Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Everybody Loves You

She asked me "Where you goin'?"
I said "I'm goin' crazy"
Her I'd think of followin'
If I weren't so lazy

Remember your last birthday
I called from far away
It wasn't like last Thursday
It felt just like the first day

The moment when all of the stars started shining for you
Like time was just beginning
That's why I'm a-singin'
Everybody loves you
Earth and sea and heaven, too.

You know where you can find me
Look for the feet of sheep
Your garden's gifts bring kindly
Together we will sleep.

You're beautiful and pleasing
A palm among the trees....

... I'm sick of writing, teasing
The time is ripe for seizing!

I just can't wait anymore for your face to appear
You can't be here in spirit
Your voice, I need to hear it
Everybody loves you
Isn't mine the love most dear?

Baby, I'm a rich man
And that's the problem here
No one can love like you can
But your love is too severe

You say we're good for nothing
Why do you talk so rough?
I'd give you anything or something
You only want the one thing

The one thing that I haven't got, what I never will be
You say it's an obsession
And damn all my possessions
Everybody loves you
Don't you wish it could be me?

I'm thirsty for your water
My salty tears don't fill me
The breakers make me totter
Lift me up to where it's hilly

I'm mortally afflicted
Goin' down into the pit
In silence lie convicted
And from your heart evicted

Remember those times when I headed the line to see you
I thought you wanted praising
My hands to you I'm raising
Everybody loves you
Won't you let me love you, too?

You know I never see you
That's just the way it is
But, oh, I still believe you
I'm confident of this

As gentle as a mother,
And, fatherly, as tough
We must love one another
And put all fear to smother

I'm done with death from below -- give me life from above
Forgive me my complaining
I'm thinking of remaining
Everybody loves you
And, yeah, 'cause you are love.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now that is a great poem!

Anthony Zuba said...

Thank you. I wish you could hear how it sounds in my head, set to a stomping blues.

I like it because it is deceptively simple. It looks like a love story, a bum romance, and it is that. But it's more. The whole thing is a re-write of passages from the Old and New Testament. I wonder if my seminary friends can figure out the sources....

Anonymous said...

It certainly is not simple, the secondary meanings are very clear and exciting. I think that is why the poem works as well as it does.

Anthony Zuba said...

I am glad you can see the layers of meaning and that they excite you.

Do you write poems or songs? If you do, then I hope you might share them (anonymously, of course). Or at least the poems or songs you love.