Pearl Harbor Day - Jack Van Cleaf

Packing cancer in my glovebox on a Tuesday evening drive
As I'm passing Amargosa, you are passing through my mind
And my car is headed eastward while the sun is racing west
Guess my body's moving forward, but my mind is turning left

Highschool's only checking boxes off a list
Getting kissed, taking hits, try hallucinogenics
And it's not what you'd expect, but then again it's what it is
I put my arm around you slowly, all my nerves are on the fritz

And we get together on December the seventh
You remind me Hawaii was blown to the heavens
On your birthday, seventy years from the present
As we celebrate, I'm countin' my fingers like blessings

And then you call me on my cellular phone
I'm on the road, up the coast, we booked a couple of shows
You asked me if I sing about you, I was sorry to say no (sing about me)
You said, "That's okay baby, I don't write you any poems"

But we'll get together on December the seventh
You'll remind me Hawaii was blown to the heavens
On your birthday, seventy years from the present
As we celebrate, count each other's fingers like blessings

And you'd come over, always so unexpected
Picking fruit from the trees that I left unattended
Playing word games, watching the vowels descending
Like an air raid on spaces that I had neglected

But if we both go uncommemorated
By each other's free verse and lyrical phrases
We'll be okay just driving familiar pavements
Past our places, all wasted like Ford Island's bases