Pour me another cup of coffee Bob. I ordered in a tired voice as I slid my mug across the bar. It was late in downtown Chicago. The city slept except for this cozy little coffee shop on Fairbanks. I shifted on my stool and smiled placidly as I watched the steam spiral upward from the cup placed in front of me. Soft violins and flutes accompanied by a silky female voice flowed from the jukebox in the corner. Though I couldn’t understand the Italian lyrics, the music soothed my aching mind and relaxed the tense muscles in my body. As the song slowly faded to silence the man across the bar sauntered over to the jukebox (boots echoing softly on the wood-grain floor) and placed another dime into the slot like he had done several times before. I thought that if I heard the song just once more I could sing along with it, note for note, even though the Italian lyrics were completely foreign to me.
As the man’s back was turned to me and the lady that was with him stared wistfully at a spot on the table as she cradled her chamomile tea, I glanced down at my notepad resting on my knee under the table at the small handful of words and phrases that I had managed to record from his conversation with the lady. The man’s name was Capone, Al Capone. I am a private eye that freelances for the Chicago Police force. As a private eye I usually get paid to investigate people, but this time I’m not on assignment. Capone is a personal project I’m working on. I’m on my own time. I won’t be able to rest easy until he is behind bars.
Capone is defiantly an elusive opponent. He has the whole city of Chicago in his pocket, from the Mayor to the Chief of Police. His hired guns almost outnumber the police force. He has been charged with racketeering several times but nothing ever sticks to him. He always swaggers out of the courtroom with a smug grin on his face, eyes full of gleeful defiance. It has become my mission in life to wipe that grin off of his face and to see the look of defeat in his eyes through iron bars.
As he turned form the jukebox to walk back to his seat, the light glimmered as it caught the scar across the left side of his face. It started above his cheek and slanted down to the bottom of his jaw. The scar bent into a crescent as his lips curled in a sinister smile. I had seen that same smile many times before as I watched in anger from behind the masses of reporters as he descended the steps of the courthouse. Capone doesn’t realize how far he and I go back.
On a foggy winter night back in 45 i was awakened by gunshots. I ran into the den to see my father riddled with bullets. A dark figure in a trenchcoat was standing over his body with a smoking tommy gun. I caught a glimpse of his face in the moonlight as he escaped out of an open window into the night air, but not before I slashed his cheek with a bowie knife my father kept on his study table.
My father was the cheif of police in chicago at the time and had apparently refused to cover up a smuggling ring ran by Capone. That night, over the corpse of my father, I swore that I would avenge his death.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Tower of Babel
Wandering through this maze of broken down buildings, cracking asphalt and cement, stepping over people lying in the street, smelling the ashes of the burning remains of a once prosperous society, I rounded a corner and there it stood. The Ivory Tower, so beautiful and majestic, reaching up through the clouds, so tall the top is barely visible. I had heard it was the place to be. Many a man had spent his entire lifetime laying the foundation and stones for this tower and never got to see the top. Many a pilgrim had traveled to his holy hill in search of this tower and here I stood now at its base. What lies before me is stairs, lots of stairs. They wind upwards in a spiral to the top. Me, being a man that always reaches for what is beyond his grasp began to climb. I climbed and climbed stopping to catch my breath from time to time, highly anticipating what awaited me at the top. Finally, weeks later, I am hungry tired and thirsty, I reach the top floor. As I step off the last stair, a hallway lies before me with a huge chandelier hanging from the ceiling. I walk down the hall and open a door. I walk into the room, dimly lit, a ray of light pouring in from a window. I walk to the window and as I look down at the ghetto I had left and realized that it wasn’t all that far down. Here I was looming high above it all. It looked different but somehow the same.
I turned my head just in time to see a cork flying past me, attached to a line with a lead and a hook baited with a plump night-crawler, squirming in the air. I looked to see where the line came from. Then I noticed I was standing in a bathroom with an old man sitting on the commode fishing out of the bathtub. He stared blankly ahead, mouth slightly ajar. I walked over to the bathtub, full of water with nothing but a few bubbles and a rubber ducky floating around aimlessly; the worm squirms and writhes on the end of the hook, its body secreting an oily residue into the water. I turn my gaze to the old man and ask, “What are you doing?” He seemed puzzled by the question and turned his gaze toward me for just a moment. “I’m fishing.” He said with a shrug and continued to stare ahead blankly.
I turned my head just in time to see a cork flying past me, attached to a line with a lead and a hook baited with a plump night-crawler, squirming in the air. I looked to see where the line came from. Then I noticed I was standing in a bathroom with an old man sitting on the commode fishing out of the bathtub. He stared blankly ahead, mouth slightly ajar. I walked over to the bathtub, full of water with nothing but a few bubbles and a rubber ducky floating around aimlessly; the worm squirms and writhes on the end of the hook, its body secreting an oily residue into the water. I turn my gaze to the old man and ask, “What are you doing?” He seemed puzzled by the question and turned his gaze toward me for just a moment. “I’m fishing.” He said with a shrug and continued to stare ahead blankly.
Grandma Smith
I was twelve and I hated penny loafers and I hated church. I don’t know what I hated more; church itself or the fact that my mom made me wear those stupid penny loafers when I went. I hated sitting there for hours on a wooden pew, listening to my dad behind the pulpit talk about things that didn’t make any sense to me. I hated the solemn hymns, the organ accompaniment, the constant business of standing up and sitting down and bowing my head, the long pious prayers, the superficial conversations before and after the service, the impossible expectations of perfection imposed upon me by my parents and the church people, (and God himself apparently), the stigma I lived with at school, and the fact that I was not allowed to go places and do things that other kids my age participated in, but I especially hated the penny-loafers.
She was ninety-two when I first met her. My dad was the new pastor at wood-haven church of god in Hammond, Louisiana and I was the new student in her Sunday school class. I’ll never forget opening the door and walking into her classroom for the first time, and seeing her sitting there, ancient and mystical, glowing from the inside out accentuated by the rays of morning sunshine through the golden, stained glass panes of the window behind her. It was as if I’d walked through an invisible doorway into another dimension. She sat regally behind the table like an angelic mother hen with a cluster of my peers around her with a warm, calm, peaceful smile permanently etched on her countenance. I left my bitterness and pride at the door and reverently took a seat at the table with the other kids. After the introductions and some small talk, a hush fell over the room as she removed a small cylindrical package from her oversized black purse, we all paused in meditation as she one, by one rolled a spearmint cert across the table to each of us with her wrinkled arthritis ridden hands, a weekly communion we observed religiously before she opened the class with a prayer.
She always said that all prayer was, is talking to God, and that’s exactly what she did. She didn’t quote scripture or speak in old English; she simply talked to Jesus as if he was right there. In fact… I think he was. I remember that first Sunday, I looked behind me as she was praying half expecting to see him walking thru the door and pulling up a chair at the table waiting anxiously for his cert. I sensed the presence of God like I had never felt before, like a welcome and honored guest that had come from afar.
Almost two years later I stood by her death-bed, listening to her pray, this time in a language that I did not understand. She lie there flat on her back, unblinking eyes fixated as if staring intently at a spot on the ceiling, mumbling unintelligibly pausing to inhale slowly. She seemed oblivious to my presence as I stood there silently thinking about certs rolling across the table, the smell of the old spice cologne she always wore, and her big tattered bible she always carried, loose pages stained with age, with passages underlined and notes scrawled in the margins. She paused momentarily and after a brief silence, without detouring her heavenward gaze, she whispered my name. “Yes, Grandma Smith?” I answered. “I’ll see you in heaven.” She finally spoke before returning to her prayer. “I’ll be there, Grandma Smith. I’ll be there.” I said. The next morning she went home to be with Jesus.
She was ninety-two when I first met her. My dad was the new pastor at wood-haven church of god in Hammond, Louisiana and I was the new student in her Sunday school class. I’ll never forget opening the door and walking into her classroom for the first time, and seeing her sitting there, ancient and mystical, glowing from the inside out accentuated by the rays of morning sunshine through the golden, stained glass panes of the window behind her. It was as if I’d walked through an invisible doorway into another dimension. She sat regally behind the table like an angelic mother hen with a cluster of my peers around her with a warm, calm, peaceful smile permanently etched on her countenance. I left my bitterness and pride at the door and reverently took a seat at the table with the other kids. After the introductions and some small talk, a hush fell over the room as she removed a small cylindrical package from her oversized black purse, we all paused in meditation as she one, by one rolled a spearmint cert across the table to each of us with her wrinkled arthritis ridden hands, a weekly communion we observed religiously before she opened the class with a prayer.
She always said that all prayer was, is talking to God, and that’s exactly what she did. She didn’t quote scripture or speak in old English; she simply talked to Jesus as if he was right there. In fact… I think he was. I remember that first Sunday, I looked behind me as she was praying half expecting to see him walking thru the door and pulling up a chair at the table waiting anxiously for his cert. I sensed the presence of God like I had never felt before, like a welcome and honored guest that had come from afar.
Almost two years later I stood by her death-bed, listening to her pray, this time in a language that I did not understand. She lie there flat on her back, unblinking eyes fixated as if staring intently at a spot on the ceiling, mumbling unintelligibly pausing to inhale slowly. She seemed oblivious to my presence as I stood there silently thinking about certs rolling across the table, the smell of the old spice cologne she always wore, and her big tattered bible she always carried, loose pages stained with age, with passages underlined and notes scrawled in the margins. She paused momentarily and after a brief silence, without detouring her heavenward gaze, she whispered my name. “Yes, Grandma Smith?” I answered. “I’ll see you in heaven.” She finally spoke before returning to her prayer. “I’ll be there, Grandma Smith. I’ll be there.” I said. The next morning she went home to be with Jesus.
Wilderness Sactuary
With reverent awe I pull back the curtains and slip into this sacred sanctuary. I soak in the beauty that surrounds me and a great wave of peace washes over me as the curtains close behind me shutting out the world. I am finally home, in the presence of my heavenly father, I remove my shoes for I stand on holy ground and proceed into this vast holy sanctuary via a trail in the pine straw and oak leaf blanketed forest floor that I have traversed many times before. The sun shines thru the branches illuminating my path. I pause for a moment to soak in its warmth and then proceed in silence for a word spoke in my tongue would be a foreign language. The terrain is rugged, wild and beautiful, the forest a virgin, unscathed by the hands of sinful man, it is pure and un-violated. It speaks in a language I have forgotten. The language of my heart. I lose myself in the thickness of the forest in which the four walls of my chambers could not even attempt to hint at the measure of blissful solitude the shade of the oaks provide for me. And as the sun sets I watch the accent of the moon as I lie on the ground next to my crackling fire, shifting my gaze from its dancing flames to the flickering stars above me, winking at the man in the moon watching over me as my fleeting thoughts ebb away into the night air, dispersed into nothingness like a plume of smoke from my fire.
The other side of the fence
The grass really does look greener on the other side of the fence, they say it’s really not but at least there’s a lot more of it. I gaze across the vast plains thru strands of barbed wire at the huge fireball in the sky; I watch it as it slowly disappears behind the horizon. I wonder where it goes. How I long to gallop across this lush green sea of grass, how I long to see where the sun beds down for the night. But here I am trapped inside this fence. Sometimes I dream of getting a running start and jumping over the western fence and galloping into the sunset, but I always stutter step just short of jumping. What if I trip? Besides I have grass to eat here and an old bathtub full of water to drink, and an old Guernsey named Betsey to keep me company and every Friday Farmer Joe dumps a bale of hay over the fence with the forks on his tractor for me and Betsey. I have everything I need here and I am comfortable. Oops I stepped in Betsey’s’ crap again.
Good-Bye
I said good-bye to my sorrows, I said good-bye to my fears, nothing but a song bouncing round between my ears. I said good-bye to my worries, I said good-bye to my pain, I said good-bye to you girl cuz you were driving me insane. But I want you to know I’ll always love you so, but a traveler always knows when it’s time to go. I got no money in my pockets nothing but time on my hands…don’t owe nobody nothing and I ain’t making no demands, I got the sun on my shoulders, my guitar on my back. And everything I own fits into my backpack…you say time is money but I think it’s so much more…my bag is always packed and never too far from the door…my yoke is easy and my burden is light I’ve got one life to live and I’m gonna live it right. I’ve got nothing but love and I’m gonna give it all away. I’m not counting on tomorrow, I’m just living for today.
