The shoelace lyrics

A woman, a

tire that’s flat, a

disease, a

desire; fears in front of you,

fears that hold so still

you can study them

like pieces on a

chessboard . . .

it’s not the large things that

send a man to the

madhouse. death he’s ready for, or

murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood . . .

no, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies

that send a man to the

madhouse . . .

not the death of his love

but a shoelace that snaps

with no time left . . .

the dread of life

is that swarm of trivialities

that can kill quicker than cancer

and which are always there –

license plates or taxes

or expired driver’s license,

or hiring or firing,

doing it or having it done to you, or

constipation

speeding tickets

rickets or crickets or mice or termites or

roaches or flies or a

broken hook on a

screen, or out of gas

or too much gas,

the sink’s stopped-up, the landlord’s drunk,

the president doesn’t care and the governor’s

crazy.

light switch broken, mattress like a

porcupine;

$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at

Sears Roebuck;

and the phone bill’s up and the market’s

down

and the toilet chain is

broken,

and the light has burned out –

the hall light, the front light, the back light

the inner light; it’s

darker than hell

and twice as

expensive.

Then there’s always crabs and ingrown toenails

and people who insist they’re

your friends;

there’s always that and worse;

leaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;

blue salami, 9 day rains,

50 cent avocados

and purple

liverwurst.

or making it

as a waitress at Norm’s on the split shift,

or as an emptier of

bedpans,

or as a carwash or a busboy

or a stealer of old lady’s purses

leaving them screaming on the sidewalks

with broken arms at the age of

80.

suddenly

2 red lights in your rear view mirror

and blood in your

underwear;

toothache, and $979 for a bridge

$300 for a gold

tooth,

and China and Russia and America, and

long hair and short hair and no

hair, and beards and no

faces, and plenty of zigzag, but no

pot, except maybe one to piss in and

the other one around your

gut.

with each broken shoelace

out of one hundred broken shoelaces,

one man, one woman, one

thing enters a

madhouse.

so be careful

when you

bend over.

• Artist:Charles Bukowski