THINKIN' 'BOUT LOVE

So I'm thinkin' maybe I need a girlfriend,
a young one, not some ole bag
hangin' around the bar forgettin'
to pick up her teeth after three drinks.
Yeah, a young one . . . .   But then
I remember what I saw last ina mirror.
So maybe she gotta be blind.
Then I sniff my shirt an' figure
well, maybe she gotta have a stuffed up nose.
Then I listen to myself sing
an' know she gotta be hard of hearin'.

Jeez, where am I gonna find someone like that?


LOVER MAN

The guy upstairs keep playin'
Billie Holiday, her squeaky voice
comin' through the vents moanin' about
some ole devil an' god bless some child.
Then that one 'bout being crazy.  Yeah
"crazy he call me."  You damn right.
It's drivin' me nut.  Shut the damn thing off!

He just moved in.  I don't see him much
but I don't like him.  I mean who would?
Him sittin' up there by hisself listenin'
to some dead junkie.  Hell, if he's into needles
there's enough live ones right outside the buildin'.
No need to explain.
Goddammit, now he's got me doin' it!


WHAT TIME YOU GOT?

The past keeps comin' back
'cept you know it ain't real.
It ain't now, you know
but it kinda sticks in your stomach
like a piece of bad fish.
You try to get it out
all of it, once an' forever
but all you get is gas.

You still got the taste
an' it ain't nothin' but bad.

(Stashu Kapinski is an amalgam of voices from the neighborhood where I
grew up--unemployed steel workers, chronic drunks, disenfranchised immigrants--who,
in spite of it all, have not totally given up hope.)

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