Twain is a firebrand They say He hears a lot of things That they say He has a bushy mustache And a lot of sway He’s okay He is a famous man He is a famous man Beloved, admired American man Tesla is quiet And reserved They say a lot of things Some he’s heard Women will throw themselves At his feet He is neat He is a famous man He is a famous man Beloved, admired American man Hey, hey It makes sense to them that they’d Run in Similar circles They are two famous men They are two famous men

I was born in a square house It was white and small It sat in the Austrian empire I was fourth there were five in all Please stop asking me about Edison My mother was a genius She was formal and reserved She recited epic poetry She was a Serb She taught me chess and backgammon My father was a priest My mother was a genius She made simple machines No I will not talk about Edison I grew up I got cholera I got cholera again I ran away from conscription I hid from the army men I traveled southeast in the forest I hid from the army there I read your American books And imagined American air I left, I wanted Science I brought your American words I left I studied physics I was absurd I will not talk about Edison He is what you Americans call an asshole

I was also born in a small square house It wasn’t white but my mother was I was the sixth of seven, but four survived My brother Orion and Henry and I And my older sister who we called Pam And everyone called me what I am My father was also white, we were poor But white meant we weren’t Indians and we were freeborn And we lived in Missouri with the cows and corn And the big wide river that carried slaves Down to the whip and the sugarcane You know Mark Twain is not really my name I’m Sam I’m trying to run so hard from who I am And I knew this country was full of deep rot And that was my only earnest thought And everything else I played for laughs I posed with my name in photographs Carved large and loud in printer’s type I was fifteen And the world was a ten-cent magazine I was hurting for an honest way to make my means I apprenticed on steamboat down to New Orleans I learned words about the river from the songs we sang How two fathoms deep meant safety in the river slang I moved West, it was dusty Barrels sun-bleached and rusty I was insatiable for unmarked miles I went to Europe and the Sandwich Isles An innocent abroad in the broadest sense As I traversed across the continents You know Mark Twain is not really my name I’m Sam I’m trying to run so hard from who I am I married Olivia We are in love and she gets it She introduced me to Douglass and Howells And Nik you should come to my house It’s named Stormfield Don’t laugh It’s gothic and red and just outside of Hartford And designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter And often the one who wrote a book that brought the war And her sister the suffragette knock on my door Famous actors drink my whiskey and then call for more We had a boy He died We have three daughters And I knew this country was gonna rot And that was my only earnest thought I don’t see slaves anymore Something’s gilded over since we won the war And what’s underneath is a rotting sore I was also born in a small square house It wasn’t white but my suit is I always wear this white suit I always wear these white shoes George isn’t white but I am He calls Ms. Clemens ma’am You know my name isn’t Mark Twain It’s Sam I am running so hard from who I am

I hear You have Trouble with the bowels and I know you are embarrassed but Samuel Think now I can see you’re laughing but please listen I can cure it I’m Dead straight Just facts Realized pretty easy that vibrations ought to do it and I know you’ll tell this story later Tell it around the dinner table, how Your scientist friend with his scientist shock Shocked your stomach and shocked your rock Stopped your stoppage and made you drop You’re still laughing but Twain stop giggling I’m Samuel Let me Tease that tenseness I’ve Read how Slight stings Administered in places that I wouldn’t care to mention have Quite fixed Your thing That thing that you complain of cause you eat a lot of hard tack And honestly I worry that you shouldn’t eat like a sailor Or a burly forty-niner though I know you’ve been to Reno And I know you’ve straddled mountains Tween the deserts Nevada And the maw of California You have tried the alpine air and it’s done Nothing but abuse you Now let each small shock enthuse you And let everything unloose you You will thank me When it’s over You will tell this story later My earthquake machine Will get yourself clean My electromechanical oscillator Come on no later Brash narrator I dare you I made it You’ll make it It’s make-shift and make shit You’re laughing But Samuel Please It’s a breeze And we know you have trouble with cheese

