not a pretty girl

by ani difranco

I am not a pretty girl
That is not what I do
I ain't no damsel in distress
And I don't need to be rescued, so
So put me down, punk
Wouldn't you prefer a maiden fair?
Isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?
I am not an angry girl
But it seems like I've got everyone fooled
Every time I say something they find hard to hear
They chalk it up to my anger
And never to their own fear, imagine you're a girl
Just trying to finally come clean
Knowing full well they'd prefer you were dirty
And smiling, and I am sorry
But I am not a maiden fair
And I am not a kitten
Stuck up a tree somewhere
And generally my generation
Wouldn't be caught dead working for the man
And generally I agree with them
Trouble is you got to have yourself
An alternate plan, and I have earned my disillusionment
I have been working
All of my life
And I am a patriot
I have been fighting the good fight
And what if there are no damsels in distress?
What if I knew that, and I called your bluff?
Don't you think every kitten
Figures out how to get down
Whether or not you ever show up?
I am not a pretty girl
I don't really want to be a pretty girl
I wanna be more than a pretty girl

Promiscuity

By ani difranco

Promiscuity is nothing more than traveling
There's more than one way to see the world
And some of us like to stick close to home
And some of us are Columbus
What can I say?

Nature always gets her way
Nature always gets her way

And seeing the world through another's eyes
Is like busting a window in a house of lies
And in the end you make up your own mind

And there's wide open spaces
And little cornered off places
And check 'em out
Check 'em out
Take your time

How far is too far?
How much is enough?
You gotta test this stuff

I mean how you gonna know
What you need
What you like
Till you been around the block
A few times on that bike

I mean how you gonna know
Who you are
What you feel
Till you feel a few things
That just don't feel real

And promiscuity is research and development
Evolution begs embellishment
And baby you're a star

And you got two invisible eyes on society
And when society gets cruel
Make like you're nature's tool
Which you are

And nature always gets her way
Nature always gets her way

And monogamy is that carnival trophy you earn
When you throw that ball into that urn
It's somewhat dumb luck, somewhat learned
And you just know when it's your turn

And honesty is the hardest part
Yeah honesty is the highest art
And honestly i myself just started
And eureka I'm less broken hearted

I mean how you gonna know
What you need
What you like
Till you been around the block
A few times on that bike

I mean how you gonna know
Who you are
What you feel
Till you feel a few things
That just don't feel real

Willing to fight

By ani difranco

The windows of my soul
are made of one way glass
don't bother looking into my eyes
if there's something you want to know,
just ask

I got a dead bolt stroll
where I'm going is clear
I won't wait for you to wonder
I'll just tell you why I'm here

'cause I know the biggest crime
is just to throw up your hands
say
this has nothing to do with me
I just want to live as comfortably as I can
you got to look outside your eyes
you got to think outside your brain
you got to walk outside you life
to where the neighborhood changes

tell me who is your boogieman
that's who I will be
you don't have to like me for who I am
but we'll see what you're made of
by what you make of me

I think that it's absurd that you think
I am the derelict daughter
I fight fire with words
words are hotter than flames
words are wetter than water

I got friends all over this country
I got friends in other countries too
I got friends I haven't met yet
I got friends I never knew
I got lovers whose eyes
I've only seen at a glance
I got strangers for great grandchildren
I got strangers for ancestors
I was a long time coming
I'll be a long time gone

you've got your whole life to do something
and that's not very long
so why don't you give me a call
when you're willing to fight
for what you think is real
for what you think is right

Go here to hear this poem as the song it was written to be.

