Buffalo Bill's defunct who used to ride a watersmoothsilver stallion and break onetwothreefour pigeons just like that Jesus, for Christ's sake look out where yr going. Siempre te ven mis ojos, ciudad de mis días marinos. I'm beginning to see the light.

I make a date for golf and you can bet your life it rains. I try to throw a party and the guy upstairs complains. I guess I'll spend my life just catching colds and missing trains. Everything happens to me. You came, you saw, you conquered me. A piano tinkling in the next apartment. Those tender words that told you what my heart meant. A fairgrounds painted swings--these foolish things remind me of you. Summertime, when the living is easy. So comes love. I want to get you on a slow boat to China.

How do I love you, let me count the ways. I love you as a sherrif searches for a walnut. I love you as an eggplant absorbs oil, and you must always add more to the pan. I gave away the money you were planning to live on next year. And again falls this quiet persistent rain. One and one two three. St. Louis woman, with her diamond ring. Give me a pig-foot, and a bottle of beer. As freedom is a breakfast food and truth can live with right and wrong. Jersey Guernsey in somber and illustrious weather.

Standing and watching, through the drizzle, how the mist and further edge of pond merge. Leaves litter the lawn, books the bed. Nel mezzo del camí de nostra vita. Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

***

I'm trying to get the rhythm and tone to work in these collages. I must balance several factors: length of quotations. Longer quotes are more effective in themselves, but then we lose the collage-like effect. Familiarity versus unfamiliarity. The shock of recognition versus the "where does this come from" effect. Randomness versus connectedness.

Quotations from tinpanalley songs stand up pretty well with canonical poetry in this context.