From the Temple to the Vine.
It is interesting how the mode of worship goes from stationary and vertical to fluid and horizontal between the Old Testament and the new. The Jewish patriarchal hierarchy, the religio-political system of the Old Testament, with its priests, temples, rituals and laws was considered by Paul and the New Testament believers as a tutor and model for the coming messiah, Jesus. The law was not the end but a speedily exhaustible means to an end. The sacrifice of Christ redeemed the Jews from their oppressive and legalistic religion that required blood for the remission of sins. He became the final sacrifice. He was the final sacrifice, the fulfillment of the law. He allowed himself to be swallowed by the religious machine and crushed in the teeth of the gears in order to stop the wheels from turning. He destroyed the temple, ripped the curtain in two and put the priest-hood out of work, and established a new kingdom…a kingdom not of this world.
The “kingdom” of heaven is quite different from our worldly concept of kings and kingdoms. Jesus’ thoughts on leadership include statements such as “whoever wishes to be first among you must become the least.” “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” He turned the paradigm of hierarchy upside down with visions such as: “the lion (lion of Judah) shall lie down with the lamb and a little child shall lead them.” In fact being born again and becoming like a little child was a pre-requisite for being a part of his heavenly kingdom. “Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of heaven.” “If you do not become as a little child you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” In the parable of the rich young man he spoke of the renunciation of material possessions and even said that it was easier for a camel to go through the “eye of a needle” than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. He made a clear distinction in Matthew chapter 6 between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of heaven “you cannot serve two masters…you cannot serve both God and Money.” He commanded his disciples to not carry extra clothes, or staff (used as a weapon against thieves), or Money when he sent them out in two’s to spread the gospel of the kingdom of heaven.
In any kingdom of man, laws are instituted to protect persons and their property from the hands of selfish and greedy people; mechanical mechanisms to discourage crime. A hierarchy must be established to enforce these laws. Jesus’ remedy to this dilemma was simple: “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal…” “Observe the birds of the air, they neither sow or reap or gather into barns, but your heavenly father feeds them.”
To the converts from Judaism, the coming of the Messiah marked the end of God’s vertical, hierarchical, second hand relationship with his people and the beginning of an intimate, personal, first-hand relationship. “The time has come and now is when the true worshippers shall worship God in Spirit and in Truth. He was the fulfillment of the prophesies of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Hosea… Jesus brought God to the people by calling him Father rather than Lord. He included humanity in the Godhead when he said I am the vine and you are the branches… He put himself on an equal plane with his followers when he said “who is my mother and brother and sister? Those who do the will of my Father.” The apostle Paul said: “We are the body of Christ…”“we are no longer slaves but friends.” All of the revolutionaries in the history of Judaism spoke of someone coming after them that was greater, from Moses to John the Baptist who said, ‘ I am not even worthy to unloose his sandal straps.’ Jesus as well prophesied off the coming of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost was a step closer to people experiencing God on a horizontal plane and resulted in the egalitarian model of the first church before it’s corruption in the book of Acts.
God is Spirit. The idea of a stationary God in another realm is a conceptual misnomer. The idea of Omni-presence implied in the bible suggests that God is everywhere at once, thru all and in all, that he inhabits and yet transcends his creation. The personification of God is merely a metaphor. The feeling of the absence of God’s presence is nothing more than a lack of perception and the overwhelming experience of ecstatic and intrancsive worship is a revelation, a heightened sense of awareness of the presence of God.
Temples don’t grow and evolve but bodies and vines never stop. A tree will never grow to the capacity it was designed to reach if it is transplanted and confined to a pot. Its roots will either break thru the structure that contains it or its growth will be stunted and it will eventually shrivel and die. God is alive and cannot be contained. He cannot inhabit man-made structures without ripping the curtain in two and demolishing it completely not leaving one stone on top of another. King Solomon said, “The heavens, even the highest heavens cannot contain you oh, lord how much less this temple I have built with my own hands.” Just as the tree cannot be contained in the pot, or God in the Temple, or Christ in the Tomb; neither can the Church (The Body of Christ) be contained within a religeo-political hierarchical structure. Truth is alive. It transcends scientific and mathematical formulas. It is not known by him who claims to have found the end…it is known by him who wonders…and wanders, perusing it to the end…of himself.
The “kingdom” of heaven is quite different from our worldly concept of kings and kingdoms. Jesus’ thoughts on leadership include statements such as “whoever wishes to be first among you must become the least.” “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” He turned the paradigm of hierarchy upside down with visions such as: “the lion (lion of Judah) shall lie down with the lamb and a little child shall lead them.” In fact being born again and becoming like a little child was a pre-requisite for being a part of his heavenly kingdom. “Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of heaven.” “If you do not become as a little child you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” In the parable of the rich young man he spoke of the renunciation of material possessions and even said that it was easier for a camel to go through the “eye of a needle” than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. He made a clear distinction in Matthew chapter 6 between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of heaven “you cannot serve two masters…you cannot serve both God and Money.” He commanded his disciples to not carry extra clothes, or staff (used as a weapon against thieves), or Money when he sent them out in two’s to spread the gospel of the kingdom of heaven.
In any kingdom of man, laws are instituted to protect persons and their property from the hands of selfish and greedy people; mechanical mechanisms to discourage crime. A hierarchy must be established to enforce these laws. Jesus’ remedy to this dilemma was simple: “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal…” “Observe the birds of the air, they neither sow or reap or gather into barns, but your heavenly father feeds them.”
To the converts from Judaism, the coming of the Messiah marked the end of God’s vertical, hierarchical, second hand relationship with his people and the beginning of an intimate, personal, first-hand relationship. “The time has come and now is when the true worshippers shall worship God in Spirit and in Truth. He was the fulfillment of the prophesies of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Hosea… Jesus brought God to the people by calling him Father rather than Lord. He included humanity in the Godhead when he said I am the vine and you are the branches… He put himself on an equal plane with his followers when he said “who is my mother and brother and sister? Those who do the will of my Father.” The apostle Paul said: “We are the body of Christ…”“we are no longer slaves but friends.” All of the revolutionaries in the history of Judaism spoke of someone coming after them that was greater, from Moses to John the Baptist who said, ‘ I am not even worthy to unloose his sandal straps.’ Jesus as well prophesied off the coming of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost was a step closer to people experiencing God on a horizontal plane and resulted in the egalitarian model of the first church before it’s corruption in the book of Acts.
God is Spirit. The idea of a stationary God in another realm is a conceptual misnomer. The idea of Omni-presence implied in the bible suggests that God is everywhere at once, thru all and in all, that he inhabits and yet transcends his creation. The personification of God is merely a metaphor. The feeling of the absence of God’s presence is nothing more than a lack of perception and the overwhelming experience of ecstatic and intrancsive worship is a revelation, a heightened sense of awareness of the presence of God.
Temples don’t grow and evolve but bodies and vines never stop. A tree will never grow to the capacity it was designed to reach if it is transplanted and confined to a pot. Its roots will either break thru the structure that contains it or its growth will be stunted and it will eventually shrivel and die. God is alive and cannot be contained. He cannot inhabit man-made structures without ripping the curtain in two and demolishing it completely not leaving one stone on top of another. King Solomon said, “The heavens, even the highest heavens cannot contain you oh, lord how much less this temple I have built with my own hands.” Just as the tree cannot be contained in the pot, or God in the Temple, or Christ in the Tomb; neither can the Church (The Body of Christ) be contained within a religeo-political hierarchical structure. Truth is alive. It transcends scientific and mathematical formulas. It is not known by him who claims to have found the end…it is known by him who wonders…and wanders, perusing it to the end…of himself.
Born Again
In the deepest recesses of my being I am faintly aware of an ephemeral essence that transcends form and substance. In fleeting moments of enlightenment the rays of divinity shine through the windows of my soul and casts a shadow of the unseen upon the walls of my mind betraying everything visible and material as illusatory and transient... Nature. Beauty. Love. Character...awaken me as from a dream, stirring me from my vain occupations, leading me out of my withering abode into the truth, into the reality of the moment...Suspended outside of my body above the axis of space and time I am transported into the heavens, birthed into a world that i long dreamed existed but had faded to a distant memory, buried beneath the sands of time... Once again naked and helpless, breathing for the first time, i am born again. Consciousness dawning, realization of being a parcel of that divine, indefinable Spirit that is All in All, the Beginning and the End. The One. It cannot be possessed or contained but i long with every fiber of my being to be completely consumed by it.
All Purpose-Super Jesus!
Learn to use your omnipotent super Jesus powers today! The startup package includes this bright flashy book by Bill Johnson for only 29.99 plus tax. Limited supply and there selling like hot cakes! Stop by the bookstore in the lobby and pick up your copy today! Our mega-church is open from 8 am to 2:30 pm every Sunday offering a variety of Sunday school classes and services to suit your needs and desires. There is no need to stop for coffee on the way to church; we now have a Starbucks in the foyer (right across from the book store) for your convenience! (Please give a little extra to the offering so we can pay the salary of the money changers! And by the way, the standard Tithe has been raised from ten percent of your gross income to fifteen percent; please make a note of that. Tithe envelopes are provided in the back of your pews, remember your tithe is tax deductable!) Our Traditional service starts at nine am for you early risers that prefer the classic old-school style Jesus and features Old Testament readings, congregational hymns written during the Crusades, long pious congregational prayers with plenty of thee’s and thou’s, a weekly quote by our sponsor George W. Bush, and old timey hell fire and brimstone preaching by our Senior Pastor Rev. Gilly Brahm who just turned 95 last week (Happy Birthday!) Our Contemporary service begins immediately following at approximately 10:30 and features a more hip, up to date, westernized Jesus. Come and worship Jesus in style as our house band plays Christian parodies to Boston and Foreigner as well as heartfelt love songs from the 80’s in which the word “Baby” is replaced with “Jesus.” Enjoy the light show and smoke machine! This service comes with the extra option to raise your hands in the air, clap to the beat (on 2 and 4 please) and speak in your prayer language! (If you do not have one, one will be provided for you by one of our lovely tongue coaches.) We do allow dancing, however, no booty shaking or other vulgar expressions please, but feel free to convulse on the floor moaning and groaning as the spirit gives you utterance. See you Sunday!
Visions
Visions are shadows from behind the curtain that separates the ephemeral from the temporal, the holy place from the most holy place. They are mediators between conscious and unconscious, soul and mind. They are metaphors illustrating deeper truths. Nature itself is a vision, a puppet show, a reflection as in a mirror, an image thru a stained glass…”Now I see but a poor reflection…then I shall see face to face, now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I am fully known.”-Apostle Paul
Dear Uncle Sam,
I Traveler demand redemption from the captivity your kingdom has imposed upon me. I hate the tyranny of capitalism and resent the expectations imposed on us to serve its arbitrary ends. I refuse to expend my limited energy resources to the pursuit of your barbaric monetary deity. I will not bow to your god or lend my hands to his service. I am content to live off of the discarded crumbs of your subjects and the gratuity of sympathetic strangers for my labors of love, but I would prefer above all to completely sever my ties to your kingdom and live in harmony with Mother Earth, enjoying her gracious and generous bounty, but you in your greed and insatiable hunger for power continue to rape and pillage her, claiming possession of her and utilizing her rescourses to build your evil empire. I will not allow my identity to be defined by a label, title, or class that you assign to me. I do not give you permission to name me. I am not your property and I will not lend my time and energy to serve your arbitrary cause. I wish only to be a part of something organic and real, to work for a cause that I believe in and can see that my labor is not in vain. I will work to provide sustenance, safety, and comfort for those that I consider my family. I do not care about your kingdom and it’s mechanical pursuits and will not lend my limbs to be used as your tools, or my back for your yoke. Though you do not recognize my rights I will not be powerless, though you exile me I will not be dispossessed. I will wander into the land of Nod with the mark of Cain on my back and no hand shall smite me and my foot will not be dashed upon a stone.
Summer of Love?