Self-evident

By ani difranco

yes,
us people are just poems
we're 90% metaphor
with a leanness of meaning
approaching hyper-distillation
and once upon a time
we were moonshine
rushing down the throat of a giraffe
yes, rushing down the long hallway
despite what the p.a. announcement says
yes, rushing down the long stairs
with the whiskey of eternity
fermented and distilled
to eighteen minutes
burning down our throats
down the hall
down the stairs
in a building so tall
that it will always be there
yes, it's part of a pair
there on the bow of noah's ark
the most prestigious couple
just kickin back parked
against a perfectly blue sky
on a morning beatific
in its indian summer breeze
on the day that america
fell to its knees
after strutting around for a century
without saying thank you
or please

and the shock was subsonic
and the smoke was deafening
between the setup and the punch line
cuz we were all on time for work that day
we all boarded that plane for to fly
and then while the fires were raging
we all climbed up on the windowsill
and then we all held hands
and jumped into the sky

and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast
and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed
and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar
looked more like war than anything i've seen so far
so far
so far
so fierce and ingenious
a poetic specter so far gone
that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling
over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on
and i'll tell you what, while we're at it
you can keep the pentagon
keep the propaganda
keep each and every tv
that's been trying to convince me
to participate
in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution
perpetuate retribution
even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution
is still hanging in the air
and there's ash on our shoes
and there's ash in our hair
and there's a fine silt on every mantle
from hell's kitchen to brooklyn
and the streets are full of stories
sudden twists and near misses
and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters
with tales of narrowly averted disasters
and the whiskey is flowin
like never before
as all over the country
folks just shake their heads
and pour

so here's a toast to all the folks who live in palestine
afghanistan
iraq
el salvador

here's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation
under the stone cold gaze of mt. rushmore

here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors
who daily provide women with a choice
who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city
just to listen to a young woman's voice

here's a toast to all the folks on death row right now
awaiting the executioner's guillotine
who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads
to find peace in the form of a dream

cuz take away our playstations
and we are a third world nation
under the thumb of some blue blood royal son
who stole the oval office and that phony election
i mean
it don't take a weatherman
to look around and see the weather
jeb said he'd deliver florida, folks
and boy did he ever

and we hold these truths to be self evident:
#1 george w. bush is not president
#2 america is not a true democracy
#3 the media is not fooling me
cuz i am a poem heeding hyper-distillation
i've got no room for a lie so verbose
i'm looking out over my whole human family
and i'm raising my glass in a toast

here's to our last drink of fossil fuels
let us vow to get off of this sauce
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
and find that train ticket we lost
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river
and peeked into all the backyards
and the laundry was waving
the graffiti was teasing us
from brick walls and bridges
we were rolling over ridges
through valleys
under stars
i dream of touring like duke ellington
in my own railroad car
i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
in a grand station aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform
and feeling the air on my face

give back the night its distant whistle
give the darkness back its soul
give the big oil companies the finger finally
and relearn how to rock-n-roll
yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there
so it's time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets
and clear the air
get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand
of someone else's desert
put it back in its pants
and quit the hypocritical chants of
freedom forever

cuz when one lone phone rang
in two thousand and one
at ten after nine
on nine one one
which is the number we all called
when that lone phone rang right off the wall
right off our desk and down the long hall
down the long stairs
in a building so tall
that the whole world turned
just to watch it fall

and while we're at it
remember the first time around?
the bomb?
the ryder truck?
the parking garage?
the princess that didn't even feel the pea?
remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?

can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design
following a fantastical reversal of the new york skyline?!

it was a joke, of course
it was a joke
at the time
and that was just a few years ago
so let the record show
that the FBI was all over that case
that the plot was obvious and in everybody's face
and scoping that scene
religiously
the CIA
or is it KGB?
committing countless crimes against humanity
with this kind of eventuality
as its excuse
for abuse after expensive abuse
and it didn't have a clue
look, another window to see through
way up here
on the 104th floor
look
another key
another door
10% literal
90% metaphor
3000 some poems disguised as people
on an almost too perfect day
should be more than pawns
in some asshole's passion play
so now it's your job
and it's my job
to make it that way
to make sure they didn't die in vain
sshhhhhh....
baby listen
hear the train?



