Paul Heinz

Original Fiction, Music and Essays

Trainsongs: Lyrics

Trainsongs (One)

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

Orange streetlights
Pickpockets of blackness
We ride through, we ride through
It is February 28th and I’ve gone away
People walk barefoot on the floor of my train
Like it was some moving field
Like hookworms don’t exist

 And the lounge car man makes his announcement
Please no barefoot bouncing
Wiggling-toed hobnobbing
Weaving side to side
Mothers watch your children
Or something to that effect
It bore no effect
On the situation
Four more hours til the next station

 

Seat Ahead

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

There is a girl
chirping like the sun
yellow feathers tripping out
and hitting pieces
of flying by windows
And her old man
Sings so softly
Sssshhhhhh
Sssshhhhhh

 Slow and easy
Soft and soothing
Settles her and my fearful heart

She keeps on laughing
Through her nose
Hee hee
It is pretty.  She is lovely
And sometimes he joins her
With a low, low boom
He says
Hooooooooo
Hooooooooo

 Lonely dark bells
Tinkly ivory
Two innocents kindly repeating

 

That Bastard Arizona

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved  

 I need an alchemetic kiss for luck
An alchemetic kiss for luck

Do it on my forehead
Cool each and every one
Of those hundred and ten degrees
With those soft lips
Of souls and centuries

Tell me I’ll be okay
And see the world with love again
In a place where green exists

Red is a bastard, red is a bastard to me
Red is a bastard, red is a bastard

They say you start with nothing
You can only rise again
But I know that is bullshit
You can stay flat roaming out here forever
Wasting time

I need an alchemetic kiss for luck
An alchemetic kiss for luck

I keep trying to remember
Where I spent the cash I had
Was it cigarettes?  Bad, bad, bad
Or coffee?  Worse, worse, worse

Red is a bastard, red is a bastard to me
Red is a bastard, red is a bastard

Making enemies
All because of you
I have all the time in the world to pray
And so I do

May I eat what I like again
And pick something from the menu
May I wake up in a bed
Off the ground
And step down
May I go to a bar
And buy someone a beer
May I go to sleep
Giving thanks for the
Bright child of the day
May I walk reverently again
And not complain
Walk the rind of the earth

 

Night Outside In

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

Hard green embryo
Cracked inside
and lacquered out
We bump hips and philosophies
Get liquored up
on homemade remedies
And start a night outside in

 On lonesome Ludlow street
No-li-ta
Give out your number
One digit down
Tender and sad

 Facing the cold and tangled sheets
Of a night alone
Surrounded by the soft tongue
Of a night alone
Night alone

 Full of blissblack sucking olives
And spangles of my mind
Braceleted hands
In an empty fridge
And a wash of
Melancholy thoughts
To face the night outside in

 Facing the cold and tangled sheets
Of a night alone
Surrounded by the soft tongue
Of a night alone
Night alone

 Swiveling ballroom
Dancing along
Be mine
Pushing flowers on myself
Oh, I insist

 Facing the cold and tangled sheets
Of a night alone
Surrounded by the soft tongue
Of a night alone

 

A Song of How I'm Not Perfect

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

 God flexes one fine muscle inside
And stretches my throat
Taut to the angels sky home
And it slides
20 feet down
20 feet high
one step and part from the black
and the blue bows deep
and long

 To the song's hue
Each has its own
My solitude
I'm making fires on the walls

 Let's make it rhyme
Let's get it right
My song of solitude has its own color, red
Let's make it rhyme
Let's get it right
Paint walls with melodies
And warm this room instead

 There is a song for each wrong I've done
And this is why
I keep trying to find the words
Do you find
The prettiest words are the hardest to say
But they make me beautiful
In my eyes again

 To the song's hue
Each has a color
Be mine red
I'm making fires on the walls again

 

The Truth

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

The truth pokes me when I walk
And burrow in the lonely space
Where my mind wanders

 It shadows me the way along
And moves through my mistakes
In fifteen minute breaks
And transforms tears that
Fall into the toilet

 It cries over friends who tell you to
Quit your moping
‘Cuz Jesus wouldn’t like it
Oh yeah?  Oh yeah?
Jesus takes me out
And drinks MadDog 2020
And smokes and laughs
And strokes my hair
So go to hell

 The truth drives me to the top
And jabbers sweet and long
Soliloquies that plant me

 It tells me I am beautiful
but I have never been
as ugly as I am
right now

 The truth looks at you from the side
And slips the tongue
When you’re dying
When you’re dying
When you’re dying
For a kiss

 

Trainsongs (Two)

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

 One man ignites the stub of his cigarette
And pretends to read
He doesn’t know what to say
A pretty blonde girl draws him with charcoal
And he stiffens up like a fixture
He doesn’t want to mess up the picture

 And he says
I’m not nervous when someone draws me
I’m not nervous when someone draws me
I’m not nervous when someone draws me
But I see him sweating

 My eyes follow the shaded lines

 She draws him like her art is all that matters
And I see she’s good
And I see he’s flattered

 

At The Meteor Crater

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

 I packed it in
I was robbed I tell you though
Highway robbery
I packed it in to this tiny key
The key to his suitcase
He always said it opened up his heart

