If what you say is true, perhaps
I'll find it so. Then I'll believe
I might escape the hidden traps
in what you say. It's true, perhaps,
you've let all time for trust elapse,
but who's to fault one last reprieve?
If what you say is true, perhaps
I'll find it something to believe.

A little danger makes a learned event,
though safety only comes from having learned
how one avoids that risk, so learning's spent
in wasting all the wages danger's earned.

don't come here looking for what's gone new
i turned it all back in
already spent what they gave for it
that and what i owed you too
all up in the ways of the smoke
nothing to it, nothing to touch
not that i will ever get to believe how it feels
that dream's got legs, yeah
but the horizon's got it some faster wheels

mercy was cooked up for forgetting things
it don't work when you're so hard
excuse me please, this must be yours
this rearrangement of a piece my head sings
then just as soon does well enough to forget
never anybody's own fault, always a wreck
my eyes know how to hide whatever my heart reveals
that dream's got legs, yeah
but the horizon's got it some faster wheels

hey i wish i could stroke fidel's beard
i really wish i could stroke fidel's beard
i don't make a good socialist revolutionary
and he's too old to still be all that scary
you can only trust someone you've feared
still i wish i could stroke fidel's beard

hey i wish i could stroke saddam's beard
i really wish i could stroke saddam's beard
i've got no weapons to destroy any masses
but i'll act like he did, like our other jackasses
things don't look like they've ever appeared
still i wish i could stroke saddam's beard

hey i wish i could stroke osama's beard
i really wish i could stroke osama's beard
he's too radical to be very dangerous
so november's not worth a change for us
but don't take it from me, i get it weird
still i wish i could stroke osama's beard

torpid toad, fat as a parasite
i held it in, held it dry
kept it hidden, secure
through the long cold dream,
child's head in my arm
sketching gray images
from an anticpated moment

waiting for the knocking to cease
and long after they had left
to move their hunt uptown
i sat in the shadows of your room
playing silent night on my guitar

i should be outside rolling around in the snow
before it stops, while the flake-filled winds still blow
and the temperature falls and the drifts like white waves grow
packing more poems than i'd ever have time to throw
i should be outside rolling around in the snow
out in the blizzard, that's where i want to go
they give me some snow job response that really means no
if i do as i'm told, yeah right, like some quid pro quo
they've not plowed my head, so to speak, so the traffic is slow
staring at the white outside through its frosted window
i should be outside rolling around in the snow
but i've always been good at getting along as though
i've always been good at getting along as though

our therapy today gets seasonal:
to sketch a memory of christmas past,
the reasons our rejoicing should be full
and what it takes to make that spirit last.
i draw it like you want, the child and all,

then pencil in king herod with his sword.
i make his face look just like doctor butch!
do you see what i see, bloody lord?
the mother cut off from her baby's touch
and locked up through the season in your ward!

you'll file my christmas card away, no doubt,
and act like magi sniffing on your myrrh.
i'll celebrate for real when i get out
then haunt each christmas right, just me and her.

the hole in your side
has been my bed
since i turned four
and turned my head
to play your bride

and not much more.
i lay undressed
and learned to move
through sweet incest
of scars you wore

with those i will love,
those i will cut
to share your death.
my flesh is put
where your bones approve.

i hold your last breath
to give it voice,
your last desire
my willing choice.
we fall in step beneath

our own hell's fire
locked tongue to tongue
as though we both had died,
your old skin strung
to mine on barbed wire.

surely there are more
that are worth the time
end our little war
sorry for not trying
sorry for neglecting
what the song was worded for
there were times i didn't
surely there are more

surely there are more
and this one not our last
you will see right through me or
i won't have to ask
i won't have to issue
invitations by the score
i have felt your kisses
surely there are more

surely there are more
brightly colored dreams
lover, come restore
what my living means
what my dying moments
would without you find me poor
those breaths aren't spent
surely there are more

and my heart will wait
as it always does
yours to give to and take
as it always was
i will wait forever
for your footstep at my door
for another night with you
surely there are more

i gave you some time in my memory
memory's what my time is for
you've no need to choose between them or me
they can't reach us anymore
though it seems like our dreams are incomplete
incomplete, never near enough
the chance romance that's where our hearts meet
that's the dance that is gone for love

you say you don't want to go into it
that our timing is not quite right
but there's other ways to get intimate
you don't have to stay the night
when you come back again i will still be here
where my promise assured you of
so go as though your lover lay near
it's as though we were gone for love