1. |
Tiger One
02:20
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The San Fran Zoo
Let its tiger escape.
I feel it’s coming back again.
I feel its ghost pacing the streets,
Its whiskers brush against my face,
I can feel how warm it breathes.
They’re throwing rocks at her breastplate,
And at her chest,
And acting like that makes
Us safe,
Like I should be impressed.
How many grad students
Does it take to cure the plague?
God knows Mike Pence
Was just great at curing AIDS.
The market crash has already
Bankrupted my friends,
With a whimper,
Not a bang:
Isn’t that the way
The world ends?
Don’t go to Florida,
I’m begging you to stay.
I know it might be selfish
But I don’t know how long it’ll be
'Til I can see your face.
Make decisions carefully,
Kiss me before you go.
I might not see my friends again,
My mom won’t see me graduate,
Smile for the photograph
When they’ll mail
My diploma home.
How many absentee ballots
Can we afford to print
And count in merely a few days?
They’ve closed off Italy
And might shut down
The MTA.
We cannot underestimate
The losses to which we’ll all soon bow our heads,
With a whimper,
Not a bang:
Isn’t that the way
The world ends?
Hello to Rosie, Queen of Corona.
Hello to Rosie, Queen of Corona.
Hello to Rosie, Queen of Corona.
Hello to Rosie, Queen of Corona.
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2. |
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I’ll touch the elevator buttons
With the crooks of my fingers.
I’ll pray to anything
To see your face,
Though I’m hesitant to linger.
Can we just stay inside
Content to lie
Let the world think we
Malingered?
Get fucked up and zoom Scott Stringer?
I’ll kiss your lips
Through masks of paint
And caress you with mitts of rubber.
I’ll hold you in a hazmat grasp
And make offerings to an air filter.
Your heart beats fast against my chest
Or that might just be
The friction
Of plastic on my shoulder
Touching plastic on your shoulders,
This is sex.
I’ll bring you to restaurants
We will bring our food from home
We’ll eat cans of beans
And have high self-esteem
From dining where we could never afford
We’ll sit in Madison Square Garden
And share a phone
To watch our favorite singers
While they’re ailing in a bunker
And the ushers try to shoo us out
Because New York will soon be
An exclusion zone
I’ll kiss your lips
Through masks of paint
And caress you with mitts of rubber.
I’ll hold you in a hazmat grasp
And make offerings to an air filter.
Your heart beats fast against my chest
Or that might just be
The friction
Of plastic on my shoulder
Touching plastic on your shoulders,
This is sex.
I want my care for you to never be intensive
I want any measures I take for you to be preventive
I would gladly kiss you now
But my poor health is an incentive
To let you go
And quarantine my poor heart at home
I’ll kiss your lips
Through masks of paint
And caress you with mitts of rubber.
I’ll hold you in a hazmat grasp
And make offerings to an air filter.
Your heart beats fast against my chest
Or that might just be
The friction
Of plastic on my shoulder
Touching plastic on your shoulders,
Of plastic on my shoulder
Touching plastic on your shoulders,
Of plastic on my shoulder
Touching plastic on your shoulders,
This is sex.
This is sex.
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3. |
Minyan in a Ghost Town
02:51
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I feel like a ghost
In the Wild West,
Cobwebs littering my prom dress.
No one I love is dying
And it could be much worse.
Nonetheless,
Every goddamn subway car
Might as well be a hearse.
I would pray
But they’ve closed the synagogues.
What would I say at this point,
After all I’ve forgot.
I’d love to talk
But wish it didn’t have to be through the telephone.
I don’t mean to be selfish
But I’m scared to be alone.
It’s not the end of the world,
But it’s the end of mine.
It’s not the end of the world,
But it’s the end of simple times.
It’s not the end of the world,
But I’ll live a different life now,
God knows that’s changing every day,
I can’t begin to anticipate how.
I would pray
But they’ve closed the synagogues.
What would I say at this point,
After all I’ve forgot.
I’d love to talk
But wish it didn’t have to be through the telephone.
I don’t mean to be selfish
But I’m scared to be alone.
What’s the batting average in Corona?
I would guess it’s pretty good:
4,600 down
And the crowd screams loud
And echoes louder than I wish it would.
I would pray
But they’ve closed the synagogues.
What would I say at this point,
After all I’ve forgot.
I’d love to talk
But wish it didn’t have to be through the telephone.
I don’t mean to be selfish
But I’m scared.
I don't mean to be selfish
But I'm scared to be alone.
I feel like a ghost
In the Wild West,
I hope salvation will prevail
In a little more than a month and a half.
I’m usually a realist
But fuck that.
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4. |
Corona Park
07:13
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We played with kinetic sand
As we were hiding from the snow.
You stayed right by my side
'Til my mom drove me home.
It doesn’t feel
Like it was more than 6 years ago.
I sat back with my head high,
My smile far too wide,
And I don’t think I’d ever loved anyone
As much as I loved you,
In the gift shop,
When you said that I was cool.
We’re talking again now.
I’m happy we’re friends
But Corona Park
Was one of the best days of my life
And I’ll believe that until
The end.
I was singing “Fearless”
As I skipped in my blue dress
Along the stained glass windows
Of the great hall that was always closed.
My dad sang his apologies
And I cried at the first time he had ever said, “I’m sorry.”
Justin said I looked like a fairytale
And I took all the plastic fish.
I didn’t get to eat my cake
But I think that was fine.
We lost about an hour
When we thought we’d misplaced Dylan Klein.
My sister and I were on the Jumbotron,
Thousands of people
Saw our faces on the screen.
My mother laughed
And I guess I did too,
They blasted Natasha Bedingfield
And she got booed.
I guess they’d never had a pocket
Full of sunshine in their lives.
My mother streaked to the sky,
Rode a capsule in '65
And lay under the Tent of Tomorrow
In the center of the center of the world.
She saw flying cars
And underwater fathers,
She held her mother’s hand
As they trudged through the grasses
That arose from the ashes of a wasteland.
And Corona Park might’ve been the best day of her life.
Corona Park waved me home,
The first outstretched hands
After Berlin flown.
Corona park held hands I know,
I kiss the ground,
A holy home.
We played with kinetic sand
As we were hiding from the snow.
You stayed right by my side
'Til my mom drove me home.
It doesn’t feel
Like it was more than 6 years ago.
I sat back with my head high,
My smile far too wide,
And I don’t think I’d ever loved anyone
As much as I loved you,
In the gift shop,
When you said that I was cool.
We’re talking again now.
I’m happy we’re friends
But Corona Park
Was one of the best days of my life
And I’ll believe that until
The end.
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Rebecca Karpen New York, New York
I play baritone ukulele and cry a lot.
Go figure.
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