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Baseball! Yankees! Life!

Glittering How did we ever get in this party? They must have thought we were the help The mid-June moon Over the World Trade Tomb I don’t want to leave this rooftop With anyone else The host is a rich old bachelor Loves what I paint Your platinum hair Is like permission to stare You say, considering the three thousand churches In this town there are precious few saints Chorus: And it is summer next week If I could have remembered to speak I would invite you to Coney Island Not easy surviving In a city where indifference Is often the closest thing to kindness I’m just wondering If you are also pretending Not sure I deserve a happy ending Glittering, glittering We were glittering They warned me it all ends Embittering Yet I swore it wouldn’t happen to us Flickering lighting Down the complex stairwell And you made a joke About us being murdered Then your brother got ashes Caught in his sunglasses At that point your attitude became Quite a bit sterner You accused me of contentment Cause I had something going While the absurdity of our lives Had been revealed bare According to my recollection We parted at an intersection The host advised you Are not exactly rare Chorus Twenty years later It’s happy hour At the bar where I tend for Rent You have the same circuitous grin Here at Tailspin And the corners of your five spot Are bent The art world hyped me Then forgot completely The end of my career couldn’t have been More discreet Never saw you on television But wouldn’t make an assumption You stare a second longer Before ordering another Whiskey neat

Breaking down the Yankees 2025 season and options for improvement heading into 2026.

Chimney The autumn twilight The masquerade The days move forward Thoughtless cadets on parade Do I feel more afraid? Than what I used to be? Of being somebody, or nobody A fading glint Took me for a walk I buttoned my coat Though you wanted to talk With your dissolvable salt I know you didn’t mean to You’re just telling the truth The faces of strangers The indifference of a moment A neighborhood renting Because they can’t own it With their inevitable sin The motorcyclist makes a delivery Beside the lawn with a smoking chimney Chimney, has a memory Of the way things were supposed to be Chimney, lighting up in the dying heat With almond eyes set beside crow’s feet The evening animates In sashaying wind It could be leading me further out Or right back in To yesterday’s hobgoblin Everyone’s smarter than me Monuments to efficiency And I’m walking in a circle To find my way home Dimming those palaces in my mind Where the light relentlessly shone Upon pillars of stone Crumbling to dust in the present Eventually preserved in a dangling pendant When I’m a few blocks away It kicks back to sense Some ideas fade Love is permanent For a sense of recompense Then Chimney coughs and returns inside Is she thinking about the one she left behind?

Verona Revisited I was thinking about a summer moon I was remembering the bomb in Times Square I was recalling that when I was with you I didn’t really care I was ransoming your promise I was planning out our life I never stopped to ask myself If you wanted to be my wife Bought time With a rhyme Never even tasted Your lips upon mine Swore I was fine Drinking the world But a guy can get tangled When he falls in love with a girl Those days are long ago And the city doesn’t feel the same As when I was brand-new with you Like I never had a name The bench between the avenues The movie theater underground The way you made me go in search Of some divine, secret sound Chorus Would I sound ridiculous? To admit I pictured you with gray hair Was I mistaken when I concluded You never gave a damn Hey, we were young And things get messy Deep down I knew you were Too busy to miss me Chorus Well, what could be more romantic? Two city kids in love? In the first summer of a new decade Through the eyes of a wounded dove In the flashing lights Behind the homeless man in the park The Holy Spirit doesn’t help him And I nurse a broken heart

Winding Down So vast This Expanse The moon surface Of my mind Lamp-light frames the snow And we go Deeper into that gentle night Which is blind to the past The roles we’ve been cast The dreams that have been denied Chorus: Winding down The lights flicker in town Then they die They die They die I have no illusions I’m paid to entertain the delusions Of the hierarchies and their disaffected Sons Conditioned to think creative work Represents a nobler birth In our country of bibles and guns But I’m hardly cynical In fact, I’m quite equivocal About my replenishing of funds Chorus And your eyes are a respite Though we may fight About what you call my Callous attitude We have our bench and pond The graceful sense of being beyond Each other’s disappointment or gratitude Yet you feel so acutely my fear That I had a life that disappeared Like a flight lost at cruising altitude Chorus From where does this bitterness come? You live a dream, that’s supposed to be freedom Instead I’m the absence of joy In the state at large The teenage girl crying on her birthday Her businessman father with nothing to say The mother hardened by too many days in charge At least my students believe in writing And you leave me alone with my faulty wiring Like my father drinking alone in the garage Chorus Summertime now and I could leave Then its winter again and I’ve begun to grieve And in autumn my mother didn’t provide Any indication When you talk about next January My madness feels almost sanitary Maybe I just need a good, warm vacation You say I’m doing great, I’ve got it together I look like a knight in this coal black sweater Kiss me on the forehead Because we've arrived at our station

Discussing another wonderful Bob Dylan performance at Jones Beach and the travails of a completely disappointing, befuddling Yankees team.