Hey man Let’s get on a steamboat Hey man Have you ever sailed Silly of me, you got here by sea Silly of me, we don’t have planes yet Let me describe how a steamboat sounds It sounds just like you think it sounds It’s all whirring and gnashing of teeth It’s all one big watery wheel Wheel in a wheel like that gospel song Hey have you ever heard of gospel Hey man Let’s get on a steamboat Hey man Pack up your bags I’ll tell Olivia everything later We are in love so she gets it I swear Hey, man, let’s get on a steamboat She will be glad that I’m out of her hair I know steam isn’t really your gambit I know you’re much more enamored of spark Let’s get away from this boring old hamlet Let’s board a steamboat and dance in the dark Let me describe how a steamboat sounds It sounds just like you think it sounds All aboard, don’t worry, I’ve got this Why are you worried you’ve done this before All aboard And leaving the shore

In 1850 Emily Met a woman of posh aristocracy Who was studying math but was good with prose A rare one of those Dressed in black for her sister, recently dead Two tight braids on each side of her head Susan would marry her brother in time For the sake of the rhyme And Dickenson watched Susan Gilbert wed From her lonely and iron-wrought Amherst bed That was four decades before we met It’s a story that I somehow can’t forget That same year another writer Met a novelist quite his senior He was not at all like a whale But he was evasive and cruel and pale And out of reach And he never breached Hawthorne died in his home in 1864 Melville’s letters shut behind his office door It was thirty years before we met Nothing happened and nothing’s happening yet In 1882 Oscar Wilde Met a U.S. poet he’d read as a child At his small and white Philadelphia home They met alone And for once Wilde did not know what to say To a man who was strangely both Earnest and Grey And he touched his thigh And by and by Wilde died after jail time across the sea Whitman died two years later of pleurisy That was close to the year we met Something happened but what I do not quite get

You are a brazen sort I am more cautious You are the alphabet I am galoshes And oh, how I only abstain If I could only explain I am a cuttlefish You are a lobster I am a spinning wheel You are a mobster And I am incurably sane And you never feel any pain I am an astronaut You are a whaler We are the Argonauts You are a sailor And oh, how my heart’s cleft in twain If I could only explain

Nikki How come everything comes to me easy And sounds crass, braggadocios and sleezy And you think that it’s fake and the effort I make Is just breezy And the effort I put into something it seems just like fun Nikki You must think I’m incredibly stupid But I tell you the joke is on you kid I am busting my balls and I’m scratching the walls of this Steamboat And I hope you are watching me, dreamboat Cause I’m tearing it up, but I can’t help but feel like a bumpkin Who is selling shit stories for something While you stand there by chance and just casually glance My direction I am fiery inside and your cold gaze can’t hide My erection While I only want one interjection You are famed for your shy elocution While I’m churning out words like these dumb little turds I am flailing You are giving me nothing but paling And I know it is hard but I need something anything darling We have only five days on this steamboat I am antsy and frustrated, Dreamboat Tesla tell me you know what I’m thinking Tell me now my whole self-worth is shrinking I am needy and loud and my ego is proud And Nikki How come everything comes to me easy And how come you are making me guilty At the pleasures I find in my writing And the toil I find so exciting And the effort I put into something it seems just like fun

I see better with my eyes closed If I think it, it is there Just as sure as any formula or rule It’s just there, it is simple I can see it, it is there Behind my eyes, it is simple It is there Samuel tell me, do you fix it Like a crystal in the air Like the rime ice on a snowflake Is it there Each hexagonal and perfect Can you understand the math It is mostly like a photograph It is something like that It is something like that

In a talking moving photo In a hundred years or so David Bowie’s going to play me In Colorado >Who is Bowie? I don’t know He is a thin white duke like me (But with more pageantry) >I’ve seen the future too >They use Tesla coils on people like you What will you do >Can I visit you in Colorado >Can I watch the sparks on the snow >In Colorado >You have a tower >For wireless communication >You have a room >For electric experimentation It’s not finished but yes Yes You can always be my guest I need space but I like you best Would you again go West >Yes