Capsize

There’s a hand

On the driftwood

And the boat’s still afloat

But we’re waiting

On a capsize

We’ve all agreed

That the lifeboats are there

And they’re steady

And they’re stable

And there’s enough

To go around

But the waves seem pale

And the storm seems dull

We’re on deck

In our best dressed

Telling ourselves

We’ve got hours left

There’s gonna be a capsize

But who knows when?

Just soon

But when is soon?

And how long would we need

To get ourselves

To safety?

Nobody’s an authority

On self-preservation

Nobody can say

When the waves will be too high

Or the water too choppy

Or the sharks too hungry

Or the line crossed

We all know

We’re going to capsize

But it’s not what you know

But what you do

With what you know?

The resources are there

The answers are clear

The water’s dark

And nobody knows

How to swim

So you think we’d be concerned

About the capsize

But…

Twelve minutes goes by

Then an hour

Then another

We think we have time

We look at the clock

We check the watch

We tick tick tick

And think--

Right now

Right now

The boat rocks

The wood groans

The rain splatters the deck
And somebody yells about something

But we can’t hear

What it is

Something snaps

A light goes out

The mist becomes a spray

And the spray a force

And the force

A threat

We should be worried

We should panic

We should sweat

But the salt from the sea

Would just wash it away

We hang on

Our hand

On the driftwood

In the water

Our friends separated

Our relatives lost

Our loved ones

Split like the wood

On the deck

That cracked

Right down the middle

We see the next hour

And the next

And the next

And then nothing

After that

But in the moment

Of the opportunity

We see a change--

And let it pass

Why wouldn’t we--

Why wouldn’t we--

Why wouldn’t we

Do something

With everything we agreed on

We also agreed

That there was nothing

To do

We’re going to capsize

That’s what we know

And we know we can’t do anything

About

What we know

Call Me Now

If you want to talk

To your dead uncle

Call me now

If you want to talk

To your grandpa

Your grandma

The neighbor who got eaten by a bear

Or the bear who got eaten

By your neighbor

Call me now

If you want to talk

To Abraham Lincoln

Or Sylvia Plath

Or Long John Silver

Call me now

Long John not real, you say?
I’ll let you talk to him anyway

It’s nothing to me

Who’s real and who isn’t

People gotta talk

Whether they’re real or not

You want to ask Bugs Bunny

Where he left all his money?

Call me now!

I’ll let you talk to Fred Astaire

And Fred Savage

Fred’s not dead?

What difference does it make?

He’ll be dead someday

That’s it

That’s what we’ll do

I’ll let you talk to the future versions

Of people who aren’t dead yet

But will be eventually

Ask your great-granddaughter

Why she never liked

The son she’s going to have

Or the son she’ll never have

Talk to people

Who not only don’t exist

But never will exist

Open your mind

Breathe your ears

Cry through your toes

It’s all rules that can’t be followed

And messages from beyond

The furthest reaches

Of the wildest fictions

But not matter

How much we trip over time

And bend it backwards

One thing will always be certain—

That your call

Is one hundred percent…

FREE

…For the first seventy-eight seconds

So spend those seventy-eight seconds

Talking to Wilford Brimley

Or Nell Carter

Or Patricia Neal

Or Felix the Cat

Talk to the teacher who gave you an F

And find out why

It might have been because you were dumb

But you’ll never know

Unless you—

Call me now!

Talk to the ex who broke up with you

And still isn’t returning your calls

It might be the only way

You’ll ever hear from them again

Talk to people

You would never otherwise talk to

In everyday life

Your mail carrier

Your wet nurse

The woman who brings your croissants

As you lay in bed

Enjoying all the luxuries you’re afforded

Because you’re a psychic

And people will pay big money

To ask Grover Cleveland

Who his favorite Beatle is

But all that luxury is not gonna last

Unless you—

CALL ME NOW!

Talk to the friend you just talked to yesterday

Talk to the friend you haven’t made yet

Talk to the friend you forgot to buy a birthday gift for

Want to go back in time

And wish them a happy birthday

Seven birthdays ago?

That’s fine!

It’s all fine

But wet nurse just told me her last check bounced

And we’re out of croissants

And the FBI is at the front door

So I’m going to need a lawyer

And lawyers cost money

So—

CALL ME NOW

CALL ME NOW

CALL ME NOW!

And if you do

I’ll throw in this lovely t-shirt

All we have left

Are mediums

A little joke for you

Tell it to Lincoln when you talk to him

He loves a good joke

The Secretary

I had to say something

When I read that article--

I don’t know who wrote it

--I read that article saying

Well, who arranged the meetings?

Who set this all up?
Somebody must have--

Yeah, somebody did

A lot of people did

I was--

I was one of the people

I would get the numbers

From the girls

And I would set up the, uh, appointments

And I did, uh, have an idea

Of what was going on

And yes, I still came in

I still made the appointments

I still did my job

Because I needed a job

So if the insinuation is

That all of us--

The people who took part

In helping this, uh, this horrible person

Help these other people, uh--

If what people are suggesting

Is that we’re as bad as he is

And that we should be punished too

That we should--

That now there needs to be

This search party

That pulls the problems out

By the roots

And sends dozens of people

To the gallows or something

As some kind of warning

To anybody in the future

That doesn’t quit their job

As soon as they find out

They’re working for a monster well--

I should point out

That Mr. Field

Who was my boss

He’s dead

He’s dead

And he set up a lot of that stuff

So, uh, well--

You’re not going to get him

You’re not going to get

All the people who got to live in mansions

Because of what they were willing to do

The people who did the recruiting

Not just scheduling appointments

Meanwhile me and my kid

Were living in an apartment

In the Valley

Having Chinese take-out

Every night

Just making a living

Just trying to get by

But sure

Put me away

I’m part of the problem, right?