Halloween Well, they said this one’s serious And not to go outside and smoke I figured my mother wasn’t delirious So I took note Hunkered alone in the basement Watching Season 5 of Mad Men I called to make sure you were aware And to feel like you still were a friend You sounded agitated And staticky on the line I said, you didn’t let that stupid bastard Talk you into giving him a ride Chorus There’s always tomorrow Until there isn’t There’s always the light of lightening in a storm There’s always tomorrow until there isn’t I will love you Forevermore Now the tempest seemed to be touching down My mother shouted downstairs, “some maniacs are staying in the casino.” She added its coming fast And asked about that, “girl you know.” If I’d known we’d split I’d have never introduced you to my mom If she knew you revenge cheated She might not care if you were harmed But it gave me another twinge thinking about the beginning You drove me wild when you laughed fluttering your eyelids Then under the streetlight outside your house We talked about having kids Chorus I hear the rain hard while Pacing from the boiler to my couch Even after the texts with the threats It’s you I still can’t live without So I raced up the stairs, put on my Yankees hat And grabbed the keys Planning to find you and John To explain what state of emergency means But my father grabbed me with half-my-shoulder Out the door And was already pulling me back inside before I even answered when he asked, “what the hell are you leaving for?” Chorus Well, two days later And it was Halloween I saw some little girl walking around a fallen tree And she was dressed like a Disney queen I didn’t feel nothing While walking through our little shattered town I couldn’t lose this shining vision of you Wearing a white wedding gown It was all my goddamn fault I grew up getting called ugly I couldn’t stop myself from wanting someone else Even when I knew you loved me I heard he wanted cigarettes And convinced you to take him The priest said nothing about his sins Nobody wanted to blame him Chorus You know what I got in my head? While I toss and turn In the absence of sleep In my childhood bed? That I’ve never really stopped taking That first walk right after the storm I’ve never wanted to mend the Threads of our life together that were torn Nowadays they say I make you a saint Because I block your flaws out of my mind They tell me it’s only natural for people to heal When they’ve had enough time Chorus

Burnt Leaves You never ask me to come over When you sit at the end of the bar With a look on your face Like you’re watching the implosion of a star Was it another audition Where the casting director led you on? Now you’re looking to score So we can discuss the golden era past the break of dawn I never tell you that you’re too temperamental For such a brutal line of work That your kindness would be better served As a teacher or a nurse Nor that your breakdowns amuse me For I have seen so much worse Beautiful minds who could have defined the times Lost because they got sick first Chorus Burnt leaves Scatter at my feet They’ll disappear down a gutter And life is never that neat I feel This forgotten cemetery inside me And for the grace of an unknown God I’d sleep forever beneath a white sheet Once or twice, you’ve asked outright Why I give a damn about you Another anonymous Midwest actress Probably only passing through I never reveal My habit for survival has left me alone That weeks go by and you’re the only one Who calls me on the phone Imagine that, 20 year age gap And I can’t even pretend to be into girls Something else must remind me of my mother Aside from those dark brown curls So regular together The waiters gave us a nickname with a ring of truth I’m the Old Man and the Sea You’re Betty Boop Chorus Well tonight, I think I got something different To tell you These minor defeats and indignities Just haven’t been enough to quell you And even if it makes you hate me, Man its work the risk I’m so damn tired of watching beautiful people Who think pain and rejection make them exist Because you’re better than this Better than dancing on a puppeteer’s string You might not want to hear it But the world doesn’t need another pretty face to sing But who am I kidding? I’ll catch the bare October moon In the cab’s rearview once we leave this place And we’ll wind up talking ceaselessly about Cassavetes And Scorsese, our version of saying grace You’ll mumble how you feel safe with me, that I’m the closest you’ve ever had to a father A dire warning about your destruction will linger on my lips But I just won’t bother Chorus

An update on a Yankees season that has gone off the rails.

