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Ten thousand hours I've spent wishing

Ten thousand years I've been asleep

The x-ray shows some kind of growth inside me

Could it be the side on which I sleep?

Will you be with me in my surgery?

Will you hold me when I bleed?

When they cut the skin, will you be within?

Help me to get rid of my disease

Inside my dreams I've imagined

A healing light would penetrate

But every morning I awaken

To a new sensation of pain

Surgery, will you watch them insert the key?

Surgery, won't you mutter a prayer for me?

Soon I'll slip into unconsciousness

Arms and fingers motionless

Where were you when I got started?

Where will you be when I get done?

I'll think of you inside my coffin

Tattoo your name upon my arm

Surgery, that's one place I don't want to be

Surgery, take my hand cause I don't want to bleed

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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You press your pencil to the paper

And promise everything under the skies

But all words are lies

Crack--you put a crack in my throat

But still--I go on reading your note

Riding in the elevator up to the twelfth floor

What happened to the next one?

You pledge to me your love forever

But there's one thing you don't realize

That all words are lies

I know you don't mean to be dishonest with our love

But even if you were I'd still be wearing rubber gloves

I don't need no pin or pill to shake me up inside

All I need is you to weave your long, lonely lies

Black--is the ache in my soul

Cold--is the food in my bowl

Traveling to sight-see the six wonders of the world

But isn't there a seventh?

There's one question you can't answer

Whatever, who, when, where, how, or why

Cause all words are lies

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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I'm taking a plane, I'm going away

To the city cause I've been here too long

I'm zipping my pants, I'm taking a chance on you

I'm riding a train fast like a hurricane

Want to see you in the moonlight naked

I don't know just how, but I'm gonna come back to you

I'm stealing a car from a guy in a bar

And I'm speeding with the police chasing

I blow out a tire and I crash in a fire, boom

So I hop on a bus with a curse and a cuss

But they stop me cause I've got no token

Someway somehow I'm gonna come back to you

I'm coming back to you cause we're attached with glue

A pair of Siamese twins, dipolar molecule

And when I'm in your arms, you will slap my face

And you'll withhold your tan, but I don't give a damn

I'm coming back to you

I'm here on a boat but it won't stay afloat

Cause it's leaking and we're faster sinking

So I swim to the shore, I don't care anymore how I get there

Yes, I'm hurting my feet cause I'm walking the street

In your direction and I hope you'll be there

I don't know just how, but I'm gonna come back to you

To come on back to you what do I have to do?

Should I walk through a wall? Submit to ridicule?

How do I even know that you'll be there for me?

But I don't give a damn even if it's a sham

I'm coming back to you

No, I don't think I care as long as you are there

If you won't have me back, I wouldn't stop my track

If only for a day, I couldn't stay away

From coming back to you

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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When you feel scared about the stories that you hear

All you got to do, my dear, is fly

When you're all alone, the phone don't ring and no one home

Open up your eyes, my love, and fly

Fly away from your tears, fly till gravity disappears

Strip your skin and let the sun in your heart

Fly till you feel no more pain

When you've got nothing to lose or gain

Fly till you tear your black inside apart

When you want to die, things don't work even when you try

Spread upon your wings and let it fly

When your throat is small, you're sitting talking to the wall

Open up your legs and let it fly

Fly away from your fear

Fly till you reach the top of this sphere

Crash your car on the boulevard and fly

Melt right through your chair

When you've got no way to go anywhere

Ascending together, you and I

When you feel numb, like Novocain makes your gums become

Give up on the ground, my friend, and fly

When your eye is wet cause of something you can't forget

All you got to do is let it fly

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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Bop shoo wop mm bop bop shoo wop

Bop shoo wop rrm bop bop shoo wop

Bop shoo wop mm bop bop shoo wop

Bop shoo v1op mm bop

I am a shoe, you are a foot, you put your foot in me

And at the end of the day I go back in my shoe box

I am a spoon, you are a hand, you stir your tea with me

And put me in the dishwasher to clean

If I am me then you are you

And if you can be a tree then I'm a shoe

I am a bulb, you are a lamp, you screw me into you

And when my light burns out, you replace me with another

I am a pool, you are a pipe, you drain me in a pond

And when I'm dry you cover me with plastic

If you are me then I am you

And if you can be a tree then I'm a shoe

Bop shoo wop rnm bop bop shoo wop

Bop shoo wop rnm bop bop shoo wop

Bop shoo wop rnm bop bop shoo wop

Bop shoo wop rnm bop bop shoo wop

Bop shoo wop mm bop bop shoo wop

Bop shoo wop mm bop bop shoo wop

Bop shoo wop rmn bop bop shoo wop

Bop shoo wop mm bop

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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Sitting in the garden, thinking of the time

