Goodnight Rosebud - 2006
The Back of My Mind
Could it be I was mistaken?
Am I no different than anyone else?
Now from a dream to awaken
With the questions ahead of what I will find
These are the thoughts
Lost in the back of my mind.
And who can I be if I want to?
Is it as easy as frames on a wall?
How many prisms to bend through
To hear where I belong and what I don't know?
How long can I wait
Beneath where my currency grows?
Mid after night
Swing after miss
Chalk can wash away
I used to be the top of the list
The hero in the play.
Maybe I'll end up in history
And maybe they'll write many books about me
The future is solving a mystery
With the questions ahead of what I will find
These are the thoughts
Lost in the back of my mind.
Could it be I was mistaken?
Is being different the same in itself?
Now any reverie forsaken
With the answers ahead of what I will find
These are the thoughts lost in the back of my mind.
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Outside Looking Out
Bread and butter
Boy next door to you
But he left bigger footsteps almost as a rule
He don't want no
Corporate sponsorship
And he don't see no picket fence or swimming pool
It ain't your mother's route
Lives on the outside looking out
But take your sympathy and put it in the bank
We're all privates in the army but he'll never hold a rank
He's the freight that pushes forward when the tugboat has its doubts
Don't forget who you'll remember on the outside looking out.
He won't buy diamonds
Don't drive status symbol
Won't join country club
And don't run nobody's PTA
He makes decisions for selfless reasons
But that's 'cause he don't care what it is you have to say
It ain't your mother's route
Lives on the outside looking out
Tender saplings
Perfect spacing
Café Latte
In the park
Electric fountains
Pretty pennies
Pocket poodles
Little dancing monkeys in the frozen dinner aisle.
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Geometries
When the morning was drawn from its palette
What did its signature reveal?
The paint has dried
Dust covers ages
What might the curtain still conceal?
Can lives be of consequence without a sum
And can we know the seedling before the harvest comes
Are there ways of doing that are destined to be done?
Show me more
In numbers, in words
The frequencies beyond our eyes
The order from absurd
The cadence beneath the rhyme
We have known through every time
Forever in our minds.
In the detail of one flying snowflake
Is there a blueprint for the storm?
Can the choices of one cold statistic
Overthrow the power of the form?
And have we yet to realize that the world we walk is round
Can we find dimension in direction still unfound
Is every revolution a move to higher ground?
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The Time Must Come
Once upon a night
Boys were made as men
Filmed in black and white
Now the breaking mold
Stands to be believed
Loosening your hold
And can your faith begin to hear
A message spoken clear
Without the demons you were always sold?
Well it's alright, there's no need to worry
I can wait all night, I'm not in a hurry
And I'll be here when the day begins tomorrow
And I'll know fear is a wall that ages hollow
It's best to lead and not be forced to follow
Face the sun
The time must come
The time must come
Lay down your guns
No matter what is done
The time must come.
Still choosing to ignore
This is what you're asking for
It wasn't I who triggered this alarm
Well it's alright, there's no need to worry
I can wait all night, I'm not in a hurry
And I'll be here when the day begins tomorrow
And I'll know fear is a wall that ages hollow
It's best to lead and not be forced to follow
Face your son
The time must come
The time must come
Lay down your guns
No matter what is done
The time must come
The time must come
Concede its drum
The time must come
Lay down your guns
No matter what is done
The time must come.
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Halloween
Children made older and older made young
Peasants unseating their king
Even the trees have undone what's been done
Losing the bounty of spring
And we inside our ivy gates
Trains to catch, getting late
Colors awash in the moonlight
Roaming the sidewalks of which used to be
The only not out of our sight
Over and under between here and there
Locked away safe on the wind
Wander the choices of who we've become
Ending back where they begin.
Scattered in pieces of every which way
Hidden in attics of thought
Lie the remains of the let come what may
The scars of battles once fought
And now the hands read something new
Between the seconds overdue
Filling in every footstep
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Waves
We couldn't tell if she saw that he was gone
But surely something in her must have known
She had a will that could rise at every dawn
A strength that could have carried on alone
But the moons were changing
And she'd done her time
And she was ready to go home
So many years he had been there by her side
With nothing but the kindest words to say
When she grew weak he was there to be her guide
And wouldn't want it any other way
And as she was fading
He could help her smile
Until he had to go away
Though the house lies bare and there's no one sleeping there
They are standing in the waves again.
For decades gone they had never been apart
As generations rose up from their hands
Along the shore, they became an island's heart
As common as the seagulls and the sand
And I grew up slowly
Just in time to feel
What so many understand
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What's So Bad?
She says, "What's so bad about loving me?
I've come so close to making you happy
So what are you waiting for?"
And she says, "What's so good about being alone?
These mistakes are what you are prone to
When you get so close to the place
You've been for so long
Singing your tears and crying yours songs
"Hey, I'm waiting here ready to go
Is there something I just don't know?
Explain to me:
What's so bad about loving me?"
She says, "What's so bad about trying again?
It's not a question of if but when
So why would you waste your time?"
And she says, "What's so good about staying inside?
Just how long were you planning on hiding
Until everybody knows you're as tough as a soft-shell crab
Saving the gold to pay for your tab
"Hey, I'm waiting here ready to go
Is there something I just don't know?
Explain to me:
What's so bad about loving me?"
Why not wait another day or month or year?
It's not like I will ever disappear.
"Because there's only so many grains in the glass
Many to go, but moving too fast
"Hey, I'm waiting here ready to go
Is there something I just don't know?
Explain to me:
What's so bad about loving me?"
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Untouchable
Untouchable by any change of season
On her throne so deep within my mind
She remains the ghost I always will believe in
In spite of all the science you can show
Untouchable by the appeal for reason
On my sleeve but never with a sound
You have asked me why, but I can not explain it
You believe the truth that never can compare
Long, long ago
When holy was real
There was a she truly to feel
No not the same as stories may say
But stories won't take her away
Pictures adrift, forgotten notes and tokens
Are the last of clues that still survive
They may tell a tale
But never can the make one
They will only be as I wish to perceive
No not the same as stories may say
But stories won't take her away
Untouchable now, just as much as ever
She is the sea that everyone must sail
To my final words, through every awkward meeting
She will always be the way that she was left:
Untouchable.
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For a Child
Overblessed in overture and over any standard
Running with a jar so he could catch a flying flame
Responsible for being irresponsible
In orbit all about himself
And that's expected when he's growing from inside
But it would creep into the silence where he'd hide
Underwhelmed and underpaid but under true pretenses
Working through the morning as a clown for cigarettes
So many postcards of the way his life would be
Stored neatly in a pillowcase
So as the water leaked like blood upon the floor
He saw disease infecting something that was pure
And the camera zooms in like a bird of prey
Please don't ask this boy to be
To be
To be alive
To be man
To be the clay from other hands
To be regrets
To be on trial
To be receipts within a file
To be the father for a child.
He was still a year or more from ending this recession
He was still a wish or more from living with himself
And he was like a statue caught in acid rain
He would not catch this flame again
So when she told him that the smoke was only steam
She told him soon is always closer than you dream
And the camera zooms out like a morning dove
Please don't ask this boy to be
To be
To be alive
To be a man
To be the clay from other hands
To be regrets
To be on trial
To be receipts within a file
To be the father for a child.
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