This summer the sun was a shotgun pointed down at me
and I was just another ugly American melting in the
heat

watching the stagnant ocean breathe painfully
it only wants to drag you down by your feet


No one swimming in the water
no sharks, no eels, no little life boats
just a history lesson and some two bit Victorian ghosts

who do a turn at the pirate ship
singing, “It's A Small World After All”
either you laugh at it baby

or you hit a brick wall

You said to me,

“You're from California
and you laugh too easily,”
You said to me,

“You just let things happen
that are killing me”


We're like whitefish beached all day on hot parking
lots
waiting for the summer parade to sadly drift by

melancholy floats filled with suicides and drooping
paper flowers
a defeated army and no wind to blow away the smell of

surrender

There was '50s nostalgia and horrifying Flintstone

characters
living memorials to wasted days and wasted bitter
nights

and everyone on the promenade participates in your
silence
'cause I'm always wrong baby and you're always right


You said to me,
“You're from California

and you're as dumb as can be,”
You said to me,
“Are you the Scarecrow, the Tin Man

or are you Dorothy”
You said to me,
“I'm beginning to think that you're

a part of the enemy”
You said to me
“If I was drowning would you save me

from Southend-on-Sea”
from Southend-on-Sea


There was a chamber of horrors
and it was packed with onlookers
wax figured day trippers being tortured

worse than their crimes deserved
and there I was in a stranglehold spinning out
from your nightmare

and my life with you was a black cloud hanging in the
air


And you said to me,
“You're from California
and you lie too easily”

You said to me,
“Did you really think that this was
going to set my heart free”

You said to me,
“I'm beginning to think that you're
a part of the enemy”

part of the enemy

You said to me,

“If I was drowning would you save me
from Southend-on-Sea”
from Southend-on-Sea