"Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow" by Galen Green (c. 1978)

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TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW



Once I was caught in the mad flow.
My life was but a walking shadow
On its way to dusty death,
I dreamed of Lady Macbeth
In the dusty street of Colorado,
Where I dreamed of breathing her dying breath.

My heart was once full of worry,
So full of sound and fury,
Like a tale told by an idiot.
I was always stopping to pity it
Until I crossed the wide Missouri
And washed the pain from my pretty cut.

Chorus:
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
My life will be but a walking shadow
In the dusty streets of Colorado,
A tale told by an idiot,
Full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing
But arising in the spring
Signifying nothing
But arising in the spring
Signifying nothing;
But I don’t let it bring me sorrow.
No, I don’t let it bring me sorrow.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in its petty pace;
But I don’t let it bring me sorrow,
Not even when my fingers trace
The neighbor’s flowers I had to borrow
This morning to fill my broken vase.

The streetlights of Colorado
Will light my way to dusty death.
My life is but a walking shadow
That fades a little with every breath;
But I’m not gonna let the mad flow
Drag me under like Lady Macbeth

(repeat chorus)

My life began in Missouri.
It’s a tale told by an idiot,
So full of sound and fury;
But now I’ve learned not to pity it
And now I’m learning not to worry
About the salt that’s in my pretty cut.

I beg and steal and borrow
To keep away the sorrow
That creeps in its petty pace
Like the fractures in my broken vase,
As tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Carries me away without a trace.

(repeat chorus)


Words and Music by Galen Green c 1978


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Energy, Time, Space, and Matter . . . . . (c. 1972)

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IT’S ALL JUST ONE DAMNED THING AFTER ANOTHER



The tender goddess of milk
Huddles among her children in the square.
The morning air is hung with a mist like silk.
(It’s all just one damned thing after another.)
The terrible goddess of thirst
Gnaws the throats of the children huddled there;
But her breast is bare; and, one by one, the children all are nursed.
(It’s all just energy, time space, and matter.)

Chorus:
Today is such a beautiful day.
I wish that I could fly.
Someday I’ll die.
Today is such a beautiful day.
I wish that I could fly.
Someday I’ll die.

The crazy goddess of words lies down upon the paper to be read,
While around her head flutters a flock of mockingbirds.
(It’s all just one damned thing after another.)
The invisible goddess of melody hovers over the printed page.
In her crystal cage she carries an entire symphony.
(It’s all just energy, time, space, and matter.)

(repeat chorus)

The playful goddess of touching
Washes her tiniest child in a tub of water.
From their teeter-totter, two of her older children sit, watching.
(It’s all just one damned thing after another.)
The goddess of together
Embraces her children huddled in the square.
Each one will share with the others according to the weather.
(It’s all just energy, time, space, and matter.)

(repeat chorus)



Words and Music by Galen Green c 1972


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"The Goddess Inside of Him" by Galen Green (c. 1986)

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THE GODDESS INSIDE OF HIM



Darkness drips from the locks.
He’s a slave to her every whim.
Outside, the night drops its net
Over leaf and limb, over owl and fox,
Over mistress and pet, over what’s come and gone.
Inside, the lights grow dim, as he tries to get it on
With the goddess inside of him.

Silence envelopes the rocks.
He’s musical and slim.
Outside, it’s cold and wet.
Inside, the thousand shocks
That flesh is heir to skim the surface
Of each fret he fingers into the dawn.
Deeper inside, she talks as a lioness to a fawn.
Her voice overflows his brim.

Outside, the cry of hawks awakens him to the grim.
Overhead, a jet reminds his tongue of her hymn.
Inside, he hears the cocks of her scolding him for the debt
She says he owes for the fun he’s had inside her gym.
Unclipping her barrette, she jabs him deep in the brawn.

Cloudlight washes the blocks, both out and inside of them.
She grabs for all he can get. Inside him, another sunset
Spreads the color of lox across his inner lawn.
Every squiggling photon bouncing inside of them
Moves his hand as it chalks his name on her hem.

Inside his feet, she walks around the volcano’s rim.
Inside his blood, they swim, together in shoes and socks.
Inside his heart, her regret won’t even let him let
His handprayers heal the pox,
Spread out like a lawn or a chessboard,
Where her pawn answers each time she knocks.

(...repeat 1st stanza...)


Words and Music by Galen Green c 1986


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"The Desperate Hours" by Galen Green (c. 1978)

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THE DESPERATE HOURS



Dear friend, I think we’re prisoners with invisible stripes.
That’s how I’ll begin this song you’ve asked me to write.
We’re lost in this petrified forest of invisible hypes.
We wander through this dark passage all through the night.

I’d never ask you to thank your lucky stars
For bringing us together on this isle of fury.
The desperate hours flash by like subway cars.
I wonder where they’re headed in such a hurry.

Dear friend, I think we’re lost in this lonely place.
Would it do any good to knock on any door?
Should we paddle back up the river and try to retrace
The desperate hours that left us alone on this shore?

We’re two against a world of situations.
But the king of the underworld has an appetite
For the flesh of the men and women of all nations.
So the desperate hours they drive us through the night.

Dear friend, I think we’re angels with dirty faces.
The king of the underworld has us against the wall.
He’s a devil with women but lacks in the social graces.
So the harder he drives our hearts, the harder we fall.

We’re three on a match, smoking here in the midnight.
But this fire in the left hand of God is a holy terror.
It reminds us that we’re no angels dressed in white.
And so the desperate hours are going to haunt even our mirror.

Dear friend, I think we’re in a China clipper.
Dear friend, I think the winds a drift are out of control.
To sail across the Pacific, you must shed your lead slipper
And fly to your dark reckoning with both body and soul.

To have and have not a hand to put your hand in -
That’s the only question we follow into the big sleep.
Dear friend, these desperate hours are too deep to stand in.
But, dear friend, these desperate hours are all we keep.


Words and Music by Galen Green c 1978

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