Cartoon Blues

I listened to a lecture of nonsense until dawn By a plagiary poet with dark glasses on He said, "How did you ever dream up that song The one where the baby dies?" I said, "I'll tell you the secret, which one's your good ear? Yeah, people are made up of water and fear If there weren't women present we wouldn't be here So let's make like we're friends" And the pot turned to powder and soured the mood And the people I'd come with were gone from the room So I asked like a child, "May I be excused?" And disobeyed them all Into that late-night latrine, rain soaking through my shoes I tried walking backwards to get less confused Working off the theory I could never prove That it was life itself to blame And time ruined the world Like a failed revolution A tumor we could not remove An old friend, a constant, the blues Now my days are distractions, sit wringing my hands Solitaire, crosswords and films on demand When you turn from a cartoon back into a man You start to smell that human smell So I sleep with the fan on to drown out the street And the noise rising up from the bar underneath But for that inconvenience all my drinks are free So I guess it's just as well Why do I envy the ending right from the start Just get it together to take it apart Watching the horse as it follows the cart I sweep up my broken spell And I felt something changing the world Like a new constitution A thief I would have to pursue At all times, at all costs, the truth