Bay of Kotor

Woke up this morning hungry, I walked along the Bay of Kotor
There's a market down there, past the sailboats, down the gravel road
I went looking for the kittens that I
Saw last night, and their protective mother
I found two short-haired cow-print kittens
And the little gray one, they were all cuddled up

The little gray one didn't look up, I blew her kisses
She never turned her head, I petted her with my index finger
Felt her spine, she was all bones, not much flesh, she was dying
The other two kittens each had an eye missing

The mother sat close by and got up once to lick them
They sat quietly in an opening of the stone wall along the water
A rectangular shaped hole in the
Middle of the wall with rusty iron bars
And as I watched, I heard another kitten cry

From the other side of the wall,
Which stood about ten to twelve feet high
There's nothing I hate more than the sound of hungry animals crying
There's nothing I hate more than the sound of hungry animals crying
There's nothing I hate more than the sound of hungry animals crying
There's nothing I hate more than the sound of hungry animals crying

Finding footing in the nook, I climb the stone wall
The dog walkers looked at me as if I was mentally ill
I saw another black-and-white kitten on the other side of the wall
Meowing "please mommy, please feed me, I'm hungry"

She was looking into my eyes from the field of purple flowers
She was pawing at the wall,
Trying to get to her mother, and her sister, and her brother
Stretched out from back to front paw she was maybe a foot long
And she cried, "waaah, waaah, waaah, waaah"

She had about five feet there, to get up to the nest
Of her siblings, to her mother's love,
For that kitty in the purple flowers
Her mother didn't budge

I could've hurled myself over, to rescue the little one
But I would've broken my ankle like Dustin Hoffman in Papillon
I walked further down the street to the market on the corner
Where the locals and the tourists are gathered at 7
O'clock in the morning, waiting for the store to open

When it opened, I walked up and I down its lonely lanes
Listeneding to the customers and
Clerks speaking various foreign languages
I bought oranges and water, sardines, and bananas
Two mega-sized cans of tuna and
Carried the groceries past the dog walkers

I saw the mother cat with the two kittens, but the gray one was gone
Maybe her mother pushed her over,
Down to the purple flowers, to join the other one
When I petted the gray one earlier her chin was leaning
On the edge of the wall, faced down towards the flowers
I thought of Mickey Rourke in Spun, he said,
"My mom was drowning puppies in the
Bathtub. Why keep what you can't feed?"

I opened the cans of tuna,
With the lid, and tossed them tuna over the wall
Aiming for the spot where I've seen the hungry kitten trying to crawl
And I sat the cans down near the kittens
Nest, two healthier cats smelled the tuna
Slouched their way over, one black, one butterscotch vanilla

Jet-lagged, a big wave hit me
I did all I could've done
I walked to the hotel breakfast room
With a maid who seems to have taken a liking to me
Mirjana, saw me eating my eggs like a hungry prisoner and said
"Easy, easy!"

I came back to my room
A book has been on the bedside stand since I arrived here
I'm not sure what language it's in, but it says
"Svetski bestseler #1, Danielle Steel"
The four biggest words on the book were spelled like this:
"K-N-J-I-G-A
S-A-D I Z-A-U-V-E-K"

I couldn't fall asleep, Mirjana came and knocked on my door
"Here are some towels. Come, eat,
Mark! Eat, eat, you must eat some more!"
"Give me a few minutes", I said,
"I'll be right over"; "Oh, you, Mark! Come down!"
And when I walked towards the breakfast area she
Ordered me to get the others, she said, "Mark, go get them now"

I said, "I can't wake them", I told her,
"They're sleeping and they need some rest"
"Tell me", she said, "why do you look like this?
So sad all the time... so sad...
Why, Mark? Why Do you look like this?"
"'Cause I'm jet-lagged", I told her, "and then my clock is off
Please knock on my door around 5 p.m.
To wake me and you might just see a happier Mark"

"You might even see a smile!"; And she said,
In her Serbian accent, "I will do that!
Do you know who you remind me of, Mark?"
"Who?", I said; "John Malkovich"
I ate some cereal and scrambled eggs and went back to bed
She knocked on my door an hour early, 4 p.m

"Mark, wake up! Wake up!"; I picked up my pants from the floor
I put on some slippers and my t-shirt
And decided to swim in the Bay of Kotor
The same shirt I've been wearing for the last three days
And I walked down the path of oleanders, wisteria, and agave

And the palm trees to the bay;
My stomach growled with hunger so I kept
Walking past the boats and the sunbathers
The dog walkers with their dogs on their collars,
And the stray dogs,
And the skinny cats, to a restaurant called "Ellas"

A waitress named Sandra came and took my order
"Fish soup with Greek salad, please,
And a large bottle of sparkling water"
I looked across the Aquafresh-Crest-toothpaste-colored water
At the town of Muo with the little
Stucco houses with the Spanish roofs

I asked Sandra what the orange things were, floating in the water
She said, "They're called 'bova' and they
Have nets and they harvest black mussels"
On my walk back to the hotel I jumped into the Bay of Kotor
As I walked along the mossy rocks
The moss soothed the bottom of my feet

I was wading out in the seaweed looking
At the girls layin' out in their bikinis
I never wrote a song about girls in bikinis;
If I did, maybe I'd have a hit like The Beach Boys
I saw a bandmate walking down the road
He noticed me out in the water and said, "Hey,
Mark, soundcheck' s pretty soon, we better go"

While we were rehearsing,
Mirjana heard the music echoing around the tile floor
She knocked on the door and asked if she
Could come listen, and we said, "Yeah, sure!"
She heard two songs, we said, "What do you think?
; She said, "Sounds like Steely Dan, but crazy!"

Sea Rock Festival, July 21
From the start my guitar was out of tune
So I sat it on the stand and walked towards the front of the stage
Howled to the castles up in the
Mountains and sang tunefully to the moon

Ramon on guitar, Chris on Piano,
They held their end stoically and steadily
A nice, receptive,
Family-oriented crowd; I didn't make adjustments for them

I gave them the good, the bad, the ugly
I sang Mother's Love, and 666 Post, and I encouraged them to cheer
For Andrew Golota,
Though I doubt many there heard of him in Montenegro
It was a fun night, cathartic and exhilarating

The next day at lunch a stray dog kept me company over at Ellas
The waiter came by and had the check in his hand in an oblong folder
He was asking me in Serbian if I was ready for the check
(I thought that's what he was asking)

And when I nodded, "Yes", he smacked the dog on the butt
The dog let out a high-pitched "Woof!" and ran off
I stood up and said,
"Why did you do that!?"; he said "Dogs are problem here"
I went and found the dog and petted his head

Lured him back to my table with a piece
Of French bread, he sat next to my table
I told the waiter, "Don't ever do that again
It's ok. I like the dog near me"
The dog was picky and didn't like the bread