Body & Soul (Kennedy Center Cut)

My heart was misty-hued and lonely / from missing you

Without you near-around me / man, was I blue!

My eyes would show what I could not say / while you were away

Even so, my tears would flow in endless, hopeless replay

Love was always only hearsay. Yet,

I'd drift around town with downcast dreams in my pockets

Stumbling every step

Trying to motion my frozen feelings in thick-set flop sweats

My mind would echo with treacherous, senseless empty

My head was inept

Time was a pathway filled with regret.

Life was just a trial of wanting / things that are true now

Now it's something I can say aloud -

Now that I know we two can make life anew

& come shining through

I'll make us a space / inasmuch as love can do

A place safe from thunders / made by fearlessness and wonders

Now that love has come / now that I have found you

I watch the sun rise on you / and on the hour you wake

Not knowing waking from dreaming or remembering

Songs I sing you then / I hope you will hear

If ever you feel fear or coming to an end.

Love is the only thing to balance fearing

Loving the deepest depths appearing.

Waiting too long for a sign you would come was what

nearly killed the spirit in the house within me

and when you appeared you brought an answer after praying

like a sailor sighting landfall on horizons of green

or sunrise / after endless nights of burning scenes

or having sense be restored to me.

Finally the music has a reason to be singing.

Hearing voices / calling out of every corner of the city

Glittering pretty / but it seemed like empty pity here

Chasing them / feeling a stinging

searching to find a lasting thing

but always / following whatever was flashing

people thought I had the mentality of a shambles

or a house deserted

I remember stories of Orpheus and his love ruinous / Euridice

Spirited away / on their wedding day

bitten by a snake upon the way / and Euridice had to stay

in under-day - SAD!

Just as bad / Orphie had / to stay up and lay up with us here / but without her.

Some Stun!

Can you just imagine / living without it /

love that was destined to perfect / everything that was imperfect

but Orpheus went & played songs for the man

jamming a plan

sounding a span

taking a stand

burning in sand

fanning the legend of the man who playing music

made the sun to stand

and sad though the ending was / I can feel it 'cause

I would do the same for you, 'Cause

Knowing what we live is part of history

A myst'ry philosophic asked a thousand years ago

Living after living spent in killing or in giving or unwilling

Under-fulfilling - a cosmic freak show

And in all that Shiva takes in closing one massive eye

Darkening sight and sky

Hundreds of lifetimes we must try / hoping to break the cycle

And enter heaven's eye

But heaven's here / it comes clear

When loving is living & understanding giving / power

Wonder when we'll get together or if life's a broken song

Just because we're so headstrong

And we'll never get along /

It seems like the throng meanders along

But just as sad as just as sappy just as angry just as scared as sad

You'd think we'd be happy just to be straight-standing

On the earth every new date

Just to breathe in the air and to love every day away

We're given a life to try all our breath to mend the tears over the world where it is clear the world is broken.

But still the suffering and terrors go on

& every time I think we may be coming to the brink / the glue on

something pushes us / and down we fall to shatter in pieces

And that's why our teachers teach "The Itsy Bitsy Spider"

to the smallest ones:

We need a fight song to keep us moving along

I should've sung it when thinking you gone.

You weren't lost / you were coming

I'll teach you / I hope to

Give you love that shows you wonders that only love can show

And more than you'll ever know / I do love you so.

You have got a light living in you / in with and through you

& That's what a father's love should teach you.

My life a heaven you are making / you have got me in the bag

You know I'm yours for taking home or for forsaking

I'll . . . give my life up to make sure / you're lacking nothing

That's the gist of it.

You're the north, south, west and Eden east of it all

(I'm least of it all)

How come was I / Pie in the sky / more do or die /

sighing a cry / never-a-life: / high?

I hope someday you will see just what I mean

To take on / such a class / ic and write / something mass /

- ive ithout / seeming spastic when I sing the song

Or seem freaky

When I mean only to take what could sound so old-creaky

And make a marvel / as a gift to you

And, in such a small way /

Pay tribute to a man whose lavish gift gave birth to such melodies as this one

(& that was Mister Dexter Gordon)

and so my baby then perhaps (then) you will realize

I have found loving

With

YOU!