The "hippie" movement was much more than mere rebellion, it was a desperate search for meaning, a groping in the dark, a switch from auto-pilot to overdrive, an awakening, a consciousness, a new awareness. A misguided search, but a search nonetheless. Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll were not hailed as an end themselves but a means to an end...a part of the journey. Acid trips and meditative trances gave way to prophetic visions and chemical induced illusions. We were lost children of the Fall, searching for a path back to the Garden, groping in the darkness, dreaming of the Promised Land. Doubts lingering in the back of our minds...the question everyone was afraid to ask..."Is God dead?" Are we all alone? isolated by the prisons of our own minds, bastard children of our own demise, we were vulnerable, rebellious, and pliable. Searching for meaning and True Love we started "Being" and practicing "Free Love." We joined communes and formed organizations with egalitarian and utopian ideals, protested and demonstrated in the streets, longing for a place and time where everyone was equal to his brothers and sisters in every way. As time went on, our baby boomer cries of defiant rebellion became spoiled tantrums of "gimmie, gimmie, gimmie" as the struggle for liberty and justice for all evolved from an equality to an entitlement mentality rendering us a welfare state, more dependent than ever on our beloved Daddy Sam. The pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other in the 40 years we have wandered in the desert since the "Summer of Love” in 67' and we are by no means anywhere near the Promised Land. The Revolution has made a full circle and become the new orthodoxy. Here we are over three decades past the bicentennial year and we're in the same place we were in over 230 years ago. Tyranny. The time has come once again for the people to unite and list their grievances against the axis of power, the rulers and principalities of this dark world, and declare their independence, breaking all ties of co-dependency and loyalty to Babylon. Instead of resisting, co-existing with nature and our fellow man in harmonious communities of likeminded souls governed by a circle of agreement with a powerful nucleus of Love rather than a hierarchical pyramid of control perpetuated by an oppressive Omni-present Tyrant.
Green Band-Aid
The problem with our country is the fact that we throw money at all of our problems. It is like a mother bandaging her child’s skinned knee with a dollar bill. Sure, it might stick to the kid’s knee for a while but in the end it will make matters worse rather than better. Capitol hill has become the scene of utmost greed and disillusionment, like bourbon street during Mardi Gras, the populace has become patrons in a parade where Uncle Sam throws dollar-bills instead of beads and wears a smiling mask of democracy while individuals, families, organizations, and “underprivileged” citizens scramble and fight over the loot. The madness leads me to believe that we should change our nation’s motto from “In God we trust” to “Throw me something mister!” The Fema Fiasco after Hurricane Katrina is just one example of what will take place when Uncle Sam runs out of dough to throw.
The U.S. government has created its own monster. It has spawned an entire generation that depends on them to finance their retirement, feed them, and pay for their doctor bills, abortions, contraception, education plus exporting large amounts of money to other parts of the world. Maybe the more appropriate term for the government should be “Daddy Sam” rather than “Uncle Sam”. They have created a government-sufficient, welfare state. They have hand-fed the elephant at the zoo peanuts until it is nice and fat and spoiled and they haven’t bothered to ask themselves what will happen when they run out of peanuts.
I believe it is time for another revolution. A return to the roots of what our country was founded on. I believe we should begin to exercise our rights given to us by our forefathers. As citizens of this great country, I think it is time that we the people took our lives into our own hands. I think it is time we started building our own homes, raising our own families, and putting food on our own tables. Our government by the people for the people has become nothing more than a socialistic institution, a sinking ship drowning in debt, steadily dolling out money it does not have to a greedy, mutinous crew.
The U.S. government has created its own monster. It has spawned an entire generation that depends on them to finance their retirement, feed them, and pay for their doctor bills, abortions, contraception, education plus exporting large amounts of money to other parts of the world. Maybe the more appropriate term for the government should be “Daddy Sam” rather than “Uncle Sam”. They have created a government-sufficient, welfare state. They have hand-fed the elephant at the zoo peanuts until it is nice and fat and spoiled and they haven’t bothered to ask themselves what will happen when they run out of peanuts.
I believe it is time for another revolution. A return to the roots of what our country was founded on. I believe we should begin to exercise our rights given to us by our forefathers. As citizens of this great country, I think it is time that we the people took our lives into our own hands. I think it is time we started building our own homes, raising our own families, and putting food on our own tables. Our government by the people for the people has become nothing more than a socialistic institution, a sinking ship drowning in debt, steadily dolling out money it does not have to a greedy, mutinous crew.
Sinful Nature
It is the sinful nature of man to deify his own will and appoint himself the ambassador of his self-made law, imposing his opinions on his brethren, endeavoring to spite and shame those who don’t adhere to his sentiments, passing his judgments from atop his lonely throne of superiority and foolish pride. He robs himself of peace the moment that his affections and preferences become absolute and mechanical, when he fancies his natural propensity as law.
The Game
The game has one rule: supply (-cost) + demand = profit. The object of the game is to maximize profit by increasing supply and demand and minimizing cost as much as possible by cutting out middlemen and keeping labor expenses down. Capitalist like to make money but they don’t like people making money off of them.
Why would corporate America use its own natural resources, supply, when it could get them overseas for cheaper? The U.S. uses over 50% of the worlds goods so naturally goods are more in demand over here and therefore more expensive. That’s why we are dependent on foreign oil, and setting up ‘democracies’ in other people’s countries.
Why would Corporate America pay American employees min. wage or higher and deal with unions and lawsuits and child labor laws when they can pay foreign workers pennies on the dollar without having to compete with wages and benefits of other companies? That’s why ‘3rd’ world countries are filled with sweat-shops with overworked children stitching our soccer balls and tennis shoes so they can buy a coca-cola at the end of the day.
Why would corporate America use its own natural resources, supply, when it could get them overseas for cheaper? The U.S. uses over 50% of the worlds goods so naturally goods are more in demand over here and therefore more expensive. That’s why we are dependent on foreign oil, and setting up ‘democracies’ in other people’s countries.
Why would Corporate America pay American employees min. wage or higher and deal with unions and lawsuits and child labor laws when they can pay foreign workers pennies on the dollar without having to compete with wages and benefits of other companies? That’s why ‘3rd’ world countries are filled with sweat-shops with overworked children stitching our soccer balls and tennis shoes so they can buy a coca-cola at the end of the day.
The Circle of Life and Death
Corporations are giant death machines that depend on the remnants of organic life to turn “raw natural product” into packaged commodity. Nature is being crushed in the gears of the machine and turned into a lifeless caricature filled with preservatives and chemicals consumed and wasted by once living creatures that have long ago been digested by the very same machine. The only thing that separated us from machine is our free will. A machine can do everything except make a conscious free choice. It can exhibit all of the qualities of a living body but it is soul-less and can only be controlled by an outside mind. As William Burroughs said; “…once capable on independent life it has fallen to a state between life and death, it can only exhibit living qualities in a host, it has fallen to a state of mechanical, inorganic matter that can only exhibit living qualities in a host…it is the antithesis of life itself. A virus. It can be programmed to discriminate when given options but not to exercise will. Humanity is quickly being programmed, we are being given options and allowed to make certain choices within those selected options, but our freewill, is bit by bit being taken away from us. Machines always need the remnants of organic life to subsist and exhibit living qualities. Machines themselves are composed of remnants of organic life. We are quickly going the way of the dinosaur (who, by the way used to be in charge of this planet). Now the black sludge from their decomposed bones is being refined and running our cars and boats and planes and trucks shipping our goods, Modern Tyrants are fighting wars over the decomposed sludge from the extinct rulers of the pre-historic world I guess shit really does come back around.
Americanization, Globalization, Urbanization...
It’s all the same thing. Their goal is control, money, power and fame. The globe has been turned into a giant game of risk where governments representing corporate interests are competing for control of the world. The United States is nothing more than a corporate owned franchise spreading its empire all over the globe. Every nation in the world is infested with our Embassies, Military bases, and Nike sweat shops, as well as McDonalds and Starbucks. America has become the center of a black hole of greed, and power imposing its force on the rest of the world turning other countries into subsidiaries to serve it’s arbitrary ends as it sucks the earth’s natural resources into itself consuming over half of the worlds goods and enslaving a large percentage of the world’s population.
It’s the same old story…we learned all about globalization from our mother country, Great Britain. Power hungry tyrants have been playing this game for centuries before America even existed. British colonization in India and Africa, Napoleon Bonaparte was intent on taking over as much of the world as he could get his hands on. But this time it is different, it is not territories and boundary lines we are fighting over anymore, those are quickly becoming obsolete. This control goes deeper.
It’s the same old story…we learned all about globalization from our mother country, Great Britain. Power hungry tyrants have been playing this game for centuries before America even existed. British colonization in India and Africa, Napoleon Bonaparte was intent on taking over as much of the world as he could get his hands on. But this time it is different, it is not territories and boundary lines we are fighting over anymore, those are quickly becoming obsolete. This control goes deeper.
Black Sheep
There will always be hierarchy…as long as there are people who are willing to control and manipulated other people and people who are willing to surrender their liberty for the acceptance and protection of the flock…however there will always exist within the fold, black sheep who do not forsake the community but do question the ideologies and demands perpetuated by the hierarchical structure and are not afraid to offer their own alternative views, thoughts, opinions, and theories to the community. These anomalies act as a natural checks and balances for the Sheppard’s. And are necessary in every community to prevent total tyranny.
Politics and Religion
Although, out of all the Religions, I can identify with the terminology and explanations of the eastern religions the most, I do not subscribe. I find Buddhism to be empty, and nihilistic, but emptiness and nihilism beat the hell out of dogma and pretention in my book. I believe strongly in the teachings of Jesus Christ, he is by far my favorite eastern mystic, but I don’t call myself a Christian and I don’t believe Jesus would either. I do believe he was the Jewish Messiah, although the Jew’s denied several messiahs’s before him…a rather stiff necked and obstinate people…but I’m not an Anti-Semite. I am an anti-racist. I believe that racism is a lie of fear, hate, and pride passed down from generation to generation… which is why I’m not a Muslim.
I guess it’s safe to say that I do believe in Freedom, Peace, and Love. I believe in community, family, and equality. I don’t believe in oppression, tyranny, or the centralization of power, so by definition, I guess that makes me an anarchist. Generally speaking, one’s political views usually mirror their perception of God. I don’t see God as a hierarchical Deity who must be praised and obeyed to incur blessings and dissuade wrath…I believe that god is Love. Love does not lord above its beloved but exists in the midst and is one with all that is. The idea of a personified deity existing outside of his creation, an old white man with a long gray beard, sitting on a throne somewhere on a cloud in another realm, ruling over the nations with an iron scepter, is absurd to me and I don’t think “Thor” the Greek god of thunder is what Jesus was envisioning when we made references to his heavenly father. But, that’s just me…I could be completely wrong.
I guess it’s safe to say that I do believe in Freedom, Peace, and Love. I believe in community, family, and equality. I don’t believe in oppression, tyranny, or the centralization of power, so by definition, I guess that makes me an anarchist. Generally speaking, one’s political views usually mirror their perception of God. I don’t see God as a hierarchical Deity who must be praised and obeyed to incur blessings and dissuade wrath…I believe that god is Love. Love does not lord above its beloved but exists in the midst and is one with all that is. The idea of a personified deity existing outside of his creation, an old white man with a long gray beard, sitting on a throne somewhere on a cloud in another realm, ruling over the nations with an iron scepter, is absurd to me and I don’t think “Thor” the Greek god of thunder is what Jesus was envisioning when we made references to his heavenly father. But, that’s just me…I could be completely wrong.
We are what we eat
“We are what we eat.” Senseless and pacified herds of livestock injected with hormones, drugged, castrated, de-horned, fed nutrition-less mass produced bull-shit, and bred to be tranquilized, slaughtered, ground into hamburger meat, smashed into patties, packaged, labeled and sold in mass.
