I saw golden age rock stars sweeping a Paris stage
it was another reunion tour trying to shake off the dust
with a broken broom and a nostalgic room
as if they're trying to get their histories carved into a library of setting books
just as the strings on a guitar slowly come undone
every rock star becomes a bedtime sun
fading in a room that grace got kicked out of
by a bouncer with a small head
but I buy their records in discount bins
and listen to them with the lights turned low
and when they come to town like exhibitions of the Roman Empire
I buy a ticket and stand in line and like the rest of us
I wonder what's been lost and what's been left behind

but there's one
I was in a book store and bought 'down the highway'
a one-eyed chronicle of the 60's in the New York
and how the carpets unrolled themselves outward

I caught the greyhound at 6am from Montreal
and I arrived in New York 9 hours later
'cause at the border I was stalled

next day I'm in a Korean restaurant on the corner of Broadway and 49th
the man across the table from me is a man from Northern India
whose hometown is 50 miles from the border with Nepal
he's going on and on about this song 'visions of johanna'
I say I've heard about it but I haven't heard it
I go on to tell him that tomorrow I'm going to check out Times Square
with the cock of his chopsticks
and the flick of his eye lids he tells me to beware

next day I get out of the subway station
and I move into the crowd
and all around me is electronic warfare
and tourists dressed up in paparazzi uniforms
and policemen dressed up in arms
and I think to myself that any minute now one
of these dumpsters just might explode
and that the fear in this place needs a haircut
but the barber shop is closed

.....

nous compterons toutes les fenetres qui se trouvent dans cettes rues nous compterons tous les fissures et les portes bonheurs la-bas nous ecrirous toutes les lettres qui ne reveront plus nous reveillerons tous les reveilleurs qui ont oublier la facon de rever ce soir nous ouvrons nos portes ce soir nous marchons sur la sole de la prison ce soir nous tirons tous les drapeaux et emballerons votre innocence dans un sac plastique brilliant

.....

I flip the pages of the phone book to try and find the perfect song
and when I dust the dust off the books of history
I find myself looking at all the things that went right
but find myself getting stuck in all the things that went wrong
then I spent a night with sara
after I saw her hitch-hiking on the side of the road
I picked her up we drove through mountain passes
close to the border where border guards
just want to make conversation before you pass on
by we were driving half way between the place where we'd already paid
and the place where we still owed
a no-man's land where shoulders to lean on were hard to find
these days I lie beside her
but sometimes I wake up and she's not there
later I find her in the newspaper headlines
sometimes among the pages that guide those who believe
in the gutters, among the broken windows
and the dream catchers that line these city streets
and we agreed that night to bless ourselves with highway love
as raindrops moved the dust off the bookshelves
stacked so high they held up the streetlights we'd already passed
and she said "If Hallelujah is the phone number,
you and I are the book,"
and that "there's music in the mountains close to the border
and visions of us in the distance
are closer than they appear"
she leaned over and whispered
"Have you heard about the story of what the river gave the boat?"
I said "No, I haven't"
She said "Don't worry,"
as she rolled down the window
and gave the wind a smile to carry to the next car down the road
"there's still a long way to go."