Diana
© 2012 Wes Collins
 
Climb on hold tight, let go don't fight it
Slide on down to the pool
The water's brown but it's cool and you probably won't die

We won't point and tell your boyfriend
Never swam till today
You jumped in anyway, came up shaking and I

I stood off to one side
Watched that trophy girl glide
Off your shoulders, into the woods and gone and I swear
It was hard not to stare
There in her place not seven feet in front of me
You turned around and caught me looking
Am I the only one who saw it
 
Diana turn your face away
Every time I try to tell you what I mean my thread begins to fray
I'm gonna try and work it out that I
I been round a while
I seen what you show but never who you are
 
Someone steer me, I can't hear me
I'll describe what I've seen
You tell me what I mean, I don't know anymore
You shook off that disguise
Burned a ring in my eyes
Tore away all my language and nerve from my tongue
There's no air in my lungs
And the only one I want to tell what happened to me’s
Standing right in front of me
Worried for my sanity
 
Diana, what I've got to say
I'm as apt to get it right as flap my scrawny arms and fly away
Cuz I'm afraid that if I say it plain
We can't start again
Let me put it this way
 
I looked up at you and saw a constellation
Is this some kind of prayer or just a conversation?
 
Diana, look at me again
I can't be your friend anymore
Might be easier for us
To keep it how it was
You could go that way
It's too late for me
I know who you are

 

 

Chasing Hallelujah
© 2012 Wes Collins

Feet on the floor
Get my slippers on
Try to line them up by feel
And run my finger round my heel
I pick 'em up
Put 'em down again
And the way it looks right now
I can't begin to work out how I'll ever
 
Ah la la de day, chasing hallelujah
Somehow someway
Finding my way to the
Ah la la de day, chasing hallelujah
Ah la la de day...
 
Get it in gear
Try to navigate
Around those pointy little toys
Put there so carefully
Along the hall
I kill the overhead
And I’m just steering for that blinker
Like a lighthouse on my coffeemaker
 
Ah la la de day, chasing hallelujah
Somehow someway
Finding my way to the
Ah la la de day, chasing hallelujah
Ah la la de day...
 
And now I hear them waking up
Yanking us into our day
Chair tells me it’s way too early
But my feet show me the way
 
I pick 'em up
Put 'em down again
That routine can run you blind
But if I ever need reminding
After bedtime
Peek around the door
And if I don't mind the clock
I lose an hour of sleep just looking at them
 
Ah la la de day, chasing hallelujah
Somehow someway
Finding my way to the
Ah la la de day, singing hallelujah
Ah la la de day...

 

 

Come Around
 ©Wes Collins 2012
 
It isn’t like I don’t remember
Wouldn’t kill me to forget
Seven squares of white linoleum
From the window to the bed
 
You were out in front of the pain
And I couldn’t catch your eye
From the back of the chorus
Gathered round to say goodbye
 
The filter on the common window
Only let the sick light in
Chicken wire inside the glass
Saw that nothing got back out again
 
Kissed your forehead and whispered I’d see you
On the other side
Left my tears on your face and
Took a good long look so why am I looking for you
 
Everywhere
Might as well be sitting by your bed
Expecting you to come around
 
 I thought I was inoculated
Dug in good against the grain but
Every time I dial your number
I
 
Guess I might have picked up a touch of
What’s been going round
Lost my bearings, the tide came in
And never went back out, and now I see you
 
Everywhere, just one layer down
I know you’re tied up right now
But I can set the table
Just in case you get the urge to come around
 
Come around

 

 

Poor Little Sausage
 ©Wes Collins 2012
 
I been through the grinder more than a time or two
I can't cut no mustard I ain't no good to you
What do you want a poor little sausage to do

You call me last night you said I got to see my sugar daddy
I hopped in my ride and drove all the way to Cincinnati
Now I'm hanging in the kitchen with all the other patties

Now you got me on that hook
You don't even like to cook
Why don't you mail me back my heart
Next time you clean out your pocketbook?

Now the kitchen's all smoky you won't get off the phone
Casing popped open and all my juice is gone
I'm just a poor little sausage got left on the grill too long

 

Waiting
© 2012 Wes Collins
 
This patch I been tilling, ain't nothing'll grow
You tell me what I'm doing wrong and then we'll both know
I got nothing left to give up to this land
My hands on this post and my head on my hands
 
Seems like the good done wicked out of this ground
The centipedes still like me, they stuck around
 
Livvie told me I ought to rotate them beans
Try putting some okra or corn in between
I let that fall by the last planting or two
But I done everything else she ever asked me to do
 
Busting my knuckles up year after year
Starting to come to me, why I’m still here
 
See, I'm waiting
Waiting to see
It’s on the horizon
Coming to get me
I couldn't tell you
Can't make it come clear        
But something's gonna happen
And I aim to be here
 
Last time I had any company it was half of the town
Drank some coffee, sang some hymns and put Livvie in the ground
Sharpened up my tools and took it out on the dirt
I ground myself down and I liked how it hurt
 
I don't have many days piled up in front of me
I reckon I'll tick 'em off just like I please
 
Starting to think I’m gonna run out of time
My body is trying to fold up but I'm
 
Gonna make it
Never you fear
Who am I talking to?
There's no one but me here
The thing about waiting
And paying attention and living to suffer is
I get the feeling
It's just about
Over
And I’m waiting

