Tag Archives: ignorance

Stupid War

The first draft of this song dates from 1975, when I was ten years old. I subsequently revised it in about 1985.

I read in the papers ’bout the war today:
we’re going to die from an overdose of moral decay.
Whether you’re down and out and hopeless, or you’re fueled by sin and greed,
seems you can’t join the human race until you’ve proven you can bleed.

It’s an overthrow by apathy, and by hypocrisy;
you don’t have to learn to live, just watch it on TV.
Once you’ve proven you know nothing, you can think you know it all;
you can keep up with the Joneses when their bridges start to fall.

We were all born into battle; there’s no need to enlist anymore,
doesn’t matter who we’re fighting, it’s just another stupid war.

I saw it on the news: we’re all going to Hell,
but I’ve seen the new fall previews, so I guess it’s just as well.
If you need a buck to give a damn, throw your money in the trash;
remember, God will pick your pocket if he really needs the cash.

It’s an overdose of oversight, we’re overrun by vanity
you don’t have to learn to take responsibility
Once you’ve focused on your enemy, your mission is half done
you can laugh at all the losers who have got much smaller guns

It’s supposed to make some difference that our side has something worth fighting for
but it really doesn’t matter, because it’s another stupid war.

I saw it on a billboard: they’ve put Heaven up for lease;
twelve forgivens for a dollar if you buy eight more, at least.
If you’ve given up on trying, or are still going for the win,
know pretending to be stupid is the only cardinal sin.

And I don’t remember just what we’re supposed to be fighting for
but it doesn’t really matter, it’s just another stupid war.

1975, 1985

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On Bards of Old

Did bards of old, I wonder, ever tire
of rooting through their souls for a new verse
in order to instruct, praise or inspire
through their connection with the universe,
and after twenty years of “learn by rote”,
requiring mastery of form and feel,
the skill to recognize a tune by note,
a repertoire to make the senses reel,
and knowledge of the history and lore,
not only of their clan, but the whole world,
while at the beck and call of some great lord
who nine times out of ten, was partly churl,
requiring curses cast against their foes
or songs of praise to elevate their fame?
How often did a bard observe a rose
for just its fragrance, not speaking its name?

And when a verse or two was shared between
a group of bards that met along the road,
how often did the conversation lean
to simple things, not meter, rhyme and code?
I wonder if the burden that they shared,
the weight of culture’s future on their tongues,
was often thought a curse, even compared
unfavorably to being deaf and dumb?

They say the pen is greater than the sword,
that eloquence breaks down more doors than steel;
how treacherous that makes a life where words
are just as precious as true love, or meals.
Let modern poets suffer for their art,
imagining their angst so great and pure;
where their woe ends, the bard’s task only starts,
and leads where few may travel, or endure.
Those bards of old are gone, some may declare;
Their arts? Anachronistic and no use.
So few remain who act as if they care,
and on the struggling poet, heap abuse.
Did bards of old, I wonder, ever think
to give up, knowing that their audience,
who when given ambrosial words to drink,
gained neither wisdom or experience?

04 MAY 2005

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Intimations of Idiocy

From early childhood until now I’ve spent my life immersed
in earnest pantomime of games adults will feign to play:
the forging of relationships through love, business and war;
the chaos that somehow surprises all when facades fail
and underneath, our lack of understanding is revealed.

In retrospect, it seems so pointless that this grand charade
we call adulthood is but one more round of hide-and-seek;
and now, on different playgrounds, the same bullies still parade,
hiding their shame and fear behind bravado that relies
on hurting and belittling those who would disagree.

And love? We still believe in it: ideal, without the strings
that in our adolescence, even, we could plainly see,
some fantasy played out in Greek mythology
that culture’s constant shuffle classes second-rate
compared to the technology of modern, improved angst.

So now we watch, our brainwaves dulled to sleep
except when from banal, idyllic states
it is required that we produce or purchase
to keep the dream machine well-oiled and financed;
in such an embryonic state, we all wait to mature.

From early childhood until now, I’ve been told meaning waits
around the bend, a few short years beyond where I am now;
but every month that passes by exposes those who preach
this gospel as just more blind fools who like me, search in vain
for dreams that will not simply fade as we approach the light.

01 MAY 2005

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The Loss of Art in School

There is no good in writing it,
for no one cares to read;
no point in baking word-filled pies,
there’s no one here to feed.

