Roll My Stone Away

ain’t no sunshine through the window

ain’t no grass beneath the trees

they got no leaves on their branches

sitting by the window taking chances.

my breath upon the glass

your image makes it past, by automobile

snow tires on for wheels.

no footprints through the winter

no hand knockin’ at my door

I’ve called your voicemail before,

wasted my time to hear your sound

scatters the silence

a tactical violence.

you always find the right place to hit me

and I always fall apart.

All the men and the horses

couldn’t gather your remorses,

I’m just a man in a cave

can’t roll my stone away

can’t roll my stone away

Love Song

Let us go then, you and I

before we stop and watch the sky,

like paranoid xenophobes who believe in Cable.

Let us go, through alarmist 20/20 stories

and try to reclaim certain past half-glories

of knock-off Hilton Hotels,

and Gulf-coast restaurants with oil shells.

Stories that forecast a terrible financial year

and holiday toys that generate fear...

to confront new parents with overwhelming questions,

“Is my child safe at all?”

Oh do not ask and ignore the war

just close your eyes and walk to the store.

The paranoia that haunts the people behind closed window panes,

The paranoia that yells at the television behind the closed window panes.

Licked its tongue into the ears of each new generation

lingered in the service help on airplanes and trains,

let sink into the offspring, the words that fall from the mouths of parents,

slipping past the public schools, shouted out loud multiple times,

and seeing it was a monday morning, ran from the back of the yard

to the bottom of the pool and fell asleep.

And there has been plenty of time

for the paranoia that pushes on the window panes

and creeps along the street.

there has been plenty of time to plot your bombs for the faces that you hate.

and time to murder and time to flee

plenty of time to take my life from me.

And time for all the hatred of the quiet hours

to rise and fall and break your plate,

time for felling trees and salting earth

and yet no time for peace or regret

but for another pause to place a bet

before the rapping of you and me.

From the rooms the call girls come and go,

collecting unemployment, though.

And there will be time to wonder about the answer for the cancer.

But no strength to turn back and ascend the stair,

with chemo thinning my head of hair.

They will say, “Oh my how he’s getting thin,” and

“Can’t believe he thinks he’s still gonna win.”

My morning jacket, straight, and locked, the IV

in my trigger hand cocked.

Do I dare

disturb the nurse?

            With each minute passing there is time

            to witness all my progress slowly reverse.

For I have known them all, already

all the scars and scrapes and burns.

I have measured out my life waiting for my turn.

I know the voices in the bathroom mirror

lying beneath the visions of a smile in a picture,

painted a while back, but becoming clearer.

And I have known the prizes already, known them all -

prizes on which we fix our narrow gaze,

and when I am blind and repeating all the words, them all.

When I am kneeling before the toilet in a bathroom stall,

then where should I begin,

to clean up the upchucked entrails of all my meals,

perhaps by chasing individual dreams on wheels.

And I have known the arms already, known them all -

arms nuclear, biological or concealed

(but in certain circles tight, as plain as light)

Is it briefing the press

that makes me so digress?

Arms that get marched along the street, in the cold war heat,

that bloom red and orange flashes on the screen.

            And then did you see it?

            And how long can it be?

Shall I say, that I have gone to war with love in my heart

and simply shined my shoes and played my part?

I should have left my gun beside my head

and shattered the silence of the neighbours’ bed.

And the afternoons, the evenings interrupted violently

smoothed over by politics

blanketed with stars and stripes

closed casket lays in state, in front of you and me.

Should I, after the generals, the press, the public and the flowers,

send lady Justice to feast on military powers?

From the rooms the call girls come and go,

collecting unemployment, though.

But though I have searched and asked and questioned and prayed,

and seen the lives of peasants falsely portrayed -

I am no hero - and there is no great platter.

I have seen the crystal ball of our future shatter,

and I have seen the committee act out charades

and in short, I was betrayed.

 And would it have been profitable at all,

after the wars, the famines, the killer bee.

Living underneath mosquito nets and pricing antidotes for you and me.

Would it have been worth it

to have scarred the face that wears a smile

to blow giant radioactive holes in the universe

and fill them with questions, removed, dismantled and buried.

To say: “I survived, but I feel as though I died. Come back to tell you the soothsayer lied.”

No note left behind to say,

“that is not what I meant at all, not at all.”

NO! I am not a savior, nor was meant to be.

I am a servant, one that was made to

disrupt the food supply, slow the progress of you.

Advise the Prime Minister, no doubt an ignorant fool.

Bound and gagged and forced into use,

segregated, exploited, no statue to get loose.

I grow old, I grow old,

I shall lose my CPP to corporate mould.

Shall I use the rest of my conscience to flee

I shall go AWOL and make my speeches free.

I shall show you where my brothers died upon the beach,

I still hear them screaming each to each.

They do not think I will scream for them.

I have seen them riding in planes as silent as the clouds

climbing through blue skies painted black.

When prevailing winds blow orange flames across my back.

We have lingered long in forgotten pages

of our diary, 

until human hands grab us and set us free.