Hear ani difranco read this poem here.

blood in the boardroom

by ani difranco

sitting in the boardroom
the i'm so bored room
listening to the suits
talk about their world
they can make straight lines out of almost anything
except for the line of my upper lip when it curls
dressed in my best greasy skin and squinty eyes
i'm the only part of summer that made it inside
in the air-conditioned building decorated with a corporate flair
i wonder can these boys smell me bleeding thru my underwear
there's men wearing the blood of the woman they love
there's white wearing the blood of the brown
but every woman learns how to bleed from the moon
and we bleed to renew life every time it's cut down
i got my vertebrae all stacked up high as they can go
but i still feel myself sliding from the earth that i know
so i excuse myself and leave the room
saying my period came early but it's not a minute too soon
i go and find the only other woman on the floor
it's the secretary sitting at the desk by the door
i ask her if she's got a tampon i can use
she says oh honey what a hassle for you sure i do you know i do
i say it ain't no hassle no it ain't no mess
right now it's the only power that i possess
these businessmen got the money
they got the instruments of death
but i can make life i can make breath
sitting in the boardroom
the i'm so bored room
listening to the suits talk about their world
i didn't really have much to say the whole time i was there
so i just left a big brown blood stain on their white chair

Fourth of July

By ani difranco

you gotta have the right tools
for every job
so I invite myself in
through a hole in the fence
I am tripping through the junkyard
scanning over the piles
the thin cats raise their skin in defense
I know he's watching me
I can see him through the cracks
his eyes are small and shy on my back
he says his name is jason
he lives in the last trailer on the right
and he'll be seven
on the fourth of july

only the people who live here
know the name of this place
my path through iowa would be
hard to trace
all the adults in this town
try not to frown
when I walk by
but jason smiled at me
he met my eye

he don't ask me
where I'm from
or why I came
here alone
we all go looking for paradise
then we go back home
we cut out the small talk
go right to the way things are
he showed me his squirrel skull
I told him I locked myself out of my car

so there goes the only friend
I have in iowa
his hand flapping behind him
waving good-bye
his name is jason
he lives in the last trailer on the right
and he'll be seven
on the fourth of july

Tiptoe

By ani difranco

Tiptoeing through the used condoms
strewn on the piers
off the west side highway
sunset behind the skyline of Jersey
walking towards the water
with a fetus holding court in my gut
my body hijacked
my tits swollen
I'm sore
the river has more colors at sunset
than my sock drawer ever dreamed of
I could wake up screaming sometimes
but I don't
I could step off the end of this pier
but I've got shit to do
and I've an appointment on Tuesday
to shed uninvited blood and tissue
I'll miss you I say to the river
to the water
to the son or
daughter I thought better of
I could fall in love with Jersey at sunset
but I leave
the view
to the rats
and tiptoe back

not so soft

By ani difranco

In a forest of stone
underneath the corporate canopy
where the sun
rarely
filters
down
the ground
is not so soft
not so soft

they build buildings to house people
making money
or they build buildings to make money
off of housing people
it's true
like a lot of things are true
I am foraging for a phone booth on the forest floor
that is not so soft
I look up
it looks like the buildings are burning
but it's just the sun setting
the solar system calling an end
to another business day
eternally circling signally
the rhythmic clicking on and off
of computers
the pulse
of the american machine
the pulse
that draws death dancing
out of anonymous side streets
you know
the ones that always get dumped on
and never get plowed
it draws death dancing
out of little countries
with funny languages
where the ground is getting harder
and it was
not
that
soft
before

those who call the shots
are never in the line of fire
why
where there's life for hire
out there
if a flag of truth were raised
we could watch every liar
rise to wave it
here
we learn america like a script
playwright
birthright
same thing
we bring
ourselves to the role
we're all rehearsing for the presidency
I always wanted to be
commander in chief
of my one woman army

but I can envision the mediocrity
of my finest hour
it's the failed america in me
it's the fear that lives
in a forest of stone
underneath the corporate canopy
where the sun
rarely
filters
down
and the ground
is not so soft