Picture Memory Lyrics

He covers his house in pictures so he won't forget

The walls from floor to ceiling

The cupboards

The appliances

The closets

The furniture

Even the ceiling

All covered in photographs

He also cannot walk in his home without walking on his memories

So he stands and stares

Pictures of sunsets

On islands

Of friends he used to know

Of things he's done, he saw, he's felt

All casted in pictures

Black and white

Color

8 x 10

5 x 7

Four inch

Three inch

Panoramic

All sizes and shapes

All covering his home

Even the windows are covered with pictures

And the light burning the pictures' backs gives the memories a soft, orange glow

A nice memory of what the sun looks like

For he does not leave his house

The door is sealed with photographs

Covering every crack of the outside world

Images of dead days

Dead cats

Dead skunks

Dead armadillos

Dead squirrels

Dead raccoons

Dead birds

Dead fetuses from abortion clinic dumpsters

Dead people at funerals

Anything signifying death or loss lines his doors

So he will not leave

His TV too is covered in photographs

Pictures of circuses

Zoo animals

Jerry Seinfeld

Jerry Lewis

Bob Hope

Gallagher

Robin Williams

Lucille Ball

Richard Pryor

Bill Cosby

Eddie Murphy

Ben Stiller

Owen Wilson

Charlie Chaplin

Groucho Marx

The Three Stooges

Shirley Temple

Fred Astaire

Ginger Rogers

Grace Kelly

Marilyn Monroe

Jimmy Stewart

John Wayne

Clint Eastwood

Jackie Gleason

Orson Wells

Marlon Brando

Al Pacino

Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Robert Dinero

Darth Vader

Kermit the Frog

Mickey Mouse

Donald, too

Bugs Bunny

Buzz Lightyear and Woody

Pinocchio

Beauty and the Beast

And any other image that would make him smile or laugh or remember feelings of entertainment

His TV was disconnected and had been for years

He had no desire to reconnect it ever again

His books were in the same condition

And plastered over every word of Shakespeare

Or Milton

Or Chaucer

Or Columbus diary

Or American History textbook

Or Louis L'Amour novel

A picture replaced them

Pictures of Indians barefoot and leaning forward in a line without end

Trudging through snow with only white-scabs-disease-filled blankets to shield them from the white storm

Pictures of thousands of buffalo skulls

Like mountain graveyards

Piled up with a white gunslinger showing off the gun he used to kill them all

Sitting Bull

Red Cloud

Crazy Horse

Crispus Attucks

Shooting Star

Dull Knife

Roman Nose

Crow Dog

Wavoka

Pontiac

Black Hawk

The Delaware Prophet

Opechancanough

Cofachiqui

Tascaluza

Vitachuco

And Andrew Jackson

With a live-like tomahawk through him

Pictures of Jewish holocaust

Of Italian holocaust

Of Rwandan holocaust

Of negro holocaust in America

Pictures of lynched negroes hanging from trees

Like strange fruit

Of negroes burned alive

Roasting like stuck pigs

Of negroes chained together and being pushed overboard into an ocean grave

Of Frederick Douglas

Sojourner Truth

W. E. B. Dubois

Langston Hughes

Harriet Tubman

MLK

Malcolm X

Mohammed Ali

Toni Morrison

John Edgar Wideman

Zora Neale Hurston

Rosa Parks

And signs distinguishing white fountains from colored ones

Even though they look the same

Pictures of Japanese internment camps

Of Irish

Arabs

Latinos

Asians

Blacks

Indians

And any other colored group

Being told that whites only are allowed in the United States

Pictures of Monuments and Memorials to the American Revolution

The War of 1812

The Civil War

The Philippines War

World War I

World War II

Korea

Vietnam

Desert Storm

Iraqi Freedom

And the list of the names of the dead and forgotten

All the words in the books were covered in pictures

He sleeps on pictures

He eats off of pictures

He washes with pictures

He defecates with pictures

The image is everywhere

And there is no way he can ever forget again