I’m a cog in the machine

I need to be punished

To warn some other poor secretary

To build up her integrity

And go hungry

And let her kid go hungry

Until she finds one of the six bosses in America

Who aren’t total psychopaths

Because you can get me, right?

You know who I am

But you’re not going to get

The hundred other women

Who would have replaced me

If I would have quit

And you’re not going to get

The millions of people

Who bought tickets

To that asshole’s movies

Who kept him in business

The system wasn’t created

By secretaries

And it wasn’t kept going

By secretaries

So sure, let’s start the trials

Let’s send out subpoenas

Let’s round up all the usual suspects
In vans and buses

And haul them in front of the public tribunal

So we can all feel better about ourselves

Go right ahead

But just make sure

You get everybody

What I Never Knew

I never knew

If anybody liked me

Or disliked me

And that—

Oh, that was a blessing

And it was one of those strange blessings

Where you didn’t know you were being blessed

Until the blessing disappeared

Because now

Due to the, uh

What happens

On the phones

And the computers—

By the way

I’m not ignorant

When it comes to technology

It just serves me better

To pretend I am

You see what I’m saying there?

But no matter how I play it

I still have to engage

With technology

Because I am a person of the world

And this—all this new stuff—

The world is always

Going to be made

Of new stuff

No point resisting it

Harken back to human contact

By all means

But you have to work

With what’s in the pantry

Is how I look at it

For years

I had no clue

About who

Most of the people in my life

Or, you know, on the periphery

Of my life

Really were

I knew a little

About everybody’s politics

And a little about their personal stuff

I knew if they had kids or not

And if they got a divorce

But that was the near and far of it

Unless we were very close

And now I know so many things

About people

I am otherwise

Not all that close with

And the biggest thing for me—

Because all that other stuff

Is all right

I don’t mind knowing things

About people

I’m kind of a snoop

--But the biggest thing for me

Is that now we have a way

Of telling each other

Very directly

Whether or not

We like each other

And it’s called unfriending

Now, we never had that before

If somebody sort of quietly decided

That they didn’t want to associate with you

Provided they weren’t around all that much to begin with

You wouldn’t even know it

You might think—

Oh, I haven’t seen so-and-so

In awhile

But most of the time

You wouldn’t think about it

All that much

But now

You go to send somebody a message

Letting them know you saw their cousin

At the supermarket or something—

And before

You’d leave a message

On their answering machine

And if they never got back to you

You would just assume

They were busy

Or what-have-you

And that would be fine

--But now you go and you see it

Unfriended

Oh boy

And people can dismiss that

And they often do

As—

Oh well

It doesn’t mean anything

But it’s an action

It’s an action you take

And you’re not taking

The action to, uh

Unfollow

No, you are making

A statement

The only equivalent would be, uh—

Walking up to someone

In the 90’s

And, uh, ripping out the page in your address book

That had their contact information on it

I mean, it’s really violent

If you think about it

It’s just a very passive action

In the, uh, executing of it, you know?

But everybody’s very aware now

And, uh, while I do think

It’s valuable that we are aware—

You know, we fought for awareness

We fought for it

--But now that we have it, it’s—

It’s an adjustment

It’s definitely

An adjustment

Days on the Bridge

They wouldn’t let me off

And now I’m stuck here

On the bridge

So far two interceptions

That turned out to be radio signals

Bouncing off our own--

It’s this problem

We keep having

And they’re not sure

When it’s going to be fixed

And do I have to fill out paperwork

Even though they know about the problem?

Yup

Forty straight minutes of that

And then a check-in

With whoever’s in the captain’s chair

While the holo-concert happens

Three floors down

These are the days on the bridge

When I signed up

I thought it was going to be

All cosmic travel

And interplanetary communications

But it’s been six years

And the last time

We talked to a foreign life form

It just a cargo ship passing by

Run by a Fenoranian

Which look just like humans

Except the nose is slightly bluish

Nothing exciting

Nothing to write home about

When Benda invited me

To the holo-concert

I was so excited

But Friday’s are tough

And the day shift

Is even worse

No idea why they scheduled

A holo-concert for 3pm

But the live version

Is happening on a planet

That doesn’t subscribe

To any real system of time

So it might just be bad luck

Joso next to me

Is doing a crossword puzzle

And pretending to monitor

A slowly moving blip

On her screen

That we all know

Is space trash

You can tell by the temperature readings

And the fact that a satellite

Sent back a blurry image of it

And it actually looks like a super-sized

Trash can

‘Could be a bomb,’ came the word

From the captain chair

We laughed

But now Joso is keeping an eye on it

That’s what we do

We keep an eye on things

Days on the bridge

Are made up of soft murmuring

And a thousand important projects

That are all going to take

Three lifetimes to complete

Sometimes I feel like

I’m part of a pack of snails

Moving the Statue of Liberty

Across the Atlantic Ocean

We’ll make it there eventually

But by the time we do

It’ll probably be our grandchildren

Doing the pushing

A message comes in

From Sector 8

Letting us know

That a small fire’s been put out

Nowhere near the engine room

And nobody was hurt

This ship is so big

Whole problems arrive

And are vanquished

Before anybody

Even knows about them

I think about sending a communication home

But if I get caught

I’ll get...a stern talking to

The lack of risk

Eliminates any enthusiasm

For the indiscretion

Someone walks into the bridge

An intern

I forgot we ordered coffee

As the doors open
And close

Behind him

I think I can hear the music

Coming from the holo-concert

But no, that’s impossible

Then the blip on Joso’s screen turns red

And the lights on my screen flash

And I try not to smile

As the bridge

Begins

To shake