When I was yours and you were mine

Plotting out our pictures, swallowing your hair

We would do the things we wouldn't dare

But here I am in a foreign land buried in the sand

Can't you call a number, won't you write a page

'Cause I need to hear from you today

Stuff it in a bottle, drop it on the tide

I'll find it washed up on the other side

But point is moot 'cause I'm in my suit indefinitely

At first it's one piece --"I love you"

And then it's two piece --you love me, too

And then it's three piece --a commitment

And then it's four piece --that's when you're gone

Four broken pieces of me left in you

Sitting on a park bench, throwing crumbs to birds

We could communicate without words

You would call me Allen, I would call you Jane

Even though we knew those weren't our names

But now it's gone in time that rolls on obliviously

That's when it's five piece --of blackened bread

And then it's six piece --of pain in the head

And then it's seven piece of four a.m.

And then it's eight piece of "do it again"

Eight broken pieces of me left in you

Still I don't know any place left to go where I can still see

That's when it's nine piece --you live alone

And then it's ten piece --don't answer the phone

And it's eleven piece --I'm watching the sky

And then it's twelve piece --with tears in my eyes

Twelve broken pieces of me left in you

That's when it's thirteen piece --of hospitalize

And then it's fourteen piece --of going to die

And then it's fifteen piece --of wanting you back

And then it's sixteen piece --of fall through the crack

Sixteen broken pieces of me left in you

That's when it's seventeen piece --of "see someone else"

And then it's eighteen piece --of broken sea shell

And then it's nineteen piece --of buried back yard

And then it's twenty piece --of pickling jar

Twenty broken pieces of me left in you

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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I've got your picture on my wall, Ms. Bankhead

But you don't know me at all

I watch your movies when I don't have things to do

I do declare, I think that I'm in love with you

Do you love me too?, Tallulah Bankhead, I love you

Can I cook for you, Tallulah Bankhead, I love you

I went to Hollywood and I drove right by your house

I wanted them to stop the bus, but they wouldn't let me out

So I wrote you a letter saying how I feel inside

But you never answered, could it be you got another guy

Do you love me too, Tallulah Bankhead, I love you

Will your love be true, Tallulah Bankhead, I love you

If you felt for me the same things that I feel for you

The world'd be half as grim and I'd be half as blue

Why don't you call me on the phone?

I bought an answering machine in case I'm not home

I wrote a poem about you and me, Ms. Bankhead

About how happy we could be

You'd go to your movie premiere hanging on my arm

And in the winter we could live out on the farm

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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You walked out of a Greek mythological sequence

Hand-in-hand with a lizard who was squawking

Like a tightrope card-carrying bard in Barcelona, Spain

The place where it mainly rains on the plain

You were stretching out your elastic in the backyard

With a clothespin that was dancing in the sunlight

As it self-immolated in a tiny burning flame

A candle does the same in Lemon Spain

You were in the Red Cross saving other peoples' lives

And every time you saw their blood you broke out into hives

Your uniform was frayed and torn, your face was full of lines

So I went to the drugstore where the people were so kind

And there I bought you all the things that you never really

Wanted, rubber helicopter dipped in chocolate

Floating out in two parallel lines to Gibraltar near Spain

The place with the very very very big rock

You were living out in the outback of Australia

With your post card and your locomotive sailor

Consuming halibut from a metal bowl

That dripped a stain in the very same shape as Lemon Spain

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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I live up on the seventh floor

You work down on the street

I press my face to the window

And see all the people that you meet

I love you and you know it's a fact

Cause you're scheduled here in my love almanac

You stand so self-confident

I need a woman like you

I pretend that you're in my living room

And I set out a homemade dinner for two

I love you and the hat on your head

Can you picture both of us happily wed

If I could have your love, I'd gladly rip off my arm

For just a little kiss, I'd give anything

You don't need to worry

If you give it I will take your pain

And glory in the thought that you don't hold me in disdain

I look at the stars in the sky

And I wonder if you're looking too

I pick the one that I like the best

And imagine I'm giving it to you

I love you and you know it's a fact

According to the notes in my love almanac

You don't need to worry

Cause this book predicts my word is true

And that I'll show what pervades and connects me into you

You don't owe me your rugs and jewelry

You can keep all your drugs and candy

All I ask of you is your understanding

You don't owe me an explanation

Don't pledge me your love forever

All I want from you is this time together

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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Once there was a little girl who played with her dolly all day

Her momma called to come inside but she continued to play

Then that night she fell into a deep dark secret well

And when she hit, she found herself in the midst of a fiery hell

All because she disobeyed, we can see what she got

When you don't mind your parents, kids, you will suffer a lot

Once there was a little boy who liked to scarf down sweets

His momma said, "That's for dessert!" but he continued to eat

That very night the heavens sent a raging thunderstorm

His pretty face was split in half and grotesquely deformed

His stubbornness, it was the cause

He lost all that he had gained

When you don't do what others want you to, you will die in pain

Manners, you and I both need them, it isn't hard to be polite

But if you choose to follow evil, you will surely fry

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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Friday night you ring my bell and stay with me