 

 

This Is Then
© 2012 Wes Collins
 
 Hey, there's that cab across the street
And there's that bag beside your feet
Right on time, your mama's on the phone
 
I tune you out, that's what you say
I miss the rest, but that’s okay
I've heard it all before ya know, we're over and you're done
 
And now we're coming to the part
Where I lied or something and broke your heart
And took away the best years of your life
 
You would have given me the moon
You really thought I'd change my tune
But that was then, you tell me, “son you just lost you a wife”
 
Yeah that was then
This is then too
I been round and round and round this thing with you
If this hand plays out like it always does
Then this is every bit as then as that was
 
And every time you get like this
You yank out that old laundry list
Of reasons why I’m driving you away
 
You used to see around that stuff
You were in love, that was enough
To see me as the kind of guy I ain't, but hey
 
That was then
This is then too
Believe you're leaving all you want to, hey, it might even be true
You go on and have a time if that’s the way you’re gonna be
But when you're done playing pretend you come on back to me
 
BRIDGE
Just wait a second while the taxi calls the depot
He don't care, I’m gonna pay him for his time
Think about the words I whispered fifteen years ago
Remember how I said I'd love you til I die
 
That was then
This is then too
Only difference is I might be more in love with you
We gone leaner than this and we come out fine
Come here baby, sit with me and be my valentine

 

 

Drive All Night
 ©1999 Jamie Anderson and ©2012 Wes Collins
 
I like how the steering wheel is firm under my hand
I like how the headlights cut across the shadowland
I like how your voice is low and breathless in my ear
I like that it’s cold outside and warm in here
 
Surrounded by this highway
We’re at the speed of light
Baby let’s drive all night
 
I like the sound of the wheels against the road
I like how you can’t seem to keep your hands off the radio
I like how your features soften in the dashboard glow
I like how your body settles underneath your clothes
 
Surrounded by this highway
We’re at the speed of light
Baby let’s drive all night
 
 Your hand on my shoulder
Then slides up through my hair
We are rushing forward
I’ll take you anywhere

 

 

When That Happens
© Wes Collins 2012
 
 The morning light is ugly through my eyelids
Something keeps landing on my ear
The bowling shirt with someone else's name above the pocket
Like to cut me clean in half the way it's riding way up here
 
Sunlight bleaches the TV makes it hard to see the preacher
I've got to get some curtains for this place
The bottle cuts a sundial on the table
Still a little left I didn't pour into my face
 
And I like it when that happens
It's not the freshest start but it'll do
This ought to be enough to get me over
I can start right in forgetting you
 
Every couple of days I make it all the way around the clock
I don't get up to eat or even move
Some folks I used to hang out with are getting a little worried
Worried or pissed off I kind of doubt that they approve
 
But I kind of like it when that happens
When the evening comes around before I do
It takes some getting used to eating breakfast in the dark
But we both get a break, me and you
 
Me and you, we never should've happened
You were quicker working that one out than I could ever be
Been tutoring myself here undercover
It hasn't sunk in yet, but it will eventually
 
And I like it when that happens
It settles into stuff that I can see
Cigarettes and magazines and ass prints on the sofa
Haul it up and shake it of me
Leave them there and find a place to be

 

 

This Room
©  2012  Wes Collins
 
Can we get started without bringing your team in?
If you’re not angry, then why are you screaming?
 
If we could take it down a notch or two tonight
I could kid myself we’re only having a fight
 
I’m not listening, but I understand you
You can’t carry what I hand you
 
So we can inventory everything we’re not
Or we can torch this thing and then see what we got
 
I been ducking the blame / so long it hadn’t even occurred to me
I don’t know what you’re talking about
But if we lay / a blanket out under the canopy
Then I bet we could figure it out
 
I outran my luck, it caught me napping
If it sounds like I made it up, that’s what happened
 
I can’t let you know how bad I want it back
I think you’d rather pull that string at the top of the sack
 
We been locked in this room for so long we gone grey
But maybe that door opens out the other way
 
Whatever I say I’ll never admit that you got to me
but all I want is to go for your hand
I know you’re afraid / you’d have to be an idiot not to be
But it’s the end of the day and here I am
Here I am
Here I am
Here I am

 

 

Rabbit Hole
© 2012 Wes Collins
 
Light the fuse and walk away
Dominos will fall your way, it’s automatic
Whistle round the house all day
Mushrooms sprouting everywhere in the attic
 
Buzzing thoughts are caught in amber
All the fights you don’t remember
Something I was gonna tell you
Forgot to write it down and now it’s gone
 
Trouble seems to come in twos
Check the bottoms of your shoes, there’s your warning
Find a way to make it pay
Writing off another day every morning
 
Bees in my head have got no stingers
I think I found them in my fingers
Numb me up they’re all around me
 
I let it go
I’m going in
I get that vertigo again
I’m headed
 
Straight down the rabbit hole
The shortest path down the slippery slope
Straight down the rabbit hole
I can hang myself with the tiniest rope
 
This is what I get for concentrating
Black and white and grey and grey and grey and
 
Numb me up, they’re all around me
 
I tune ‘em out
It doesn’t show
I meet your eyes
You’d never know