College
College: been there done that, didn’t care enough to buy the T-shirt and your tax dollars paid my way. Pell grants and other Federal and state financial assistance give young people all over America an opportunity and excuse to binge drink, have casual and meaningless sex, and experiment with drugs, run up credit card bills and other wise post-pone real life for an extra four or more years after high-school. All of this on Uncle Sam’s' bill I might add. As for the studious and enlightened ones that actually were sober enough to graduate, just go to Starbucks or Blockbuster and you will find them behind the counter in a uniform complete with a plastic corporate smile and nametag. Upon asking them how college prepared them for the real world, they will gleefully tell you about their degree that is framed and hanging above their bed in their parents house; Please rewind, it’s due back Monday before 10pm. Enjoy! As the tuition rises more and more each year the value of a degree decreases don’t buy the lie; a college degree is not a penance for salvation, or a ticket to the job of your dreams….why is it the government bends over backwards to emphasize the importance of college and to provide every means necessary to ensure the educations of America’s youth? Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste, knowledge is power, and federal and state funded institutions are the only place besides the media that the young, pliable, half-stoned minds of America’s future can be filled with ultra-left wing liberal socialistic propaganda. Not that I ‘m completely undermining the college experience, I do realize that it is often worth the years of debt and financial struggle that usually succeed it. However, there are other ways to obtain knowledge and to develop relationships rather than climb the ivory tower. For example, we live in the information age. If you want to know something about anything there is an immeasurable amount of info available on the internet. Granted you will have to wade thru some bull-shit to learn anything worth-while but then again college is not bull-shit free by any means either. Better yet read a book. As far as social life goes, there are other ways to meet people besides paying thousands of dollars of tuition fees for the college community life, join a cult. They are a hell of a lot more accepting than a fraternity or sorority would be and the initiation process promises to be a lot less weird and humiliating. Or, if the cult thing is not for you, try a motorcycle gang, bridge club, internet dating service, become a barfly at a local dive, or get a job. The best professor is life and the best education is experience; live. If you want to learn about aboriginals in Australia, get out of the classroom and fly there and develop a taste for kangaroo burgers I guarantee you will learn much more for a much cheaper price.
The Root of All Evil
The State creates currency and exists solely to regulate, and perpetuate its use. It monopolizes Trade and Commerce demanding a usurious interest percentage for the right to buy and sell. However many hands property goes thru the debt remains just for the right to Trade. And then they have the testicular fortitude to use the term “Free Enterprise.”
Corporations are money machines that generate tax revenue and interest rates for the State. Taxes, customer’s sales taxes, and taxes on labor wages is the states cut for supporting their interests. And corporate interests dictate laws and regulations that are designed to keep citizens dependant on them for commodities and employment, eliminate competition (mom’s and pop’s companies, small businesses.), require certain services (insurance, notaries,) and levee taxes. As corporations are becoming more and more powerful, self-sustaining, and independent; individual citizens are becoming more and more dependent on them as the State narrows their options to create their own alternatives to being exhumed by the corporate machine by: heavy taxation, the demand for permit’s, strict regulations by State administrations, and laws.
Corporations are money machines that generate tax revenue and interest rates for the State. Taxes, customer’s sales taxes, and taxes on labor wages is the states cut for supporting their interests. And corporate interests dictate laws and regulations that are designed to keep citizens dependant on them for commodities and employment, eliminate competition (mom’s and pop’s companies, small businesses.), require certain services (insurance, notaries,) and levee taxes. As corporations are becoming more and more powerful, self-sustaining, and independent; individual citizens are becoming more and more dependent on them as the State narrows their options to create their own alternatives to being exhumed by the corporate machine by: heavy taxation, the demand for permit’s, strict regulations by State administrations, and laws.
Televised "Revolution".
Flower power didn’t work because rebellion usurped community. The revolution became the new orthodoxy as ‘Hippie’ became a fashion statement rather than viable option. It was ‘hip’ to be against the establishment. The reason the movement failed was that a majority of the people didn’t really believe in the ideals they were preaching, they were more concerned with trying to be cool and capitalizing on the fad selling concert tickets, records, tie dyed T-shirts, bell-bottoms, drugs and paraphernalia, and books. The revolution was not only televised, it was commoditized, genre-sized, religionized, politicized, and therefore never realized.
what happened?
After the Second World War, husbands and wives were now in the work force serving side by side as cogs in the wheels of the gears of the machine while their children were left to be raised by the state rather than the village. The organic family structure was replaced by a mechanical system and children were taught at a very young age that they: “…must lead their own independent lives outside of the old bonds of family, tribe, religion, order and class, and you must do this within the new guidelines of rules which the state, the job market and the bureaucracy lay down.”-Ulrich Beck. Market values trumped family values and community responsibility was usurped by allegiance to Big Brother. We were subversively and cohearsivley forced into being loyal subjects to a regime dedicated to corporate hegemony and control of world trade, sucked into a vortex of power and greed, a black hole spinning out of control around the bowl and down the hole, spiraling ever closer to the depths of tyranny. The baby boomer generation was the beginning of the new mechanical consciousness, fulfillment of the prophesy of the coming anti-christ alluded to in the Bible, Plato’s Republic, and George Orwell’s 1984. As the baby boomers plugged into the machine, generation x plugged in the television set and digested lethal doses of poison for the minds of the masses as we, the second generation of orphans indoctrinated by Father Sam in his religion of mass consumerism, and maniacal individuality, sacrifice our children on the altar of convenience in the name of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (safety, comfort, and security). We’ve neglected generation X; we’re aborting generation Y, what is to become of generation Z?
Squares, Lines, Boxes and Boobs
The problem with our society is fact that it is the wrong shape. Nature is composed of circles and spheres, everything in Nature operates in cycles, every motion and wave of energy is at its root centrifugal and centripetal. Columbus found that the world is round, and ever since, the human race has been overwhelmed with the task of making it flat again. We just couldn’t handle the circularity and spherishness of it so we divided the north and south with a fictitious line separating it into hemi-spheres and then quartered it separating the east from the west, then we rolled it out flat and drew lines of longitude and latitude, created national border lines, state and province lines and county and parish lines. We made them all as square as we could, considering we were inconvenienced by rivers and peninsulas and such. As if all of that wasn’t enough we built cities, grids of roads and numbered square city blocks lined with square houses, and square office buildings sectioned into square floors of square cubicles. Society is a square conspiracy to square everyone away in their own individualized little squares like caged animals at the zoo so we can be monitored and controlled. We live in on blocks, work in cubes, are entertained by boob tubes in square boxes, we eat our cereal out of boxes, store our food in ice boxes, and we’re buried in a pine box. We’ve divided time into lines, years and months and weeks and days and hours and minutes; boxes within boxes within boxes within boxes…We’ve reduced music into lines and measures. Some have even attempted to put God in a box and enclose him behind a curtain within the square walls of a temple and use their self proclaimed anointing to control the masses lined in rows and aisles…we have even started to dissect the human brain, separating it into lobes and hemispheres and the main occupation of the powers that be is to enforce the mass lobotomy of the population to keep them in line…Boobs.
Me and the Road and Mary-Jane
I’m hitching out of this town tomorrow, today I’m gonna get stoned in the sun, and drink the last ounce of my sorrow cuz I’m a lonely gypsy on the run. You know I can’t stay here with you girl. The highways and the by-ways call my name, won’t you come with me tomorrow, join me and the road and Mary-Jane. I can promise you the world girl, but the road ain’t no magic carpet ride, the time we have is borrowed and baby I want you by my side. I don’t know where I’m headed, I’m searching for a long lost paradise and I see the road to heaven everytime I look into your eyes. I’ve been searching high and low girl, from the carolina’s to the Frisco Bay, looking for that garden that somehow somewhere was lost along the way. Girl won’t you come with me tomorrow, I’m traveling towards the promised land, I’m leaving Babalon far across this desert sand. I can promise you a home girl, in my arms underneath the stars. They say there’s mansions up in glory but I don’t think that heaven’s very far. I’ve been traveling round in circles, and the highway always leads me back to you.
Listen to me closely, you know who I am. I’m an endless river that can never be damned.
Listen to me closely, and you’ll find the truth, your soul is the ocean, your eyes the windows I’m looking thru. Listen to me closely, your body’s the shore and I am the river won’t you open the door. Listen to me closely, I’ll always be true, Listen to me closely, can you hear the high-way calling you.
Listen to me closely, you know who I am. I’m an endless river that can never be damned.
Listen to me closely, and you’ll find the truth, your soul is the ocean, your eyes the windows I’m looking thru. Listen to me closely, your body’s the shore and I am the river won’t you open the door. Listen to me closely, I’ll always be true, Listen to me closely, can you hear the high-way calling you.
Traveler's Battle-Cry
Craving inspiration I return home…looking, longing for something real to hold on to…I return to the never-ending black snake that climbs the hills and descends into the valleys forever chasing the edge of the world…and I find abundant empty traces, signs that show the way…those places in between…eternal hope’s bright ray…that cuts thru the pines and lights my path back home, but my home is where my heart is so forever I will roam…but I’m not empty any longer I was lost but now I’m found, and I’m calling for the gathering of the remnant with the sound of a magic conch shell come on people gather round…Come you scattered people prepare yourselves for war, beat your plowshares into swords and be oppressed and scorned no more. We are the people and we’ve got to fight our cause because the devils on the loose and he’s sharpening his claws. You can call him YHWY, you can call him Uncle Sam, You can call him Lucifer but I call him The Man. He likes to play monopoly and he forces all to play, and he cheats us and he beats us and there’s nothing we can say, but somebody’s got to say it and we’ve got to find a door that leads us to redemption our freedom to restore. Pyramids and towers reaching to the sun…tears falling from the sky land on everyone. Can you feel the rain…can you feel the pain of the lost tribe of Cain?
Ant Farm
The ants go marching down singing soulless songs about being lost and being found as they build their empire of mud and spit the king of the dunghill sits atop the kingdom of shit under the omni-present eye of pyramids by and by telling fables of golden streets and mansions in the sky…
Enchanted Forest
The sun sets and soon the moonbeams fall thru the pines, shadowed by the smoke of a newborn fire as the days labor is reflected in the embers and consumed in joyful celebration soon to be a distant memory overshadowed by dreams in which the morning rays alight… a perpetual cycle devoid of the illusion of time…welcome to the enchanted forest, where the dew-drops on the leaves glisten in the morning sun and acend into the sky transforming into a tapestry of stars under which we lie…consciously dreaming, into the mist we fly…rising with the smoke above the pines.
Moonbeams
I chase the setting sun I am moonbeams on the run a reflection of the sun shining down on me. As the moon pulls in the tide we’re all going for a ride cuz we’re all just a floating in the same blue sea. I pull seeds out of their deaths, babies from their wombs, proclaim an end to rest, butterflies rise from their tombs, moonbeams I am you and you are me. I love the sunshine too but I’m lost without the moon. I need it’s light to lead the way for me.
Buddah, Jesus, and the Devil and Me
Buddah, Jesus and the Devil and Me were sitting round the table sipping ashwaganda tea when in walked Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu...and then Harry Chrisna and Allah joined in and they were talking bout what constitues as a sin and i said if killin's on the list then why do you wage war? Buddah, Jesus and the Devil and me we got so high that we could not see, and they say the sheep hear the shepard’s voice but by god I heard three.
