Turbulent Indigo

She pulls the shade;
It's just another sunny Sunday.
She dodges the light like Blanche DuBois.
Bright colors fade away on such a sunny Sunday;
She waits for the night to fall.
Then she points a pistol through the door,
And she aims at the streetlight
While the freeway hisses.
Dogs bark as the gun falls to the floor.
The streetlight's still burning;
She always misses.
But the day she hits,
That's the day she'll leave.
That one little victory, that's all she needs!
She pulls the shade;
It's just another sunny Monday.
She waits for the night to fall.

He met her in a french cafe
She slipped in sideways like a cat
Sidelong glances
What a wary little stray!
She sticks in his mind like that
Saying, "avez-vous un allumette?"
With her lips wrapped around a cigarette
Yvette in english saying,
"please have this
Little bit of instant bliss."

He's fumbling with her foreign tongue;
Reaching for words and drawing blanks
A loud mouth is stricken deaf and dumb
In a bistro on the left bank
"if i were a painter," picasso said,
"i'd paint this girl from toe to head!"
Yvette in english saying,
"please have this
Little bit of instant bliss."

Burgundy nocturne tips and spills
They trot along nicely in the spreading stain
New chills, new thrills
For the old uphill battle
How did he wind up here again?
Walking and talking
Touched and scared
Uninsulated wires left bare
Yvette in english going,
"please have this
Little bit of instant bliss."

What blew her like a leaf his way?
(up in the air and down to earth)
First she flusters
Then she frays
So quick to question her own worth
Her cigarette burns her fingertips
As it falls like fireworks she curses it
Then sweetly in english she says,
"please have this,
Little bit of instant bliss."

He sees her turn and walk away
Skittering like a cat on stone--
Her high heels clicking--
What a wary little stray!
She leaves him by the seine alone
With the black water and the amber lights
And the bony bridge between left and right
Yvette in english saying,
"please have this
Little bit of instant bliss."

Everybody looks so ill at ease
So distrustful so displeased
Running down the table
I see a borderline
Like a barbed wire fence
Strung tight, strung tense
Prickling with pretense
A borderline

Why are you smirking at your friend?
Is this to be the night when
All well-wishing ends?
All credibility revoked?
Thin skin, thick jokes!
Can we blame it on the smoke
This borderline?

Every bristling shaft of pride
Church or nation
Team or tribe
Every notion we subscribe to
Is just a borderline
Good or bad, we think we know
As if thinking makes things so!
All convictions grow along a borderline

Smug in your jaded expertise
You scathe the wonder world
And you praise barbarity
In this illusionary place--
This scared hard-edged rat race
All liberty is laced with
Borderlines

Every income, every age
Every fashion-plated rage
Every measure, every gauge
Creates a borderline
Every stone thrown through glass
Every mean-streets-kick ass
Every swan caught on the grass
Will draw a borderline

You snipe so steady
You snub so snide--
So ripe and ready
To diminish and deride!
You're so quick to condescend
My opinionated friend
All you deface, all you defend
Is just a borderline
Just a borderline ...
Another borderline ...
Just a borderline

I was an unmarried girl
I'd just turned twenty-seven
When they sent me to the sisters
For the way men looked at me
Branded as a jezebel
I knew i was not bound for heaven
I'd be cast in shame
Into the magdalene laundries

Most girls come here pregnant
Some by their own fathers
Bridget got that belly
By her parish priest
We're trying to get things white as snow
All of us woe-begotten-daughters
In the streaming stains
Of the magdalene laundries

Prostitutes and destitutes
And temptresses like me--
Fallen women--
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery ...
Why do they call this heartless place
Our lady of charity?
Oh charity!

These bloodless brides of jesus
If they had just once glimpsed their groom
Then they'd know, and they'd drop the stones
Concealed behind their rosaries
They wilt the grass they walk upon
They leech the light out of a room
They'd like to drive us down the drain
At the magdalene laundries

Peg o'connell died today
She was a cheeky girl
A flirt
They just stuffed her in a hole!
Surely to god you'd think at least some bells should ring!
One day i'm going to die here too
And they'll plant me in the dirt
Like some lame bulb
That never blooms come any spring
Not any spring
No, not any spring
Not any spring

Let me speak, let me spit out my bitterness--
Born of grief and nights without sleep and festering flesh
Do you have eyes?
Can you see like mankind sees?
Why have you soured and curdled me?
Oh you tireless watcher! what have i done to you?
That you make everything i dread and everything i fear come true?

Once i was blessed; i was awaited like the rain
Like eyes for the blind, like feet for the lame
Kings heard my words, and they sought out my company
But now the janitors of shadowland flick their brooms at me
Oh you tireless watcher! what have i done to you?
That you make everything i dread and everything i fear come true?

(antagonists: man is the sire of sorrow)
I've lost all taste for life
I'm all complaints
Tell me why do you starve the faithful?
Why do you crucify the saints?
And you let the wicked prosper
You let their children frisk like deer
And my loves are dead or dying, or they don't come near
(antagonists: we don't despise your chastening
God is correcting you)

Oh and look who comes to counsel my deep distress
Oh, these pompous physicians
What carelessness!
(antagonists: oh all this ranting all this wind
Filling our ears with trash)
Breathtaking ignorance adding insult to injury!
They come blaming and shaming
(antagonists: evil doer)
And shattering me
(antagonists: this vain man wishes to seem wise
A man born of asses)
Oh you tireless watcher! what have i done to you?
That you make everything i dread and everything i fear come true?

(antagonists: we don't despise your chastening)
Already on a bed of sighs and screams,
And still you torture me with visions
You give me terrifying dreams!
Better i was carried from the womb straight to the grave.
I see the diggers waiting, they're leaning on their spades.

(antagonists: man is the sire of sorrow
Sure as the sparks ascend)
Where is hope while you're wondering what went wrong?
Why give me light and then this dark without a dawn?
(antagonists: evil is sweet in your mouth
Hiding under your tongue)
Show your face!
(antagonists: what a long fall from grace)
Help me understand!
What is the reason for your heavy hand?
(antagonists: you're stumbling in shadows
You have no name now)
Was it the sins of my youth?
What have i done to you?
That you make everything i dread and everything i fear come true?
(antagonists: oh your guilt must weigh so greatly)
Everything i dread and everything i fear come true
(antagonists: man is the sire of sorrow)
Oh you make everything i dread and everything i fear come true