Songs

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Drum Tracks

Please feel free to download and compose to my rhythms. If you do, please properly credit me as follows, ‘Dodi on drums’. Also, send me what you’ve written. My email is dsiegel9696@gmail.com. I’d love to hear it.

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Song Lyrics

  • 1st of November
  • The first of November and you and I
    And all that is and will ever be
    Remember what you said and you wonder why
    Rivers always run to the sea

    Where else do you want them to go
    Who else do you want me to be
    The shadow of someone I don’t know
    Standing right in front of me

    The first of November and you and I
    Times winged ship sailed away
    Through a hole in the sky
    Taking all there was left to say

    And silent despair
    Hangs heavy in the air
    Calling out the future with lies
    The wisdom weary voice never dies

    The deaf tyranny of fate
    Reason behind hate
    Fifteen years ago
    Before
    Before I judge
    Before I dream
    Before

    Solo

    Where else do you want me to go
    Who else do you want me to be
    Love beyond and echoes below
    The seasons of our destiny

    1st of November has come and gone
    And you and I
    And time moving on
    And truth we cannot deny

    And voices of the past
    And visions seldom seen
    I thought our love would last
    It might have been a dream

    I’m free

  • 3 Photographs
  • Photograph in three positions, tabla, conga, djembe from that Haitian shaman played in Bookman’s choir
    Rhythm run like Sangare in Central Park that very day and that night in the village and the brotherhood on fire
    Sat in sweating letting go of everything
    Rhythm from the spirit when the choir starts to sing
    New York sinful sheltered weight of lonely slowly melting… boundaries dissolving and the drummers kept on drumming
    Drumming in the fifth dimension deep inside the city
    Feed upon the energy of everybody
    The djembe sounding alive in me
    Like it was meant to be
    Take the djeme home and use it well
    Morning breaking over new york and the drumming circle
    And the years and transformation
    Imagination at the deepest level

    Playing and praying and going with eyes closed… 20 years ago… 32
    Playing tabla with Narandar and Lal Singh in the window of the Star of Katmandu
    The only levi to have made the sound
    6th street where they serve you underground
    lost inside the tin-tal with my tabla brother Lal while the serod spread the melody around

    drumming as a way of life… flowing… growing… going to the studio to justify the day
    a thousand reasons to escape the weight of limitation let imagination play the pain away
    pain transforming into energy
    energy becoming destiny
    destiny another word like sacrifice and someday and maybe it will but who can say
    one thing that seems relatively true
    pulling into main street station looking for a rhyme
    what else was I ever meant to do
    all roads leading to this point in time

    tabla
    conga
    djembe
    3 photographs
    music made by a desperate man
    sunlight
    rhythm
    shadows
    everything
    purify my soul if I can

    20 years on a magic night in Chelsea and the music of the world filled the city
    over time and a calling and obsession forged by insecurity
    the many becoming one… the moon receives its light from the sun… I am made of the two lights
    and the rhythms that flow between eternities that rest among the echoes waiting for a song

    could be anything
    angels start to sing
    the sound of drumming
    of creation
    Listened and I heard
    Music and the word
    Beethoven to Bird
    My inspiration
    Writing underground
    Searching for the sound
    No one around
    But my shadow
    Working on this song
    Right where I belong
    Right or maybe wrong
    But I don’t think so

    Right here… right now… listen… listen… someone… someone

    Photograph in 3 positions back into the gallery to live among the images created from a history of dreams and insecurity and work and some ability… it’s all about the journey I’m still on

    Fixed ideas of future and center resolve
    Zoe growing slowly as the planets revolve
    Swinging from a rainbow wild and free
    It’s all about the journey

  • 4 Agreements
  • Looking for signs
    In the smallest things
    A living alchemy
    Like living in the city

    So many conflicting voices
    Silence above the echoing
    If you dance with the devil, you’ll never hear the angels sing

    Imagine my life without fear of judgment
    Of taking risks… of falling down
    It seems pretty clear
    And all the drama
    Coming back to the center
    This is how it sounds

    The art of transformation
    The second attention
    The four agreements
    Toltec wisdom
    Be true to your word
    Don’t take anything personally
    Don’t make assumptions
    Always do your best

    A righteous man was told he was a sinner
    Just so someone else could take control
    He believed the truth would prevail
    But truth is like the eye of a hurricane

  • 7 Stone Hearts
  • took 2 years to gather the stones
    7 stone hearts the sound carved
    made a frame of weathered wood
    hung it on the wall
    now it’s underground
    treasure in the lost and found
    didn’t fit the plan
    I’ll try to be a better man

    I’m looking at it right now
    and I see what you don’t
    you want to but you won’t
    7 hearts of stone

    every once in a while
    the while becoming wider
    stone hearts thru the center
    like yesterday

    but one man’s yesterday is another man’s forever

    I think about my brother
    disliked one another
    that’s the way it goes

    each day a new beginning
    losing and winning
    the rhythm sets me free
    the tao of fate and fantasy
    fear of the unknown
    7 hearts of stone

    i’m looking at them right now
    the 8th was worth the waiting
    the magic of creating
    7 hearts of stone

  • A Jamaican Tale
  • Sanctuary about the size of yesterday
    Never thought, but I’m not surprised it turned out this way… it’s the only way
    Never saw eight rivers or the fire burning down into darkness
    Both sides of my life on a beach in paradise and it’s serious
    Could have been an angel laying tells upon my history
    Could have been my last breath in a reggae tragedy
    Now I’m back in New York with a twist of fate behind me
    Another turn of fortune to accept ‘cause it was meant to be

