Melanie Safka - Leftover Wine

for jim...this is one of my favorite Melanie songs...

When the Good Front Stops Working

Throw the leeks away, along with the spinach
and carrots. Let go all the reminders, plans
put on hold. Wallow, wallow, wallow.

The refrain carries no sound, not even
the dog lying on the floor next to you
has an idea. As long as you throw

the multicolored ball with the squeaky
thing inside, she settles down, a few
tosses and she seems content. Why

all the trouble when things can be as
easy as not pouring another glass,
not thinking about your mother's

fears--you don't own them--not calling
to memory the slow way your father moved
that last Christmas when you never mentioned

his swollen ankles, your fear of sounding intrusive
greater than the fear of losing him. No marinade
has covered the tender breasts you planned

to cook, and no hands are willing to search
the drawer for a knife to cut away tendons
or the small deposits of fat. Pour another

one until you cease to think, your body
prone on the 300 count sheets, sleeping
soundly until your life wakes you up,

such an annoying and persistent visitor,
coming to claim you and shake some sense
into your already failing and rapidly beating heart.

Eric Clapton - Let It Rain

A song for this rainy 4th of July. It started raining when I was weeding one of the flower beds, and this song just popped into my head as the rain started pouring all over me. I need someone's love to rain down on me.

Seems Like Yesterday

I have not yet begun the process
of processing. Your mom called
tonight just to ask how I was doing--
your mom who has not seen you now
in over a year. At some point in time
we discuss your stone, what a testament
it is to you, how anyone reading it would
suddenly come to know you--not your
grieving family. I tell your mom that Molly
and I walked by there today and picked
up the debris left behind in the wake of last
week's storm. It's a small gesture, but one
that I am sure did not escape your eyes
or your spirit. I said to her Let's think
about getting together when Lauren's
home next weekend. We'll do shrimp
cocktail and cheap wine out-of-a-box,
we'll sit under the carport and do our
remembering-when things, but mostly
we'll do what we've always done--bitch
about the economy, rant about getting
older, crack a few jokes that send us
spiraling down to the asphalt, one
of us picking the other up from the warm
ground, wine spilling everywhere, loss
never far from our minds as we right
ourselves back into the lawn chairs,
still laughing, and when things get quiet,
we'll turn the conversation over
to those damned mosquitoes, biting
our exposed flesh, about how late it's getting,
about sleep or the lack thereof, about how
we'll be sure to get together more often,
about how fat the cat has gotten, about
the time you came up the driveway beaming
about your new job, two years ago now,
that smile of yours the only light each
of us needs out there in the darkness.

I'd trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday

Wish I could have found a live version of this...

How To Shoot Somebody Who Outdrew You

The first time I played the song
for her she was nearly comatose,
lying there in the middle of her family
room, the stereo as loud as it would
go. I couldn't believe it when she sat

upright and told me that was the most
beautiful song she'd ever heard and would
I have it played at her funeral, and after
that, she laid back down on the new
carpet and closed her eyes, the room

quiet now except for the sound
of her labored breathing. It seemed
the appropriate time to go pour another
glass of wine, to let the warmth find
a way to ease the chill of her words,

me not half-drunk yet but wishing I was,
me not wanting to ever think she said them,
me four years later making arrangements,
her family at my dining room table
eating fried chicken and green beans,

their faces blank and unsurprised, her death
a blip on the screen that had long ago
stopped blipping. There are only so many
times a person can die and anyone believe
they're still alive. I'll give her this much:

she outdrew better than anyone I've ever
met, and love--that battered shoreline
littered with kelp and needles and sometimes
beautiful pieces of sea glass--she knew
that too, even as she tried to dress herself

for a night she would not walk into nor
see the end of, her black hair streaming
out beneath her head when the sun
came up, her mouth fixed in a lasting
half-smirk, love radiating from her broken

nails and the flesh showing all too white
through the runs in her ruined black stockings.

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah (Live)

Yes, it's a Cohen song. I love Cohen--madly, deeply love Cohen--but I love Buckley singing Cohen's Hallelujah more than I love Cohen singing it.