When You Give It Away

Slid out of my dreams like a baby out of the nurse's hands

onto the hard floor of day

I'd been wearing OJ's gloves and I couldn't get them off

It was too early but I couldn't sleep

showered, dressed, stepped out into the heat

the parrot things on the porch next door

announced my arrival on Chartres Street

with their finest rendition of squealing brakes

Down in Kaldi's café the newspaper headlines promised new revelations

about Prince Charles' Amex account

A morose youth in old-time Austrian drag stares past his moustache at the ground

and last night's punks and fetish kids all tattoos and metal bits

and in the other corner (wearing the white trunks)

today's tourists already sweating



Deep in the city of the saints and fools

Pearls before pigs and dung become jewels

I sit down with tigers and sit down with lambs

None of them know who exactly I am



I've got this thing in my heart

I must give it today

It only lives when you give it away



Languid mandala of the ceiling fan

teases the air like a slow stroking hand

Study the faces, study the cards

Study the shadow creeping over the yard



I've got this thing in my heart

I must give it today

It only lives when you give it away



Trouble with nations, trouble with relations

Where you gonna go for some illumination?

Too much to carry too much to let go

Time goes fast learning goes slow



I've got this thing in my heart

I must give it today

It only lives when you give it away