I was hearing voices couldn’t tell which was which and they were talking bout the difference between a woman and a bitch or maybe that was just me I don’t know. Something about sheep and goats, I had my pen and pad handy and at least that’s what I wrote, maybe that was just me I don’t know. It’s all open to interpretation religion, politics, and the state of the nation, or maybe that was just me I don’t know. Jesus and the devil were arguing about the fall and I was reading the handwriting on the wall and just then I heard a whipporwhill call and I answered back in a mockingbirds tune and the door opened to a rising moon and I paused from my meticulous reading as Venus joined our safety meeting and I was tracing the devils outline on the floor...and he was reminissing bout the garden of eden and one wild night he had in sweden, and me, well I was looking for the door. Me, I was thinking bout a woman I know we were headed two ways and she had to go, I was thinking bout…sitting on the roof of the pirate house staring at the moon, mid-night snacks in bed, ice-cream and a spoon, and I was thinking bout freckles on your back look like Orion I smile everytime I see it and I ain’t lying, it makes me think of you. Making out on the swing by the lake popping each others pimples nothing but your glasses on, your dark chocolate addiction and the candy bars I stole and your bike you like to ride, fly blackbird fly… And the conversation that transpired lasted all night around the fire, I’ve never felt quite so inspired, watched the sun rise and never got tired just buddah, Jesus, and the Devil and Me…
I was hearing voices couldn’t tell which was which and they were talking bout the difference between a woman and a bitch or maybe that was just me I don’t know. Something about sheep and goats, I had my pen and pad handy and at least that’s what I wrote, maybe that was just me I don’t know. It’s all open to interpretation religion, politics, and the state of the nation, or maybe that was just me I don’t know. Jesus and the devil were arguing about the fall and I was reading the handwriting on the wall and just then I heard a whipporwhill call and I answered back in a mockingbirds tune and the door opened to a rising moon and I paused from my meticulous reading as Venus joined our safety meeting and I was tracing the devils outline on the floor...and he was reminissing bout the garden of eden and one wild night he had in sweden, and me, well I was looking for the door. Me, I was thinking bout a woman I know we were headed two ways and she had to go, I was thinking bout…sitting on the roof of the pirate house staring at the moon, mid-night snacks in bed, ice-cream and a spoon, and I was thinking bout freckles on your back look like Orion I smile everytime I see it and I ain’t lying, it makes me think of you. Making out on the swing by the lake popping each others pimples nothing but your glasses on, your dark chocolate addiction and the candy bars I stole and your bike you like to ride, fly blackbird fly… And the conversation that transpired lasted all night around the fire, I’ve never felt quite so inspired, watched the sun rise and never got tired just buddah, Jesus, and the Devil and Me…
Tyrranny
They say have no other gods before me don’t take my name in vain, if you step outside their lines they’ll label you insane, they’ll lock you up or take you out they’ll screw you either way, if you’re gonna fight for freedom you’re gonna have to pay.
Be careful what you say, be careful what you do cuz the all-seeing eye has got it’s sights on you. Be careful what you do, be careful what you say, look what they did to Jesus, John Lennon and JFK.
You better go to work to support the economy, pay all your taxes you can’t live here for free, pledge your allegiance to the red white and blue, if you don’t fall in line they’ll point the cannon right at you.
Chorus.
Keep marching to their beat don’t get out of line, if they think you’re one of them you’ll be doing time, they’ll shoot you in the head or nail you to a cross, they’ll cut off all your toes if you run away from the boss, they’ll chop off your head and put it on a plate, they’ll throw you in the furnace if you don’t bow to the state.
Chorus.
They’ll call you a terrorist if you don’t support their cause, they’ll invade your country and impose on you their laws, they’ll drop bombs on your village if you don’t bow to your knees, they’ll pave over your fields to build their factories. They call it democracy, but behind the veil it’s tyranny.
Be careful what you say, be careful what you do cuz the all-seeing eye has got it’s sights on you. Be careful what you do, be careful what you say, look what they did to Jesus, John Lennon and JFK.
You better go to work to support the economy, pay all your taxes you can’t live here for free, pledge your allegiance to the red white and blue, if you don’t fall in line they’ll point the cannon right at you.
Chorus.
Keep marching to their beat don’t get out of line, if they think you’re one of them you’ll be doing time, they’ll shoot you in the head or nail you to a cross, they’ll cut off all your toes if you run away from the boss, they’ll chop off your head and put it on a plate, they’ll throw you in the furnace if you don’t bow to the state.
Chorus.
They’ll call you a terrorist if you don’t support their cause, they’ll invade your country and impose on you their laws, they’ll drop bombs on your village if you don’t bow to your knees, they’ll pave over your fields to build their factories. They call it democracy, but behind the veil it’s tyranny.
Trapped in Disneyland
Grazing sun-burnt sheep feeding aimlessly on the spoils of war, 6 dollar cones and chicken wings without bones and I’m looking for the door, and the pirates are raiding out in the street, they pillage and plunder for something to eat, they’ll sing you a song as you walk along and they’ll sing all night for a few hits of your bong but what they crave is so much more. Help I’m trapped in Disneyland can you help me find the key, I need a magic mushroom or a hit of LSD, I need some tea to ease my mind, a rabbit whole a new world to find sweet Alice won’t you take me home to you.
Hide-Away
It takes a million stars to make the world go round, Jupiter and mars created by the sound of ten thousand waves crashing on the shore, the moon pulls in the tide I couldn’t ask for more, it gives and then it fades when there’s nothing left to say, we bleed we heal we grow and we give it all away, so let’s forget the world and let the time fly and let’s get lost in the sweet by and by, mount up on wings and soar into the sky, you are my hide-away. We’ve all been here before, don’t ask what it’s all for, it’s different but the same, we all live to play this game, it pulses in our chest just like all the rest, it’s not a test it’s just a game, no reason or ryme to blame.
Uncontrolled Substance
you pull back the curtains and slip inside your mind, you search and you search but the Truth you cannot find. stumbling through this maze you can't see from all the smoke, blinded by the haze as you take another toke. Smoke and mirrors shots and lines death's shadow on the wall, your perception of reality shatters and you fall, endless tunnels leading nowhere bodies strung along the way, hungry souls just like you searching for the light of day. the air is stale and filled with stench as you struggle for your breath, you count your enemies as friends barbiturates and crystal meth, side by side and hand in hand with loneliness your guide, you walk into a gray cloud, into nothingness abide. out of body out of mind, you’re high above it all. but what goes up must come down when you're high you trip and fall. you come crashing down to where you where before, reality kicks your ass as you lie there on the floor
The Wound
my prayers are bouncing off the ceiling again, suffocating loneliness these walls my only friend, festering wounds never had a chance to heal, i've kept them buried deep within but now my skin begins to peel. the sedative wears off, the numbness fades away, this hurts too much to feel but this pain is here to stay. broken and bleeding i fall down on my face, trembling and heaving i go back to that place, voices from the past i can't forget though i've tried, though i run so hard and fast from this pain i can't hide. i go back to that place that shaped who i became, the day my heart died the day my soul was slain. my knees getting weak, my heart full of fright, a helpless little boy but a man i will fight. fight to win back what is rightfully mine, a fight to the death my heart is on the line. i cry out to God "i know i'm supposed to be a man. but daddy i'm scared will you please hold my hand." A great wave of strength filled my from above. i swung my sword fearlessly and won back my heart of love
Sidewalk Painter
It’s a labor of love but mostly for the sake of my own sanity. the picture starts in my head, though sometimes i have to try to make it out when it's done...i'm dreaming of butterflies and screaming in pain, painting a blue sky in the pouring rain, can i talk to you? Will you stop and listen to me? i'm not done yet... i love you. do you want to know my name? i know you would love me if you could see beyond my frame. please don't walk on by, give me just a moment of your time. can you hear me over the ticking of the clock? can you see your reflection in the the canvas? try to make it out through the shadows... the picture starts in your head. it's mostly for the sake of your own sanity... it's a labor of love...and it's not done yet.
The City
the city looks different from 19 floors up but the sky seems even further away, cars so surreal like matchboxes with wheels shine with the glint of midday, she sidewalks are full of hustle and bustle, mass confusion to and fro, like rats in a maze they walk in a daze, there's always some place to go. No time to think, to stop is to sink for money is the essence of time. Here in the city it doesn't pay to be witty, just do what you're told for a dime.
Into the Sun.
Take a walk with me through my corridors of reason... i'll share with you the secrets of my soul... Beneath the shadows of the arches in the tunnels of my mind you'll find a raging fire an eternal burning coal...Would you follow me into the sun? would you would you? would you follow me into the sun? Behind beneath between the lines can you see the colors underneath my rhymes the pictures you pretend you never see? Dreams you never dreamed to dream, impossible or so they seem, tainted by a distant memory. would you follow me into the sun? would you would you? would you follow me into the sun?
Mechanical Pharoah
We have deified the man and hailed him as our king. But this thing we call 'The Man' is actually machine. With the gears and bells and whistles, no organs, flesh or skin. Hollow bones with no marrow, no shining light within...We're trapped in the belly of the beast machine of war, searching for redemption, looking for a door. It’s we that built the beast. For its ends we slave and toil, we offer up our sacrifice, it thirsts for blood and oil. We built it from the ruins of the temple of old, appointed a high priest, our allegiance we then sold. We built our pyramids, our towers to the sky, and when a prophet shows another way, him we crucify. We nail him to a cross. Treason is his crime. He’s suspended on the axis that marks the space and time. We rebuild the temple, sew the curtain that was torn and slaughter all the children from the revolution born... (Pharaoh): "We must keep the secret safe, the illusion he revealed. The truth he told is dangerous it must be concealed. To keep it under wraps we must censor everyone, and keep them busy with our work baking bricks under the sun. Who will build our pyramids if they escape across the sea? This job is for the serfs and peasants not for kings like me. We must rig the game to ensure that they stay poor, but if they don't cooperate we'll just have to import more."
LIFE
Spontaneous combustion...a thunderstorm in august...icy drops of ecstasy stinging your face...LIFE...your black and white world dissipates into a kaleidoscope of vivid color slung against the blank, gray canvas of your cerebrum by the ecstatic reverie of a tripping Picasso...LIFE...like bird shit hitting the windshield of your speeding car, like the kitchen wall after a toddlers suppertime tantrum, like the trail of bright red splotches on a Nashville sidewalk before the rain comes to wash away the violent, untold story...This is LIFE...Chaotic symmetry, vicious and sublime. Cycles and seasons, reasons and rhyme. Shapes shifting, faces smeared, what was is gone reality disappeared. Pyramids inverted, circles around squares, walls caving in exposing demons lairs. Captives set free of chains forged by fears, illusions of power melted by tears... of broken, leaking vessels of light... The eastern sky splits and the day destroys the night. He who has ears let him hear, the illusion of darkness will soon disappear. The sun sets in the western sky; before morning comes pharaohs first born will die. A sign from heaven shines from the east, the first shall be last, the greatest the least. Rise up my people the kingdom is here. Lift your eyes to Zion and forsake all your fear. You are the Remnant and your time is now. Confess allegiance to Freedom, to no other king bow.
Inez
i met her in a park i was passing through, she asked me to stop and play her a tune. (That always happens when i carry my guitar around) So i played a couple and she sang along, she told me her story and she sang me a song, sipping vodka on a blanket in the grass...she's a Cherokee Indian and a little bit white, smokes allot of rock and she likes to fight, been to prison 5 times met her first cousin in the pen. And that's as close to her family as she's ever been. She met Jesus at a tent revival when she was 15, got baptized in a river in the hills of Suwannee. says she's got a lot of forgiveness to ask for, she can't hear his voice anymore...She used to ride horses and hunt rattlesnakes, swim in the rivers and fish in the lakes, now she makes her living walking the street and she believes very strongly that you are what you eat, she says she's half rattlesnake and quarter-pounder with cheese among other things if you know what i mean... she said life's so different from back on the farm...i told her God still loves her and she said "i don't know...i think i'm too far gone." then she said she had to go. she was headed to work out on Murfreesboro road, "if i don't get a hit i think i'm gonna explode." she says she can't hear his voice anymore, she thinks forgiveness is too much to ask for... she thinks she's too far gone...
I Am The Rain
Metamorphosis in the street, longing to be complete, raging against complacency, rebelling against the cold blue steel of numbness, the prison of my burning insatiable hunger, the whirlwind of energy carries me precariously to the edge of apathy and throws me over the precipice so that i can rise over the paradigms on the wings of eagles, angels of the sky, translated into nothingness and everything simultaneously. A new birth, becoming once again a parcel of the universe, returning to God as a vapor rising to the heavens and back again to wet the tongues of the damned, the withering lilies of the field. Evaporation is completeness; stagnation is the stench of hell. Mid-day sun i rise to you so i can fall again, so i can fly again, so i can die again. Rise...Fall...Fly...Die...Rise...Fall...Fly...Die...Drink you withered lilies. Drink your fill. I Am The Rain.
Flow
Lose your illusions, find yourself, peel back the layers and put your dreams on a shelf. Lose your life to save it, if you save your life you'll die. Let go of your ego, you've got to fall to fly. Fall in Love, deny yourself control, reckless abandon, set free your captive soul. Let the river flow, let it flow to the sea, don't let your soul be damned break the walls and live free. Free to love, free to dance, freedom to just be.