But you live so far away your mouth I need

And I dread each passing hour cause I don't want to see

Dirty Monday sky gray no ray Monday's just a day away

When I'm here all alone I think of you

I won't talk to anyone feel so blue

And I want to stop the second hand

Cause I don't want to see

Dirty Monday delay go way Monday's just a day away

And every hour the lines grow deeper on my face

The calendar is full of X that won't erase

And every time you know I'll let me down

Still the image always blurs to white

My eyes don't want me to see

I call my mama and she say "Don't worry, son

The one you know, the seam you sew won't come undone

If you can be like you you'll be like everyone"

Every time we get to know you say it's time to go

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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Sister Dough read me a story under the tissue tree

It was hard to pay attention so I pretended to be asleep

Deep in the weeds the sky opened wide

And just like an eye it began to cry

Under the tissue tree I blew my nose for free

Under the tissue tree Sister Dough and me

In the middle of a big field we found the setting sun

And when we caught it in our butterfly net

It shot away like a gun deep in the stream

The rocks broke into minerals that nourish me and you

Under the tissue tree I like you, you like me

Under the tissue tree, no place I'd rather be

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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Seeing you alone, waiting for a call

Pretty soon you'll find yourself invisible

Underneath your tongue, breeding things to say

Words can reproduce just like bacteria

Maybe when you're old, you can have the things you've always wanted

But now as it is, do you think you know

What you're gonna do or where you're going to?

If you do, take me with you

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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Every word from your lips falls just like a ruby

All I want is to be underneath your hurricane

Every dollar bill you kiss, before you spend it somewhere

In hopes that maybe someone deposits it in their bank

When I fall asleep at day I dream that you are bent

Like a kitchen utensil or garden implement

You make me ecstatic, the feeling's automatic

Don't want it when your depression is turning to a manic

Distracted, when you snap my prophylactic

Light-headed, vertiginous, like a kleptomaniac-ted

Every thought in your head, like a blooming flower

Planted in your garden till the bomb inside explode

Every day in your room, you're hugging tight your pillow

Just like a weeping willow, you don't know which way to grow

When I wake up in the evening, I can hear the sound

Of your adjectives burying themselves in the ground

You make me psychotic, your face is so neurotic

Demented, insensitive as an anti-melancholic

Enraptured, the love that you have captured

Is melting like an animal potato in a masher

If you want to drown your fever down inside my car

I will keep the secret locked up tight inside my jar

Every day I wait for you to send me out a letter

I would feel much better if you called me on the phone

And when you do, I'll say to you that I can't wait much longer

My clock is frozen on the second hand as is the phone

When I hear your voice sliding like silk inside my spine

I wonder where you bought your box, if you'd commit the crime

You make me ecstatic, the feeling's automatic

You watch it like a television interfered with static

Distracted, when I see it's not enacted

Shaking like the pockets of a kleptomaniac-ted

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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Here am I, high up in the sky, suspended

By a thread of dental floss, hanging from a planet tossed and bended

Sitting on my front porch here between Saturn and Mars

Spitting down into the space between the stars

I'm trying hard to understand it

What are doing here on this obvious planet?

Our situation seems to demand it

That you and I stay here together on this obvious planet

Too dark to see, no electricity in this room

But we don't need no light 'cause we can touch without our sight like baboons

And when we sign the letter that we'd send back down to Earth

We'd address it to our own houses for what they're worth

It's too difficult to understand it

Why we choose to live here on this obvious planet

Every single word is already carved in granite

But still I want to be with you on this obvious planet

The good things you have, you take for granted

Which is why you sit alone on your obvious planet

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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I wash my hands a hundred times

To get rid of the dirt and grime

But even when I know they're clean

I go back and I do it again

Cause I can't get the thought out of my head

That the germs that I touch are gonna strike me down dead

Cause I've got obsessive-compulsive disorder

It makes my life a living hell

Yes I've got obsessive-compulsive disorder

Can't drink my water from a wishing well

Whenever I go out of my house

I lock my door so the in won't go out

I can't be sure if I done it so

I go back and I check it some mo'

Cause I can't get the thought out of my head

That I left the door unlocked and someone's stealing my bread

Cause I've got obsessive-compulsive disorder

I'm never relaxed cause I'm worried all day

That I've got obsessive-compulsive disorder

Nothing I do makes it go away

Pray please pray, pray for me

Cause I'm afraid to use a public toilet seat

Call the doctor, call your best friend

Cause I can see my beginning is reaching the end

I drive my car down the street

I don't allow myself to use my feet

I press the accelerator with my hand

And why I do it people don't understand

Cause I can't get the thought out of my mind

That if I use my feet I'll surely go blind

Cause I've got obsessive-compulsive disorder

It runs my life and it makes me feel blue

Yes I've got obsessive-compulsive disorder

To get rid of it I don't know what to do

Manumadubiobowshake

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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I got the word inside my head

