Never Been to Hammond

Never been to Hammond

Never been to Jackson

Never been to the changing table

Never been to the sevens and eights

And yeah I've been to Scranton (4)

And yeah I've been to Tustin (2)

And yeah I've been to a cave for kids (3)

And yeah I've been to cemetery gates (1)

It was in 1999

Her friend died

Leaving behind

A husband and a cold charmed city

It was in 1988

My love left

She said she had

A moment of regret

It was in the seventies

Man-made, not nature-made

Later, I left them all

Kids in a sewer in September

It was in 1981

I went to a bookstore

Then went to an another

Came home clutching comic books

It was in 2029

It was in the infernal pines

It was in 2029

I was in fear of the signs

I saw them everywhere

I traded four for two and two to make eight

I saw them walk away

It was not in 1998

Years roll and years split

Spineless, timeless, why not?

Never been to a believer's church

Never laid in a burial plot

Never been to Oxnard

Oh yeah I've been to Oxnard

Never been to Downey

Oh yeah I've been to Downey

But we are we are we are

Sleepy and bleeding

Breeding and weepy

Yes we are we are we are

Never been to Paterson

Except for passing through in '96

Never been to Albany

Except for holding court in '88

She couldn't wait for me

I couldn't spin the world

I couldn't pretend time zones were irrelevent

She wouldn't cater to me

So when my sister got married

And my cousin got matriculated

I stood by, sleepy-eyed, world-weary

And my cousin just extrapolated

He turned to Paris and Chicago

My other cousin found Manhattan to his liking

My sister found the lowest mansion on the hill

My absence was notable if not striking

Never been to Glasgow (true, true)

Never been to Dublin (except the one in Pennsylvania)

Never been to south of North America

Never been to north of my birthplace, not once

I want to double the final verse

I want to counter the family curse

I want to be better than prescribed

I want to unexpected and unretired

I want to relive the years I died and stayed dead

I want to forgive the tears I cried as I never said

Love is futile if it's only a name

Never been in love, baby baby still the same

December 17 and December 21, 2009