There is no point in singing it,
for we have all gone deaf;
besides, no one remains who knows
a bass from treble clef.

There is no worth in painting,
for we’re all as good as blind,
and tend to favor style and flair
instead of good design.

There is no use in playing;
Why not sample? Why waste time?
Those who can tell the difference
are but few and quite sublime.

There is no good in writing it,
except to help preserve
a history beyond these times
that poetry deserves.

There is no point in singing it
except to save the voice
so in some future silence
those who wish, will have a choice.

There is no worth in painting,
save to safeguard fading skills
against the simple, quick and cheap.
If you don’t, no one will.

There is no use in playing
except that future museums
will not know about instruments
if all you can do is see them.

28 APR 2005

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When They Come for Us, Who Will Protest?

Against such foes as ignorance and greed
what good are merely human flesh and bone?
In which fierce battles waged to rule the soul
of a proud nation shall the victor be
its best and brightest minds, its stoutest hearts,
when fear and rank injustice swell the rolls
of those conscripted soldiers armed and aimed
by puppetmasters who would work unseen?

If in such times as these, the few who sense
a wrongness in the aims of governance,
instead of crying out are meek and mute,
what hope have those blind masses, huddled there
for warmth in the great blanket of deceit?
If those with minds still clear give little thought
save for their small domains and precious selves,
what hope have they when their turn comes to pass?

When poison finds the bloodstream, all is lost;
there is no purpose then to treat the wound.
Once tainted, can a cause that once was pure
be ever cleaned again of evil stains?
The names of gods, if used to claim the world,
unless they touch more than the tongues they loose,
become pale, haggard shadows of what truth
they may have once possessed, and are no more.

If what we do not exercise, we lose,
reduced to merely wisps of once brave words,
then what good are proud speeches or parades
except to eulogize the selves we’ve lost?
What point in our lamenting the forged chains
that by our apathy we choose to wear,
and through our lack of action help to build
a prison we were told was not for us?

How loud do we protest the slightest thing
that limits our convenience and our ease,
yet quietly accept far greater ills
that jeopardize our prized integrity?
We guard against the slow, menacing creep
of some imagined danger with such pomp,
yet when the wolf, well-dressed, knocks at the door.
we smile and offer him our favorite seat.

What hypocrites we are; what grand buffoons!
To think we find ourselves somehow evolved,
and self-possessed with intellect and poise
equipped to teach the other fellow truth.
No wonder half the world begins to laugh
when as the grand messiah we approach;
while huddled in our shadow, the rest wait
for hubris to collect its karmic toll.

07 MAR 2005

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Stirring the Pot, Part 2

As if the little things were not enough:
those trivialities that chafe and burn
like tinder when it’s dried and raspy rough,
that seem so insignificant you spurn

the notion that beyond them is the truth.
It’s just that they are countless, and to try
to sweep them each aside is of no use;
for each one sings its own sweet lullaby

to soothe you back to sleep, where you have been
up to this point content to never mind.
Yet try to shut them out; you’ll find their claws

sunk deep into your psyche. You will dream
of ways to satiate their greed, and find
they hound you without mercy, grace or pause.

05 JAN 2005

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On Auspicious Times

I wonder at the most auspicious times
that by some random system are proclaimed
and why those correspondences we find
ourselves at odds with should take all the blame

The moon, for instance, in its wane and wax;
The seasons, as they go and come again;
The numerals assigned like colored tacks
to calendars devised by human brains,

As if in the whole world mankind’s belief
about the way the universe is made
means anything at all to a small leaf
or changes how it perceives light and shade.

I wonder how the world devoid of man
survived through countless eons and evolved
without the logic only we command,
and managed, with its riddles yet unsolved.

I ask the mockingbird to state its case
for choosing the best moment to proceed,
and swear I see a smile upon its face
that seems to say, “Why don’t you learn to read

a book that needs no glossy title page,
that promises no esoteric lore,
that will not guarantee you center stage,
but may instruct you nonetheless, in more

than what you think important, or germaine?
What book, you ask, contains such heady stuff?
The book of life, that you seem to distain;
but against which, your knowledge is mere fluff.”

I wonder at the most auspicious times
that by some special school are found and named.
It is no wonder that we act so blind.
That we think we have knowledge is to blame.

17 AUG 2004

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