Ain't Selling Nothing
They call me a loser but that’s an odd thing to state, how can I lose if I refuse to participate? I don’t play for money, power or fame; I turned in my jersey this ain’t my kind of game. I’m not on the field and i ain’t sitting the bench, I’m clothed in righteousness not Abercrombie and Fitch. The more that I lose the less that I lack, the yoke is as light as the shirt on my back. I ain’t selling nothing I’m here to give it away; the gift that I give can’t be exchanged for pay. I extend my love freely with my arms open wide with holes in my hands and a scar in my side. He who loses his life will find it in me. Come find what you’re looking for come find and be free.
Down in the Swamp
Sometimes it gets a little dark down in the swamp
The people are shady and the mud is thick, there’s a storm a brewing out in the sticks
Sometimes it gets a little dark down in the swamp
There’s a voodoo woman on the south side of town and the church is built on a burial ground
You hear screams and shouts and gunshots at night, the cops say it’s nothing just a family fight.
The people are shady and the mud is thick, there’s a storm a brewing out in the sticks
Sometimes it gets a little dark down in the swamp
There’s a voodoo woman on the south side of town and the church is built on a burial ground
You hear screams and shouts and gunshots at night, the cops say it’s nothing just a family fight.
Feigning Deaf
I was twenty miles west of Davenport and I had whiskey on my breath, got pulled over by the police and I pretended I was deaf. He asked me for my license and I feigned I didn’t hear. I threw my jacket on the floorboard to hide those empty cans of beer. I attempted some sign language and he repeated himself slow, I squinted real hard to read his lips, I put on quite a show. After several failed attempts he went back to his car, as he drove off in disgust I headed back to the bar.
Wax Museum
Walking the beat down this glittering street, illuminated with a fluorescent glow, beauty more shallow than skin, molds of painted paraffin, pay the man at the door to see the show. Fancy sports cars, smell of cheap cigars, city of lost angels and shooting stars, the beat drowns out the hollow sound, and there’s card-board houses lining skid row and a fog over the valley casts an eerie orange glow…The beat drowns out the hollow sound.
Nichole
She said she was from Jersey, her name was Nichole, she didn’t have an accent, said it doesn’t fit the role. She’s so far from home…Came to Hollywood when she was seven-teen, running from her past and chasing down a dream. She’s lost in a sea of people but she still feels so alone. I told her reality is what this town lacks; they’ll suck out your soul and embalm you with wax. But how she wants to be an exhibit at the show…She’s reciting her lines and rolling the dice, she gotta get paid but she doesn’t know the price. Her innocence is fading from those pretty brown eyes…It just doesn’t fit the role.
Beautiful Girl
Beautiful girl never heard the word no. she struts down the sidewalk like she’s in a fashion show. She gets what she wants with the bat of her eye they all fall in line and no one asks why. Beautiful girl, with a heart full of gold her soul hide a story that never been told, no one can look deeper than those pretty brown eyes, behind those windows to her soul the shades are pulled tight. I knock on the door but she doesn’t let me in, beauty’s only skin deep but hers radiates from within. Beautiful girl, such a mystery to me. Her beauty goes deeper than the eye can see. Beautiful girl, will you let me in? Beneath flesh and bone her beauty lies within.
All i want for Christmas...
When I was 5 years old I sat on Santa’s knee, all I really wanted was a 12 gauge you see. A pump action browning with a maple stock, I could kill a lot more squirrels with that than with a sling shot and a rock. It really made me mad when Santa laughed with glee. My Christmas present request was perfectly logical to me. He gave me a candy cane and sent me on my way, a disappointed little boy, that was me that day. Now that I’m grown, I realize that Santa was pretty smart; I’ve also figured out that he shops at Wal-mart. I went to the mall and stuck a Hall-mark in his coat, on the inside of the card I enclosed this little note: thank you Santa for the Christmas present that I never got, if you’d have given me that 12 gauge somebody surely would have gotten shot and I’d still be sitting in cell block 23 cuz all I really wanted was a 12 gauge you’d see.
Kalidascope
When my eyes met yours for the first time my grey world dissipated into a kaleidoscope of vivid color. A soft glow shone thru those beautiful stained glass windows to your soul, so soft and gentle and yet so powerful. For a fleeting moment, the vessel of life in my chest paused its rhythmic gyration, the hands of time stood still, the stream of sand flowing endlessly from the hourglass was petrified, and it was in this moment that I was transformed. Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, my spirit flew upward. I had found my wings. I knew I would never be the same.
Someone Who Can
You laugh out loud but your eyes don’t smile you’ve been turning inside out for quite awhile, you bury your face to hide your pain but the tears flow thru your fingers like rain. Back in your cage, your emotions on a shelf, you’re safe behind those walls that you built your-self. If only I could hold you and make your pain my own. If only I could carry you through this valley to your home. But I don’t have the strength to carry you on thru but I know someone who can and he died for you. There are holes in his hands and feet, a spear point in his side. Place your hand inside of his, his arms are open wide. He’ll carry you thru the valley to his heavenly home above and on the way he’ll teach you of his father’s love.
Song of the Angels
Have you ever heard the angels sing? All the way from heaven those high hosannas ring. Those angels dance on streets of gold, singing of love and joy untold, you can see them at night if you lift your gaze on high, blinking and sparkling scattered over the sky. If you listen real close, a beautiful sound you will hear, and the song of the angels will forever ring in your ear.
Wheel of Vanity
As all the rivers flow into a bottomless sea, we’re all spinning round in a wheel of vanity, the wise man dies just the same as the fool, his wages divided for stranger to rule. From ashes to ashes and dust to dust, we come as we go and go we must. We toil all day for our wages to spend what profit has he that labor for the wind. For whom do you labor where does your treasure lie? Eat drink and dance for tomorrow we die. He that sows tears will reap what he’s sown. Who will lift up he that falleth alone? The thing that has been it is that which shall be, nothing is new that the eye can see… we’re all spinning round in a wheel of vanity.
Chasing the Sun
I tried to catch the sun today, I knew I couldn’t but I tried anyway, I watched her rise a work of art, then I headed west to get a head start. I rode all morning with her beating my back; I took an early lunch, a quick little snack. I’m making good time I thought as I filled my cup but before I knew she finally caught up. I fired up the engine and started to race, but as fast as I rode she still shined on my face.
Soldier's Song
A soldier falls today, who will sing his song? His carriage waits beside the sea, would you care to come along? A child cries today who will dry her tears? Who will sing a lullaby to wash away her fears? A blind man stumbles today who will be his guide? Who will take him by the hand and humbly be his guide? Awaken from your slumber it’s time to make your stand time slips through our finger like tiny grains of sand, footprints on the shore, guide my way back home, I must haste before they’re washed by salty foam. Tears fall like rain to the sea from the sky, the carriage now awaits for tomorrow we will die. I lift my hands up high as the black cloud hides the sun. Tears falling from the sky land on everyone. Awaken from your slumber, it’s time to make amends, the flood waters are drowning humanity for her sins then I heard a voice calling from the shore Peace, be still he said and the rain ceased to pour.
Fear
Wheels turning in my head, things left undone and words unsaid, regrets burning in the back of my mind, searching for answers I can never find. Forks in the road did I take the wrong way? I can’t go back and I can’t stay. Don’t really know which way to turn; they say life’s a lesson maybe I’ll learn. Promises broken and words I’ve said love I’ve lost and the life I’ve lead a slave to the voice inside my head I won’t be free until my fear is dead.
Path of the Wolf
Picturesque to say the least, I had never laid eyes on such a beautiful beast, gaze cutting me down to size as it stared at me with those saline eyes. Streams of steam thru nostrils blow, paw prints glisten in the snow, head erect nose to the breeze, shadow fades into cedar trees. Process of nature predator and prey, the drama unfolds as in a play, I follow the footsteps in the snow…the path of the wolf is the way I must go.
Death Row
The prison doors swung open, they shackled my hands and feet, fear welled up within me soon my maker I would meet, I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, as they led me out of my cell, my heart sank all hope was gone, my soul was bound for hell. There was a great uproar of noise as they walked me down the hall “remember Jesus saves” I heard one inmate call. I grit my teeth together and told myself not to cry at the stroke of midnight I was condemned to die. The door slammed shut the click of the lock cut thru me like a knife, here is where I would spend the last hour of my life. “Remember Jesus saves!” the words echoed in my ear, as I bowed to my knees the spirit of god drew near. Oh god please forgive me my life is full of sin. Come into my heart and make me whole cleanse me from within. Jesus appeared in the room, his face was flowing white, there were holes in his hands and feet, his face adorned with light. My child you’re forgiven, he said I don’t have to tell you twice, this very day you’ll be with me in paradise. Once again the doors swung open and they strapped me to the gurney. I did not fear I was prepared to make my heavenly journey. As the deadly needle pierced my skin, God’s presence came down like rain; Jesus took me by the hand and led me to the Promised Land. There was a great uproar of noise as he led me down streets of gold, the angels shouted glory and sang of love and joy untold.
Deafening Silence
Deafening silence, screaming the things that I’ve left unsaid, I can’t hear the music, too many voices in my head, answerless questions, endlessly searching the truth to find, honest confessions restore my peace of mind.
Grandma Smith
She wasn’t really my grandma but she might as well have been. She was closer to me than any of my kin. She always laughed and smiled wherever she would go, she radiated with joy from her head to her toes. She was a saint everyone knew, if you had a problem she would pray for you. When grandma smith got sick everyone cried, she had a cancerous tumor living inside. Even thru her pain her spirits stayed high. Everyone knew she would soon die. Grandma Smith knew there would soon be a day when angels would come and take her away. To be with her maker was her only desire, from praising her lord she would never retire. I’ll see you in heaven was the last thing I heard her say. Even though she is gone I’ll see her again someday.
Co-write with Travis and Sam 2
Jesus came to Nashville and he played the slide guitar on the sidewalk in the rain across from a cheesy bar. Right on the corner of Broadway and 3rd the sounds coming from his guitar you know it changed the world. That Dobro was kicking didn’t know Jesus played the blues sliding up and down while he was picking just wailing and paying his dues. and the multitude gathered seeking shelter from the rain bringing all their troubles, their sorrow and their pain some tossed him a dollar some just stood and stared some tapped their feet and clapped their hands some just didn’t care he ain’t singing about heaven just telling his story plain and true the strings was crying cuz he brother was jamming playing the blues. And those asphalt streets were flooding that rain was coming down, and we gave thanks and broke the bread and passed the joint around. The pouring rain him sing away his pain man I felt it deep in my soul the flooded street the blues backbeat was fire burning hotter than coal. The Flash burned away strings crying all night long aint no holy words to say feels so good it can’t be wrong. Some were distracted by the big city lights his words fell on empty ears some had their minds closed a little too tight somewhere led away by their peers but me I sat there digging in letting Jesus’ rain wash away my sin returning to where it all began trying hard to understand you know I wouldn’t have left if I could though the devil told me I should come to find out we were from the same town and I picked up everything he put down. The word became flesh and bone and skin and his songs came straight from the fire within and they shine like the sun so true from him to me and from me to you. The truth flowed the world went round the seventh sign was a guitar sound blaring from 3rd ave. it was gospel word and I swear it was true. Heard a slide blues player talking about pain inside. The story didn’t end on the day that Jesus died. Now he’s returned to sing the blues for all those down brothers out here paying their dues.