Fall is Falling It seemed like a good idea She was 23 with a book deal Aren’t some fantasies allowed to be real? The exceptional ideal Chorus: Though I really hoped it We are not the same Fall is falling You’re not calling my name My friends said i miscalculated I thought they were sexually frustrated We all might have necks and backs aggravated But that shouldn’t mean a life of hesitation Chorus My ex-wife called her a gold-digger And was appalled she was younger than their babysitter Asked, ‘when she’s sitting on your lap, what nonsense does she whisper?’ I told my therapist, ‘see, this is why I don’t miss her.’ Chorus It was all so wonderful in the beginning Your lips reminded me I hadn’t been living When they stared at restaurants, you’d just be grinning I’d think to myself, ‘these jealous pricks hate that I’m winning.’ Chorus But the slightest thing can cause severe tension You felt betrayed when I wouldn’t make an investment In your mental patient friend’s latest invention Something about recycling plant stems for hair extensions Chorus And of course it all fell apart You wrote a shitty second novel about your lack of a heart Those fickle critics tore it apart While I had a cardiac episode in a Wal-Mart Chorus Well, I don’t have one regret I’m 85 now and my grandkids are in debt But for a life in letters, what could I expect? We may have parted, but at least we met Chorus

The Logic of His Wings He spent the night Thinking about Madonna While restless In his bed During many of his Waking hours He acted out the dreams In his head Of being a baseball star A wrestler An action hero without a face The world was moving so Frantically around him He couldn’t keep Pace Beauty everywhere Beauty nowhere Beauty in the shadow Of a pigeon At the park Beauty everywhere Beauty nowhere His beautiful house Was falling apart The hope of what a new day brings The logic of his wings Inject adrenaline into a broken heart And fly, triumphantly Toward a dying star A little brown wallet Full of grandma’s money And a bike ride To the candy store A Butterfinger, a videogame magazine Were everything he can afford The bright colors Of dreamlands Constructed in cubicles Were the brilliant backgrounds Above the orchestra For a middle-class American Musical Beauty everywhere Beauty nowhere Beauty in those sirens Wailing in the Dark Beauty everywhere, beauty nowhere Bartenders, construction workers and cops Were all playing their part The hope of what a new day brings The logic of his wings Inject adrenaline into a broken heart Then fly, triumphantly Toward a dying star

Freedom Tower This city used to be Lit by torchlight Dusk has fallen Deep I am caught between Cohabitating realities And unsure which dream I get to keep They finished the Freedom Tower My uncle said “They should have rebuilt it the same.” On the avenues paper men make an indifferent show Of disintegrating in the rain Chorus: I was the toast of Greenwich Village For about two minutes, once Glory was the price of tuition I wrote a book about alcoholic doves It was an elevated position A better view to look down at us I was supposed to learn a lesson But I keep forgetting what it was The romanticists loathe These bright corners Because they preferred privacy While watching my friend die They bloviate about Complicity And drink holy water From each other’s pierced sides Such is life In the unfolding parable I chase money to treat Such deep resentment I stroll these angular Blocks alone Like an ink-less pen Scratching the pavement Chorus The future is a Too cold day in May With only graspable fantasy An antidote to the news We are fractured, we are ruled Their sparkling communal vision Is always due to be disabused I’ve reached the block With my favorite pub And aged a little Over a decade I learned too late Your finest expression of love Were all my delusions You so silently forgave Chorus Five rounds Of rum and coke And the Yankees Holding off the Reds I tell the taxi driver To drive me past the epilogue Because I never like knowing How the novel ends Oh, verticalized glass With our reflections unkept We slide off with the ease Of a great promise unmet And the cabbie doesn’t answer When I ask about the ducks At Central Park Maybe he read the book And just didn’t like that part

Letter to My Double returns with our first episode about the 2025 Yankees!

Glittering How did we ever get in this party? They must have thought we were the help The mid-June moon Over the World Trade Tomb I don’t want to leave this rooftop With anyone else The host is a rich old bachelor Loves what I paint Your platinum hair Is like permission to stare You say, considering the three thousand churches In this town there are precious few saints Chorus: And it is summer next week If I could have remembered to speak I would invite you to Coney Island Not easy surviving In a city where indifference Is often the closest thing to kindness I’m just wondering If you are also pretending Not sure I deserve a happy ending Glittering, glittering We were glittering They warned me it all ends Embittering Yet I swore it wouldn’t happen to us Flickering lighting Down the complex stairwell And you made a joke About us being murdered Then your brother got ashes Caught in his sunglasses At that point your attitude became Quite a bit sterner You accused me of contentment Cause I had something going While the absurdity of our lives Had been revealed bare According to my recollection We parted at an intersection The host advised you Are not exactly rare Chorus Twenty years later It’s happy hour At the bar where I tend for Rent You have the same circuitous grin Here at Tailspin And the corners of your five spot Are bent The art world hyped me Then forgot completely The end of my career couldn’t have been More discreet Never saw you on television But wouldn’t make an assumption You stare an extra second Order another Whiskey Neat Chorus.