Let’s hope that entertainment value counts a lot.

End Song I don’t want to change the world. / It’s hard enough just to keep up with myself. / Every night goes by, seems I wake up to find / that I’m someone else. / We keep marching bravely down / the forward leading still receding track. / We’ve followed it since birth but the turning of the earth / always brings us back. / We reach our hands out to the sun. / The light goes slipping through into the universe beyond. / But we still stand there holding on to something that’s already gone. / Tiny pieces drift away from our bodies like a constant snow. / We can’t stay the same but there’s beauty in the change / if we just let go. / This will all someday pass. / There is nothing you can hold onto, the world keeps turning.