Co-write with Travis Matthews and Sam Wilson
I woke up this morning in someone else’s bed someone else’s thought running thru my head I wondered if I was in a dream alive or awake was it a miracle a riddle a joke or mistake. All those empty places used to hold their dreams are boarded up and vacant or is that just how it seems memories are spoken whispered on the wind I close my eyes and listen for the voice of my lost friend, now just a distant tone off a trail in my mind where has all the good gone am I ahead or somewhere behind playing strings or games trying to find the door you know they say it’s all the same until you know the score. Searching for the rhythm I somehow lost along the way tripping over the backbeat I’ve forgotten how to play those bass notes used to vibrate, steady thumping in my chest, the melody would follow along with all the rest. I woke up this morning in someone else’s song the backbeat was busy man but the melody all wrong I sure do miss her voice her gentle guiding hand can’t get around the noise shadows where I used to stand crying out in this wasteland can you hear her cry, above the noise a gentle sigh he who has ears draw nigh. Her voice whispers in the wind so soft and gentle a long lost friend. I buried her memory today in someone else’s grave under somebody else’s tombstone engraved with somebody else’s name. Holy water flowed from the mouth of the tomb the dragon was defeated and life emerged from the womb, the temple was destroyed the veil torn asunder her soul bursted forth with a great roll of thunder. Her grave clothes stripped off the stone rolled away she shines through the darkness she is the light of day. She’s life eclipsing death, a newborn babies first breath, a soft warm wind from the west a light that never rests love just as it begins to crest she’s empathy without request a mother to all children and all that’s left…
Shine Down On Me
I couldn’t sleep last night I was waiting on the sun to rise to chase away the shadows in my head, feeling lost and out of sight waiting for the morning light remembering everything you said. Through my pain you call my name through my hunger you speak to me shine down on me. The nightmare’s finally over and I’m alive and clean and sober and I finally feel at home in my own skin but sometimes my doubts confound me and tonight my fears surround me and here I am on my face again. Chorus. Sitting on my front porch high, facing towards the eastern sky praying for the Truth to set me free. Open up my blinded eyes and separate the truth from lies shine through the dark so I can see. Chorus.
Sacrements
Everything is sacred, every supper is the lords. We give thanks and break the bread and pass around the gourds. We sip our morning coffee, a holy sacrament, reflecting on the day ahead and the time that we’ve been lent. When we smoke our break-time cigarette from our tasks we unwind, just a moment of escape a chance to ease our mind. A cold beer on the front porch, chatting with a friend, sedates us from our worries a time to heal and mend. We slaughter the fattened calf, we fire up the grill, the time has come to celebrate and celebrate we will. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may die. We’re here to laugh and dance not to morn and cry. So pass it in a circle, there’s enough for everyone. Enjoy the fruits of your labor, your toil beneath the sun. Give a toast for freedom, announce the kingdom’s here, fill your hearts and bellies and leave no room for fear.
The Big Top's Coming Down.
Politics, schmolitics, and the circus is in town, the republican convention called to order by a clown. Purple clad transvestites swing on a trapeze as soldiers in fatigues fight a war overseas, all this talk of peace on earth seems like such a tease. The tightrope walker tunes out the sound of all the mass confusion coming from the ground, eyes straight ahead, focus empty head the big top’s coming down…as they pass the hat around singing about freedom as the audience is bound. The recruiters pound the streets walking up and down the beat seeking anarchist street clowns, hypnotizing dreamy starlets with the sparkles in their crowns, shimmering doubloons and empty promises of fame; it only costs your heart and soul if you want to play the game. Pick a card, assume the role as the prophesy is read, shooting star falls from heaven and awakes in the devil’s bed…and the goldfish fill their bellies as the children laugh with glee, tossing coins into the fountain they’re so alive and free. If you have a line and hook you’ll have enough to pay the fee, but does it really matter anyway? It’s never fun to have to say…The big top’s coming down.
Hero
Step outside…your cage of doubt and fear. To this world confide…who you are and why you’re here. Don’t ask them…who you where meant to be. Their eyes are dim…they’re crying out can’t you see. What we need is a hero. Someone to stand and show the way. We are the chosen generation. Let’s redefine the human race. Dispel the lies…the truth will set you free. Recognize…the light in you and me. Shining bright…for all the world to see. Chorus.
boughtatoyotashouldaboughtahonda
Whoa, shabba, boughtatoyotashouldaboughtahonda
Some call it tongues and some call it scat, it comes from your heart that’s where it’s at so let it roll.
1. Some call it the anointing pouring down like rain, some say it’s just energy, neurons firing in your brain, some say it’s the devil trying to take control. I say does it matter let’s just let it roll.
2. Let’s gather in a circle and pass it all around, drink of the spirit and make a joyful sound, you might just start to dance, you may laugh with glee, let’s break down the walls let our spirits free.
3. You don’t have to be a Christian, you don’t have to be a Jew, you don’t have to be a Buddhist, you’ve just got to be you. We’ve all got the Holy Spirit deep down inside give in to the music let it take you for a ride.
4. It ain’t about Religion, it ain’t about control it ain’t about heaven or hell but it is about your soul. No need to translate the truth we plainly see, all we need is love not apocalyptic prophesy.
5. Boughtatoyotashouldaboughtahondatheniboughtamazdashouldaboughtakia iwantthetunasaladwithbannannapeppersandpickles mypoppaalwaystoldmedonttakenowoodennickles upinrenonevadatheygotalotacasinos anddowninbougalousatheysalottamiquitos
Some call it tongues and some call it scat, it comes from your heart that’s where it’s at so let it roll.
1. Some call it the anointing pouring down like rain, some say it’s just energy, neurons firing in your brain, some say it’s the devil trying to take control. I say does it matter let’s just let it roll.
2. Let’s gather in a circle and pass it all around, drink of the spirit and make a joyful sound, you might just start to dance, you may laugh with glee, let’s break down the walls let our spirits free.
3. You don’t have to be a Christian, you don’t have to be a Jew, you don’t have to be a Buddhist, you’ve just got to be you. We’ve all got the Holy Spirit deep down inside give in to the music let it take you for a ride.
4. It ain’t about Religion, it ain’t about control it ain’t about heaven or hell but it is about your soul. No need to translate the truth we plainly see, all we need is love not apocalyptic prophesy.
5. Boughtatoyotashouldaboughtahondatheniboughtamazdashouldaboughtakia iwantthetunasaladwithbannannapeppersandpickles mypoppaalwaystoldmedonttakenowoodennickles upinrenonevadatheygotalotacasinos anddowninbougalousatheysalottamiquitos
Motel Albequerqe
This motel would be quite nice if it wasn’t for the smell… and the roaches and the bugs and the crack-heads and the thugs, and the girl working the counter, those pretentious out of towners and the local whores knocking on the door at 2 am in the morning…but other than that It’s a.o.k. it kind of reminds me of work release in jail accept the TV. doesn’t work and you don’t get any mail and the room service isn’t near as good and there isn’t any work in this neighborhood at least not the kind of work that I do…well my car got stolen from the parking lot and in the room next door somebody got shot, needless to say I didn’t get much sleep last night. I bought a bike at the pawnshop so I could get around, I got half a mind to ride on out of this town but I’m saving my pennies to catch a greyhound to anywhere but here. There’s a truck-stop next door and a bar in the lobby, the bartender’s this fat guy named Robbie, he calls everybody Kemo-sobie and the only thing the bar serves is beer. Robbie’s as stupid as stupid can be, said he slept with a hooker and got hepatitis c and I’m wondering if he gave her stupidity and I don’t know which would be worse. But I guess it aint bad for a hundred dollars a week. I do have an a.c. although it does leak, and it’s a lot better than being out on the street…but I just can’t get over that smell.
The Mockingbird's Song
I’m sitting on a hill weaving daisy chains underneath an oak tree forgetting all my pains. And the battle rages on there’s chaos all around but I won’t fight till dawn, my sword’s stuck in the ground. It will stay there planted until the truth I find because another bloody battle is raging in my mind. And somewhere in the distance I hear a battle cry and the mockingbird is singing as all around me arrows fly. I will fight for freedom, I will die to plant the seed, I will give it all for love and truth I’m not afraid to bleed and I will beat the devil. I won’t rest until he’s dead but he devil that I’m fighting is the one in my own head. So I sit here in silence my sword is in the ground, rooted like the tree that grows upon this burial mound. Ancient remains of soldiers just like you and me that fought and bled and died to set their people free. And the birds nest in the branches as I’m lying in the shade the roots grow among the bones the price the martyrs paid. As the sun set the mocking bird sang a lullaby and a heavy slumber closed my eyes under the rising moon. When I awoke under the tree at dawn I was missing a rib and a limb was gone and in the place I stuck my sword was this guitar and I strummed a chord and the chimes of freedom rang.
Revolution
These walls in my mind create darkness and confusion, my perception of separateness is merely an illusion, the only thing that separates my and God is me my fears are a damn that keeps the river from the sea, the darkness is blinding I can’t see my wealth, I’m searching for a light that shines deep inside myself . searching and searching, true love I must find it’s deep within my soul buried neath my troubled mind…who’s gonna stop these wheels in my head? They turn round and round keep me tossing in my bed oscillating cycles the hands on the clock keep turning round and round, tick tock, tick tock, the pendulum swings left then too far to the right, searching for a balance, a way to end the fight, action to reaction, extreme to extreme. Control to rebellion remove the speck and then the beam. We’re traveling in circles whether vicious or sublime, creating the reality of matter space and time, how many revolutions will we make around the sun till we see thru the illusion and realize we are one. When we see the truth the lie will disappear. When we learn to truly love there will be no death or fear. We’d rather point our fingers instead of lifting up our hands instead of singing praises we shout our demands looking for salvation in the shifting changing sands… the hourglass is tuned over once again minutes pass by and it starts all over again the same sand flows, flows so endlessly, different faces but in the end, it leads back to you and me. The path of our lives, we think we’re going somewhere, but the higher that we climb the more we wonder if it’s there. In the end we all begin, in the beginning we all end. Another revolution, it starts all over again. We run away to the west, trying to catch the sun. But we waste our time at best when we forget that we are one. They say time is all we have but we have so much more. We’re stuck in the middle looking for a door, does anybody know what all of this is for?...feel think touch be. Speak the truth and it will set you free. Flow like a river, flow to the sea. Carve the canyons as you go. Create and form the earth below. The moon pulls in the tide the sun gathers the seas for rain. Be a part of the whole or you’ll live your life in vain.sea, clouds, earth, sky, nations and tribes and you and I we’re all born to live and die, evaporate and ascend on high. Give, receive, trust, believe, fall like the rain and water the trees flow like a river flow to the seas. All of the planets revolve around the sun all of the seven seas are one. All of the nations and tribes of men we’ll all return to one again. Recognize, open up your eyes. God will part the eastern skies. He does it every day. See the sun rise he separates the truth from lies. The truth the life the way. Realize we’re a part of the whole deep inside we share the same soul keep your eyes upon the goal soon will come the day…when the trumpet calls all our idols and walls will all come crashing down and the peasants will receive a crown and kings will be ruled by their slaves, and all will know the Sun that saves when the dead rise from their graves. The meek will inherit the earth, at the end there will be a new birth. Birth to death, beginning to end, the revolution starts all over again. Oscillating cycles, the seasons and the years the days and the reasons the laughter and the tears we’ve replaced them with schedules and machines and clocks and gears the world hasn’t been turning fast enough all these years lets hit fast-forward so we don’t have to face our fears . the tower getting closer, closer to the sky, there is no more confusion we’ve replaced it with a lie, that we’ll never die as long as there’s a pill for everything and the sun won’t shine tomorrow if the alarm clock doesn’t ring and unless we write the melody the mocking bird wont sing, does anybody know what all of this is for? Everything I thought I needed I realize is just a door and it leads me back to you.
So I sit here in darkness facing towards the east with hope for tomorrow and no fear of the beast, I know that the greatest will soon become the least. If I find where it started the place it all began, I’ll find myself standing a humble little man, stripped of everything nothing in my hands and it leads me back to you. Lord illuminate my eyes, separate the truth from lies. I’m waiting on the sun to rise. Shine thru the windows of my soul.
So I sit here in darkness facing towards the east with hope for tomorrow and no fear of the beast, I know that the greatest will soon become the least. If I find where it started the place it all began, I’ll find myself standing a humble little man, stripped of everything nothing in my hands and it leads me back to you. Lord illuminate my eyes, separate the truth from lies. I’m waiting on the sun to rise. Shine thru the windows of my soul.