It won't come out, I don't know why

I want you oh so much, sweet thing

You know it make me cry

But when I try to think of what I should say

All the words seem to slip away

I can't tell you, I can't say what I mean, so I say

"The dishwasher and the washing machine"

They say communication in relations

Is the only foundation on which to build

But everyone will tell you all the things they want to sell you

In the end they're only wanting you to swallow their pill

(and you'll choke on it)

But in the night when I fight to try to make out alright

The things to say, I find it doesn't matter

Cause it's all a mindless chattering anyway

I can't tell cause I don't know what I mean, so I say

"The dishwasher and the washing machine"

I see the sentence in the rain

But what the meaning is, I just can't explain

I got a picture in my head

But when I try to photograph it, it disappear

Just like a dream you can't pronounce

Foreign word you can't hear

But when the bell rings and I answer the phone

I always pretend that I'm not at home

I can't tell you I can't say what I mean, so I say

"The dishwasher and the washing machine"

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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When you've got something bad

Put it in a suitcase and hide the bag

Hide it where you won't find it

Hide it in a place that you don't know

Where no one ever goes

Once I had a secret wrapped tight in a rag

I didn't want to show it, so I hid it in a bag

I dropped it off a mountain

And it fell into the sea where a dolphin said to me,

"What kind of salad do you need?"

If your wish is to be

Rid of your pain, the bag will set you free

All my life

I've been the son of a husband and wife

If you want to be my friend

We'll hide our bags together buried in the sand

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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I like to walk outside on the sidewalk

And when it's raining I take my big umbrella

I like to go down to the newsstand

And buy a newspaper

I want to vacuum, I can make rug patterns with the wheels

Uh huh huh, I want to vacuum

Cause I like the way the humming sound makes me feel

And it makes me feel like I'm a living, real thing

I like to drink Kool-Aid from a paper cup

Just like I did when I was five years old

I like to watch black-and-white movies

That were made before I was even born

I want to vacuum to make things look nice for my guest

Uh huh huh, I want to vacuum

And when that's done, Mom'll do the rest

Cause it makes me feel like I'm a living, real thing

Hear that vroom, that's the tune

That comes out from my vacuum

And it says "my oh me, what could that be

Vibrating deeply under my vacuum"

I like to sleep late in the morning

And read a book I like all day

I like to go down to the newsstand

And buy a newspaper

I want to vacuum, I can make rug patterns with the wheels

Uh huh huh, I want to vacuum

Cause I like the way the humming sound makes me feel

And it makes me feel like I'm a living, real

Genuine, alkaline, everything is yours and mine thing

So I say can you see if that is me vibrating deeply

Under your vacuum

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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This afternoon in the harbor, I saw a ship with a pirate flag

A maggot-filled skull-and-crossbones, and a galley wench with a paper bag

But when they unloaded the treasure they had robbed

The pirate who spoke to me had a job

The shipman was a fake a plastic parrot and an ink tattoo

He made love to the second mate and sailed away into the ocean blue

A holiday's big vacation, flying deep inside a jet

They light the sign, say "no smoking", so you put out your cigarette

Then the plane starts to rumble, they say that everything is fine

Still we crash into a mountain and break like bottles of wine

And in the wreckage I find the man who held the steering wheel

With directions inside the shoe of his heel

The pilot was a fake --a bought diploma and a surgical glove

He made all of his passengers wait, while in the cockpit he was making love

© 1990 Douglas Chay

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Back down inside then you gave all your marbles to me

Afloat together in the middle of the round sea

We live in a dream, sewed between the seams

Behind the paper coating on a jar

Sometimes at dinner you'd slip in my drink your magic potion

And we'd ride together inside of this spherical ocean

What will I do when she's gone, she's gonna leave before long

I'll always find someone of that kind

But give me one more chance to speak my mind

She used to tell me that I was only

Waiting to see what would happen after

All had been finished and done

She said I'd feel the same about anyone

"Do that, don't," we said to our hypothetical daughter

Holding our oxygen under the circular water

What do you think would happen

If I could show you, if I could tell you my mind

Cover my eyes when I go blind

And give to me your love so cruel and so unkind

Make me understand the person that I find

And hold me in your arms when I'm inside my mind

There is a picture to see

It's so important to me

If we could transform, you ask me what I'd like to be

But all I want to do is stay with you on the round sea

The round sea

© 1990 Douglas Chay