 I kept it for a little while
Til I had to purge it from my file
To save my soul

 I packed it in
And I stood up on a red, red rock
I packed it in
I prayed extra hard
Well how many prayers can you fit on the head of a key
Infinite I’d say

 It didn’t take the time of day
Cuz I knew what I had to say
To save my soul
To save my soul

 And besides I had to speed it up
Cuz my dress, my dress kept blowing up
And exposing my stomach
Not to mention my underwear
I packed it in

 I packed it in
Well I stood up on the lips of the crater
Not to cleanse my sins, not to meet my maker
On this scientific miracle
I swore my future
Respect and gorgeous
And tossed it in

 

Hobo Woman

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved  

 Proud of the bruises
That light up your legs
Proud of the way you can’t hold a job
And how you don’t want children
Messing with your freedom
What does this renegade spirit do for you?
Tried and true?
Save for that frizzy split-ends hairdo

 And you dwindle down your day alone

 Proud of the way you won’t love a man
You like to say, they all bad anyway
And they good for holding
And moving things around
Into your madness they go when they aspire
To feel your fire
When will that cigarette burn down

 Cuz you dwindle down your day alone

 That Alabama phone bill
With the tear-stained numbers
And the crimson ashes

 You dwindle down your day alone

 Proud of your living
Delighted in the way you run away

 

The Swap - Jazz Illuminate

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

Lookee here
That man was in love
Who says you can’t be in love with a voice
Lookit there

 His eyes
They shine
Those fingers patting gently
Upon her face

 Those eyes
Look like they're given it to her
You-know-where
An homage
To the gravel siren
Lookit there

 Lookit there
Wading through a smoky sea
People come to see
Duke-right-smack-in-the-front-row
Where-his-eyes
His-eyes-can’t-miss-her
Ellington

 I say she knew
And threw her grace to him
A lovers tongue
Upon his ear 

The woman and the man
The sweetness, the genius
Like waves upon the sand
Caressed his soul
The riffs the scat inside his head
Melting like chocolate
In a golden pan

 The woman and the man
The woman and the man

 

The Day

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

 One glimpse of the nightgown of the sky
As the moon her will done
Her undershirt on
The air’s shivering rack of ribs
Turns on his heel and walks away from her

 Ascension whiplashing the world
Forcing dreams from throats
For tomorrow’s hopes
And multi-ribboned lies too deep
Beckons angels from their sleep

 One glimpse of the nightgown of the morn
From the steaming cups and oranges starts the day
My love begins the brightness of the day

 

Wrap Up

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

 A limo ride
Karen styling
Little Italy
Mark is buying

 Belly dancing
Gabriellas
Teeny poodles
Huge lasagnas

 Icky Brooky
Scrumptious Suzanne
Lip-smacking Ingrid
Insolent Dan

 Too much sausage
Lynne – no cancer
Eric, Bill, Mario
Move on up, move on up, move on up, move on up

 Pot of coffee
Beer withdrawal
Two harps
A beesting to the heart

 Dying Donna
Cabbie rage
Marriage proposal
Saints be praised

 Quasars, novas
And the Big Bang
Zero movies
Read a book

 Chest congestion
Hard-boiled ova
Almost crying
PMS, PMS, PMS, PMS

 Money borrowed
Tax return
Past through the present
Steady black man

 Little sleep
Cyndy’s lullabye
Text to Michael
Tales come alive

 Christie’s pleasure
Lots of eggs
I am glowing
Aching legs

 New black dress
Jeans old socks
Golden lady lighter
Move on up, move on up, move on up, move on up

 

Trainsongs (Three)

© 2010, Tricia Kositzky, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

 What if things that dotted and crossed
Were side to side?
What if I rode trains
All the time
And was forever between
Lived in twilight?
So to speak

 It is dangerous to do this though
Your body parts start to
Disappear
Hair by hair
Fingerprint by fingerprint
Rubbed out

 Bodies of jealous light
Can the sun take you back
And fight the moon
Over possession of your reproductives
And your skin?

 I wish to walk
With one shoe
In either half
And directly
Inside my soul

 

The Diary You Keep

© 2010, Paul Heinz - All Rights Reserved

Turn to me for a while
You grow colder with each passing mile
In the daylight there's nothing left to say
In the rising rush of the city

 And you carry it still
All this promise that goes unfulfilled
All the moments that seem to pass us by
The hard choices
The stern voices
And I…

 I don't know what's in the diary you keep
I don't know the ghosts that visit while you sleep
And I bet that there are days
It all seems a whisper away
But something inside of you resists
And searches for something that's better than this

There's no need to recite
All the horrors you harbor inside
You just move on and focus eyes ahead
To the rising rush of the city

 But if you could confide
We might narrow this lonely divide
We could focus on all the lights that shine
The hard choices
The stern voices
And I…

 And I don't know what's in the diary you keep
I don't know the ghosts that visit while you sleep
Well I bet that there are days
It all seems a whisper away
But something inside of you resists
And searches for something that's better than this
All the sins you've made 'til now
You'll have to forgive you somehow
Lest the pain in you persists
And keeps you from something that's better than this

 

Vienna

Music and lyrics by Billy Joel

Copyright, 2024, Paul Heinz, All Right Reserved