Get back in your cage
He said get out of my space you ain’t got anyplace and you’re going the wrong direction. You ain’t got any shoes and you look like bad news, you don’t pass my inspection. He said what’s yours is mine and if you don’t walk my line you won’t have my protection and when the Russians come they’ll kill all you bums and then hold an election. Hey, hey, hey, get back in your cage. Individual rights I’ve got you in my sights and I’m squeezing the trigger. My corporate demands are taking over the lands, my empires getting bigger. But I’ll make a fair trade when your homeland I raid and destroy your traditions, you can be free and you’ll work for me I’ll give you all positions. Hey, hey, hey, get back in your cage. My kingdom come, my will be done, I’ll give you provisions and if it tastes like shit that’s all you get, I make the decisions.
Stand, Sit, Walk
Stand on the shoulders of giants. Sit on the scare-crows head. Walk on the road less traveled and piss on the devils bed. Eat wild locusts and honey. Speak only words that are true. Laugh cuz this world is so funny. Sing whether happy or blue. Sleep under stars in the heavens. Look at the man in the moon. Live like there’s no tomorrow. Dance to the piper’s tune.
Bordertown Riff-Raff
He’s just your average border-town riff-raff thumbed a ride out of El Paso, crossed that line in the desert sand headed south where the cocaine grows. Running from child-support, bills and rent, speaking broken Spanish in a southern accent searching for a place to rest his bones. Met a senorita so young and full of life, who over a margarita he asked to be his wife and they settled down and made themselves a home. But there wasn’t enough Tequila in all of Mexico to satisfy the thirst of his parched and barren soul and once again the drifter began to roam.
Bible TImes
We’re still living in Bible times, same old stories just different rimes. Words of prophets always will last, eternal echo from times that are past, teach us to love and laugh and give, their poetry teaches us how to live. The proverbs of Solomon, the Epistles of Paul, the Psalms of David, and Samuels’ wake up call, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel to boot, Hosea married a prostitute. Poets and mad-men and prophets and sages have led us to freedom throughout the ages. The Christ and the Buddha they lived what they speak, outcasts and losers the best kind of freaks. Dylan and Marley and Johnny Cash too, God speaking thru mortals to me and to you.
The Devil Lives In Seattle
The devil lives in Seattle round the bend from city hall. I met him on a Sunday on my way to the mall. I ran over his mailbox on 666 brimstone lane. I couldn’t see where I was going on account of all the rain. I tried to drive away but I got stuck in quicksand and he came running down the driveway with a pitchfork in his hand. I tried to get out and run but my freaking door was locked, by the time I got it open I was trapped my path was blocked, I surmised the situation for an alternative route and Lucifer was screaming you stupid fool get out! I aint gonna lie I was a little bit scared and I might of turned a little pale and Satan he was pissed, he said now how am I supposed to get my mail?! I got out and looked under the truck where Satan’s mailbox laid, it was splintered into a thousand pieces what an awful mess I’d made. The bumper was bent on my Chevy and there was a quart sized dent in the hood, but right then and there I didn’t much care id’a run-off and left it if I could. Well the devil lives in Seattle round the bend from city hall, he likes the color gray and he likes to hear the raindrops fall and sometimes you can see him like a shadow on the wall, the devil lives in Seattle round the bend from city hall.
Septembers Harvest
Ripe fields of grain now worthless stubble, the towers of Babel now lie in rubble, Destruction reigns and death abounds how long Gabriel till your trumpet sounds? The wine press overflows with grapes of wrath, the locusts have invaded leaving nothing in their path. Like dawn creeping over the mountain the army has arrived, before them the garden of Eden, behind them nothing survives, shadows shifting like the moon eclipsing, darkening the sky, invading the promised land replacing truth with lies. The stench of death rises upward from the parched and barren land, the army of the locusts more numerous than grains of sand. Saints rise up triumphant prepare yourselves for war, beat your plowshares into swords be oppressed and scorned no more. Saints rise up triumphant the lord is on our side. His trumpet sounds in Zion, his strength he will provide.
Fall
I let go…and step into the darkness and I don’t know…what’s underneath my feet.
But I feel you…I feel you all around me and I’ll follow…wherever you lead me. And I’ll close my eyes…I don’t need them to see. I realize….that you live inside of me. And I will fall----fall into the arms of grace. And I will fall----looking into your face. And I will fall in love…fall in love with you. As the wind blows…the leaves in November, I will go…your spirit carries me. I see you…in the colors all around me, I feel you…so alive and free. Chorus ill be… the rain in the desert, and I’ll bring…life into this land, Consume me…consume me with your fire, and I’ll rise…and return into your hand. Chorus
But I feel you…I feel you all around me and I’ll follow…wherever you lead me. And I’ll close my eyes…I don’t need them to see. I realize….that you live inside of me. And I will fall----fall into the arms of grace. And I will fall----looking into your face. And I will fall in love…fall in love with you. As the wind blows…the leaves in November, I will go…your spirit carries me. I see you…in the colors all around me, I feel you…so alive and free. Chorus ill be… the rain in the desert, and I’ll bring…life into this land, Consume me…consume me with your fire, and I’ll rise…and return into your hand. Chorus
Struggle with "God"
Building our temples on shifting sands, longing for the garden searching for the Promised Land. Building the tower of Babel from the ruins and the stones, the walls are getting higher around this valley of dead bones, The rocks are crying out but we keep tuning them to bread, drowsy heavy slumber as we le starving though well-fed. The twelve tribes are fighting, we all struggle with God. All under the rein of one king who ruled the nations with an iron rod.
Silence
She’s that girl I always end up calling when I’m high, at two in the morning she answers with a sigh. And we talk for hours until the sun begins to rise and then we lay there in silence before we say our goodbyes…and that silence speaks so loud…she says she’s got an angel that sleeps beside her in her bed and she’s always right beside her whispers poetry in her head and sometimes in the silence she tells me what she said…and the silence speaks so loud.
Rehabilitation
Jail is a school for the criminal mind; it’s where you learn to smoke two rocks at one time. If you lock up the captives they’ll never be free. There’s another solution to this problem you see. I’m talking about killing two birds with one stone you know you can’t beat the devil alone. Rehabilitation, you’ve got to have hope. Faith can move mountains and Love can beat dope. It just takes a little, little is much, to walk on your own without using a crutch, if you’ve got another to walk side by side to lend you a hand, someone to confide. All we need is real community. Let’s all get together and fight to be free.
Rock and Roll Lost Highway
My dad always told me rock and roll’s a sin. The first song he ever taught me was stuck in Lodi again. He said if you knew three chords you could play any song ever wrote, and if listened to it close you could play it note for note. He said the music life is a dead end road, he said it was for sinners that missed the narrow road. He told me to get a job when I was living in my van. When are you gonna settle down son and start acting like a man?
Jazz
Streams of disjointed fragments of reality unrealized and all too real simultaneously. Visions, nightmares, and idle day dreams collidascope of chemical induced interpretations of reality or some vague similarity, De’javu voodoo, and taboo rendered unconscious but registered subliminally a rhyme without reason a song a symphony backbeat and melody. Bodies swaying in the breeze to the unintelligible tongues interpreted by angels whether holy or profane. Even the deaf hear, the dumb, blind and insane, it shoots thru my veins takes me to higher planes, turns the wheels and takes the reins…grooving to the ancient melody setting my soul free. Uncover your head, remove your cloak and dance naked in the street, move our hands and feet to the rhythm and the rhyme to the meter and the time, to the heart the soul the mind…that encompasses us all.
Charlie's Sandwitch Shop
Time ticks by on a Monday morning my pen end over end, foot tapping to the rhythm of jazz…steam rising from my coffee cup as the sax plays a listless melody, my heart and soul agree, my head acknowledges with a syncopated nod as the beat goes on…foot tapping time on the hard-wood floor as my day-dreaming reverie unwinds, an over-flowing reservoir of jazz… There ain’t nothing like Jazz and Jam on whole wheat for breakfast to start your Monday off right, Charlie says. He sure makes a hell of a sandwich. Nothing second rate, a little piece of heaven on a paper plate.
Home
My ears are bleeding listless melodies a pack of dogs fighting over a bone, home is that place you go to when you’re hungry, tired and alone. Familiar places friendly faces, kick off your shoes and come on in, a little piece of home is everywhere in all the places that I’ve been. What’s your name? Where are you from? I know I’ve seen your face before, some other time some other place I’ve seen your shadow on the floor. Where have you been since I saw you last? How many lives have you lived since then? Have you found the answers to the questions we used to ponder way back when?
Speechless Angel Eyes
Speechless angel eyes pleading, prying deep into my soul. She walks away into the night pausing to look back at me as I gaze longingly back at her. Space between mere distance, space between worlds away. I stand as she walks away reaching out to hold her, embrace her, grasping to embrace…nothing…I close my eyes as she disappears into the fog, and see hers in my mind’s eye pleading, prying, bleeding deep into my soul. Angel eyes they see me, angel eyes they need me, speechless gaze washing over me strips away my apathy…once again I feel, once again I breathe, once again I see…Through angel eyes.
Blow, Blow, Hurricane
She was a voodoo woman from New Orleans; he was a burnt-out hippie from Nashville, Tennessee. They met on a Friday night in Jackson Square. He’d been busking on Royal and he needed a light, she had a candle and she was such a sight, behind her Tarot card table and her card-board sign. She read him his fortune and he sang her a song, they stayed out all night long on the bank of the river sipping some home-made wine. Singing Blow, Blow Hurricane, bring on your wind and bring on your rain. Ain’t you gonna put up more of a fight. Blow, Blow hurricane I’m walking against the wind and I can’t feel no pain cuz I’m holding on to something real tonight.
Enclosed Forest
an enclosed forest littered with popcorn crumbs, dirty socks and nail clippings behind a wooden door, bottle-caps and a couple of roaches that bit my fingers the night before…Strung out pair on the window sill airing out their tongues in the winter wind, strings and holes and worn out souls a pair without a friend. Screens panes and mini-blinds strain out rays of light, bricks; mortar and ceiling tiles keep the cell airtight.
Broken Jar
Dripping and leaking reiterates the fact that I’m broken and in need of your grace to replace the tears running down my face, but even those you don’t waste. Crying and weeping because I need you more, my sobs pierce the ceiling as my knees hit the floor tears fall like rain and make a puddle beneath the door as I knock even louder, louder than before…because I need you.
Love
Love is consciousness, an awareness of the continuity and one-ness of all things. Love is the awareness that we all share an essential core that cannot be denied as the source, and root of all that is pure and sacred. The ego is unconsciousness, the illusion of separation identification with a false sense of self. The awareness of unity translates from the spiritual realm to the physical, as time, space, form and substance are no longer regarded as limited resources to be guarded and hoarded by the false self but as an abundant gift to be shared and not possessed or controlled but experienced without greed or attachment among the whole. Fear is the manifestation of the ego, it is the desire to control and possess, attempt to draw energy into itself instead of allowing the energy to flow thru freely.
Third Person Perspective
We live in a three-dimensional world where every story has at least three sides. Every argument, struggle or conflict can be broken down to one ego versus another ego. The only way to end the duality and achieve peace and harmony is to recover the lost dimension of the 3rd Person Perspective. The ascent to this perspective necessitates complete transcendence of the ego (which is the cause of the conflict in the first place) and detachment from the struggle (so as not to be personally identified with either side) in order to rise above ego-consciousness into an awareness of the Whole, eliminating the notions of "us" and "them." If we only had eyes to see from the 3rd Person Perspective we would live in Peace with our fellow Beings. Love is Understanding. Ego is the evil of humankind. The desire to seduce, destroy, and re-create his environment and peers into his own image to manipulate and use for his own intents and purposes, the constant struggle for control and superiority is the evil, sinful nature of man. Pride is a disease, a demonic insanity that possesses an individual to place his throne above God's, his own self interest, beliefs and convictions above Love which is equality in the midst, the center of relationship, community, compassion and understanding. Pride disrupts the perfect order and balance of Love by elevating itself above the sacred circle, using fear and manipulation to impose its false authority on its fellow Beings. The time has come for us and them to forsake all ego-centric power, to over throw the tyrant of Pride that has governed our lands, our minds, and even our hearts. At all cost we have to transcend our own ego's and the systems of hierarchical control that have divided us into "us" and "them" and rise above our religions, races, nationalism, class differentiations, and realize that we are One. The only thing separating ourselves from each other is our egos.
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