Visions Of Johanna

aint it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet?

we sit here, stranded, though we all do our best to deny it

and Louise holds a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it

lights flicker from the opposite loft

in this room the heat pipes just cough

the country music station plays soft

but there's nothing, really nothing to turn off

just Louise and her lover so entwined

and these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind



in the empty lot where the ladies play blind man's bluff with the key chain

and the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the D train

we can hear the night watchman take his flahslight out,

and ask if its himself or them who should be insane

but Louise she's allright, she's just near

she's delicate, she seems like the mirror

but she just makes it all too concise and too clear

that Johanna's not here

the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face

where these visions of johanna have now taken my place



little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously

he brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously

and when bringing her name up he speaks of her farewell kiss to me

he's sure got a lot of gall

to be so useless and all

muttering small talk at the wall

while I'm in the hall

how can I explain it's so hard to get on

and these visions of Johanna they kept me up past the dawn



inside the musuems Infinity's going up on trial

voices echo "this is what salvation must be like after awhile"

but Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues, you can tell by the way she smiles

see the primitive wallflower freeze

and the jellyfaced women all sneeze

hear the one with the moustache say, "jeez,

I can't find my knees!"

jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule

but these visions of Johanna they make it all seem so cruel



the peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him

saying "name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him."

but like Louise always says, "You can't look at much can you man, as she herself

she prepares for him

and Madonna she still has not showed

you see this empty cage now corrode

where her cape of the stage once had flowed

the fiddler he now steps to the road

he writes "everythings been returned which was owed"

on the back of a fish truck that loads

while my conscience explodes

the harmonicas play the skeleton keys in the rain

and these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.

.