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And maybe you're the Circle Line girl |
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trying so hard not to let on you know |
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I'm looking at the way your toes poke out through your sandals |
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at funny angles to your feet |
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and how you know it turns me on |
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Or maybe you're the Spanish girl |
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playing with your hair as you wait for your friend |
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in that wild octagon of mirrors the Tate calls a coffee shop |
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And I can smell that hair from here |
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and I can see from eight different angles |
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the way your nipples look through that thin black cotton top |
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reflected to infinity |
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And oh God, it's places like that and purple-tipped prose like this |
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that's going to hemorrhage me, girl |
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Ooo, it's true: |
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Girl, I'm only doing it to be closer to you |
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Or maybe you're the bay window girl |
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in Wandsworth Town, in ripped jeans and open Venetians |
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painting the difficult corner of an empty room |
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white under a naked bulb |
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leaning across the bar at the top of your stepladder |
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at the precise moment I'm passing on the steep street |
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at the bottom of your garden in the gathering night |
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voyeur's delight |
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Ooo, it's true: |
|
Girl, I'm only doing it to be closer to you |
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Or maybe you're the foundation painter |
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at the Central School, looking so fine-boned |
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I could carry you home in your portfolio case |
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laced up gently so you won't cry out on the bus |
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and give the game away |
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tied up lightly, because girl |
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how could I knowingly injure someone |
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with your perfect lips and wrists, your exquisite structure |
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Oh, little acrylic painter, I can kiss eggshells, I can be ginger |
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all the critics say I'm such a sensitive singer |
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Ooo, it's true: |
|
Girl, I'm only doing it to be closer to you |
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And maybe you're listening to my voice now |
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on your Walkman or your bedsit Dansette |
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letting my songs slip into you on this quiet night |
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in with your pads of doodles and your fingers full of pencils |
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and low tar cigarettes |
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And the music's light and pleasant so you hardly notice |
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what I'm singing about in "Paper Wraps Rock" |
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And "Murderers, the Hope of Women," |
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my voice is just a sound that pleases you |
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that enters you and leaves you just the same |
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and that's how I want it to stay, because, you know |
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Ooo, it's true: |
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Girl, I'm only doing it to be closer to you |
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But some of those were bitter records |
|
records which accuse women, girls like you |
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of using your attractiveness wantonly and willfully |
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to trap and to paralyze men |
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who wanted you and could never have you |
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men who sometimes felt the perverse urge |
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to trash the women they desired the most |
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men who imagined they despised all those immaculate visions |
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what adolescent crap, what kind of idiot would sing that? |
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Oh, not me because, you know |
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Ooo, it's true: |
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Girl, I'm only doing it to be closer to you |
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But sometimes I think that every man who writes |
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every man who paints or composes, deep soul or symphonies |
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it makes no difference, all those men are only making do with substitutes: |
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Solomon, Confucius, Franz Kafka |
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they'd never have done it if they'd been as beautiful as you |
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sitting cross-legged there with gentle music |
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lapping around a promise, there where your thighs meet |
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of fertility a million artists couldn't compete with |
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Ooo, it's true: |
|
Girl, I'm only doing it to be closer to you |
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And all the time I see you there |
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in the eye of my mind, and all that cheap macho stuff |
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about de Sade and misogyny vanishes into thin air |
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and I'm moved to tears just like any other sucker |
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who's been bruised by all the things that weren't to be |
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and yet who's ready to fall down on his knees |
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in front of a woman, and say: |
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"Whatever you may do, whatever you may be to me |
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despite the times we disagree, your ridiculous ambitions |
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your conventional inhibitions |
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I want you to know that I respect you |
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I accept you and I want you to accept me |
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I want to kiss you, kiss your stockinged knee |
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accept the uniquely soft flesh |
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on the undersides of your hips," |
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Ooo, it's true: |
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Girl, I'm only doing it to be closer to you |
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And when I've won you |
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when I've fallen down in front of you, and said: |
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"Damn Franz Kafka, damn the Thin White Duke |
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(damn the Thin White Duke) |
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it's you and you alone I'm doing this for," |
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When I'm through with heroes and pastiche |
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(throwing darts in lovers' eyes) |
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when you've let me make love to you |
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the slowest, deepest way that I know how |
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(when you do that for me, baby) |
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and it feels so good (bear with me) |
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that's when I'll think of Paul Klee's epitaph: |
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"Here lies the painter Paul Klee |
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somewhat closer than usual to the heart of creation |
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but far from close enough," |
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And girl, here I lie |
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far from close enough to you... |
