My Cactus Plants Hate My Pants

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway
They say there’s always magic in the air

“On Broadway”
Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil,
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

QUESTION: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
ANSWER: Practice, practice, practice!

QUESTION: Do you know the way to San Jose?
ANSWER: Don’t practice, don’t practice, don’t practice!

Fame and fortune is a magnet
It can pull you far away from home

With a dream in your heart
You’re never alone

But dreams turn into dust
And blow away

There you are
Without a friend

You pack your car
And drive away

“Do You Know The Way To San Jose”
Burt Bacharach, Hal David

I think if my cactus plants could do it
they’d steal my car and bank card and skip town,
leave me, unwatered, to dry up, turn brown.
I think my cactus plants think I blew it.

They want the desert, I’d think. I knew it.
A real writer, a writer of renown,
would drive his plants to San Jose, not frown,
transplant them and endlessly work through it.

I hate doing this to my cactus plants,
hate ignoring the fat lady singing,
hate pretending the crystal ball’s murky.

They feel fifty years old, these writer pants,
but they fit. If I drove west, stopped clinging,
I’d take a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

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Wrong turns at Albuquerque



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