lyrics written when i was a student in ithaca college in my early 20s, torn between fantasies of returning to europe (in particular Paris in which i had just traveled) and stories about fellow students and residents in ithaca i had met at johnny's red grill, the bar i lived above (whose red flashing lights were right outside my window). music composed 2022.
lyrics
Rabbit hop by Puppeteer C)2022
(1)
Rabbit
Hop, white wave
Plunged into a moving place,
Sidewise eyes pave
Corridors from cosmic space.
(2)
Deep sleep,
The babe's cheeks like rice are puffed,
Mother's kiss on the chaff of a smile
Aglow (with the wisp at the cusps of the huffed)
Aflow (the sighing, weeping sleeping) -
Then that long lunging......................leap
(a gulf so vast, so fast
from this golden room
of button bunnies,
bald bear tummies,
tick-tock click-clocks,
agates of every hue
and the smell of glue)........................to sleep.
(3)
Gave me all these stinking years,
Gracious time,
Beer-bellies of it
Sitting putrid, deep down in the bowel soul,
Dying to shoot up a singer's throat,
Had me dance for you,
Humble time,
Skip to My Lou at a drunkard's march,
Pacing the room with a love in the blood,
Cursing the demons 'til God's Heaven come,
Took my artworks for blessings,
Deaf'n'dumb time
The House is on me
And the girls come to drink,
And it's time to be merrye
No precious time
To think.
(4)
Paris pour moi,
Chimney cut-outs against the sky's
Vapor of birds
Vanishing down courtyards ---
I grip the rust which squares the view
And count from one to you.
At any moment
Any moment I can take this great city into myself,
Fold up its big black mantle,
Smells of bread in the after rain
And all;
I wait, palms sweaty around the window bars,
Eyes on the streets where the child that I was
Met the child that I am,
The echoes are with me
Of how sad it was to see me now then
In all this straggliness,
And look forward to it in my little body Alcatraz.
Where is the logic in this flow?
I was upward bound and hopeful,
God held me in his smile, though it were ego
To grow
And be shameful ---
Pride of place on the face with the
Passion for fashion;
Just keep on getting modern
And be done with it,
I cannot hold you any longer
Without it hurting.
(5)
(glasses chink on the brink of a cackle,
the students' talk turns Euclidean geometry
into how could Socrates have been condemned
if Athens were truly such a great democracy)
it's pitiful the state of education my dear,
(her nose is almost bovine)
why Martha couldn't subtract for the life of her
(yet her eyes are divine,
a jaded shade by the curve of a line)
they'll let her use a calculator sooner or later,
operational stages are for dunces in these technical ages
(i shall hold her by the waist, I shall fall like a bad habit,
endlessly,
or a monk's habit,
never)
the Prince records she plays are all noise to me
(there's a bitchiness about her that really sucks)
(6)
Mary, you are not sleeping
and your son's hot with hate,
Your daughter is weeping,
And it's getting late.
The children are hushing
For your terror is felt
With your husband approaching
As he whips off his belt.
Poor girl, he will strike you
'Til your blue face turns white,
It will go back to blue
By the rise of the light.
You will see in the glass
How your youth fades away
As the life-dreams all pass
With the peace of the day.
He is drenched in his sorrow,
He is lost in his pain,
But he'll rise on the morrow
And do it again.
When the spell stirs the blood
Like the werewolf he'll rise;
You'll be swept in the flood
Of the fear in his eyes.
And you'll swallow it whole
Like the dark cloaks the stars,
And you'll murder your soul
As you cover your scars.
While our goodness we let
Be shared and unfurled,
Hell remains the dark secret
We keep from the world.
credits
released August 20, 2022
song written, played and sung by puppeteer
published and world distribution by cd baby; performance rights by bmi; copyright u.s. copyright office C2022
song image is "child with rabbit" by eastman johnson, painted 1878
who is puppeteer? i grew up of American parents in Paris and London. i became a psychologist by career, remaining a music
obsessive, writing songs when i could on bits of paper. raising a family prevented creative outlet of that nature. now, as a divorced skeleton, i spend time when i can writing and recording for this collection of songs, entitled Songs of Love and Earth....more
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