    Not too far until the time is right
    A deeper level where darkness turns to light
    Remember what the great Lalane had to say
    The runner too but in a different way

    Now they’re gone
    The word lives on
    So do I
    Gonna get to where I’m going
    I can’t deny
    Or wonder why
    Or get too high
    That’s just asking for trouble

    Too many hours with a heart of shattered glass
    Whisper prayers of memory and it doesn’t pass
    Wake up tangled in wires and still far gone
    Try to get myself together and go on
    And I got the old woman laid to waste
    Time and nature’s calling and demons that we faced
    Even what this thing was all about

    Or that right off northern that almost took me out

    The shades of night fall fast
    The future becomes the past
    As all rivers run
    Many becoming one

    And in the end we’re back where we began
    Tomorrow wait for me

  • According to the Journal of Albion Moonlight
  • According to the journal of Albion Moonlight
    Savior walked thru the senseless slaughter witness to the chaos of his weary soul
    The sceptered night… A different world… The temples burn… How could we
    Savior too and he knew the way the world was made

    According to the journal of Albion Moonlight
    Golden archer sold his arrows to the highest bidder
    And go too far
    And lose himself
    And cast the net beyond
    And recreate
    And stop the war
    And redeem the world

    Because he can
    Because he must
    Because the name
    Because the trust
    Because of you
    Because this time
    Because faith is cruel when blind

    According to the journal of Albion Moonlight
    Buildings have all fallen like shattered dreams
    And the children among the ruins like it was meant to be

    That maybe true… but this is no time
    They’ll kill you too and steal the thunder
    Now they’re calling it jihad
    Lambs to the slaughter

    Savior down an unknown road
    Stops to light a cigarette
    Thought he heard a voice, but no
    The world had not been remade yet

    There may have been a time
    Before the savior showed his hand
    When love but for the lie
    Upon the remembered earth we stand
    At mortal wars we fight
    In the journal of Moonlight defend
    What happened to first light
    Have we finally reached the end

    According to the journal of Albion Moonlight
    When there is no longer reason to have faith, thus begins nobility

  • Against The Day
  • and the rhythm of the riders… of the borderline
    the voice of benediction… red blood, pure mind
    legends were foretold… and forgotten
    children of the darkness become the wind
    God across the table laying tells with a mighty hand
    a trembling apparition casting his net upon invisible rivers

    protected by the natural order
    every thought a declaration
    down the road to perdition… listen
    listen to the silver laughter
    looking at a broken mirror
    and the flow of time… elevated into high grace

    eternally
    returning to
    continually reborn
    ourselves alone

    what of a city known to abandon its poor
    sunshine, you’re on your own
    then come the riders of the borderline
    the white riders
    from the fire
    gesture us toward our fate
    like the dim blessed coming home

    a secret history
    wrapped in the nature of time
    against the day of judgment
    heaven and earth are reserved unto fire
    thus the riders
    ascending in a long departure of light
    as they pass thru the prophets gate
    seeking shelter under sacramental skies
    valor forged by desperation
    the white riders call the fallen to arise

    red blood pure mind
    allegiance to their limits
    all the incarnation and the slaughter… in the silence

    reenact the cycles of betrayal
    the riders’ ungrateful ghost passing judgment
    God has turned a blind eye
    toward the pale phantoms vanishing behind the mirror

    with a knowledge beyond light

  • An Obscure Intuition
  • An obscure intuition
    Believe the unexpected reason
    Finding the answers
    Pass thru the layers caught in a dream
    Our spirit free
    Every now and then a memory
    The meaning isn’t always what it seems
    A wish long denied
    Somewhere our needs are satisfied

    For the order the truth provides
    The journey inside
    The soul a far country
    The prophet suffers for his prophesies

    The deepest layers of the mind
    Like second sight to the blind
    Give words to sorrow
    And wear away the misery
    To be free
    Meaning
    Returning
    The shield of innocence
    And dreams from long ago
    Still denied
    Become rings
    Golden rings
    One more time around
    And then need
    Becomes greed
    And it’s everyone for themselves

    The three fires still burning
    And the world keeps on turning
    The unexpected truth

    Myths and taboos reshape our fate
    A destiny we create

    In the garden of Eden we learned
    When we play with fire we’re gonna get burned
    Human nature
    The forces of the mind
    Dynamic… rising
    Sometimes falling

    Impulses seeking satisfaction
    Unconscious resolve once satisfied
    What did Joshua find in Canaan
    Order only nature could provide

    And obscure intuition
    About the fight against the devil and disease

  • Antique Heroes
  • Like the Great Blondin across the falls
    But you feel your center
    You wave to the crowd
    ‘cause you know why they came
    Blondin bending rules like a yogi
    Everything according to the laws of reason
    Subdivide the world one footstep at a time
    Feel the balance carefully
    Don’t end up like Steven Peer
    Thought he was immortal
    It’s all a rum go, isn’t it
    Up until the long way down

    Balancing… Knowing… when the time was right
    Carried Harry on his back and he kept on going
    Then he said goodnight

    How are they gonna write your history
    He bet against himself and won

    The Great Blondin inside crystal walls
    Feel the balance like the moon and tide
    The Price of Wales was on his feet, delighted
    Each footstep falling like suicide

    Then there’s John the American icon
    Five to six packs a day
    And the last few drags of every cigarette
    Taking all he can get before he throws it away
    Blondin played it straight
    Wasn’t tempting fate
    Maybe pushed the boundaries a little
    Showed the world a new frontier

    To see the world thru Duke’s eyes
    Before and after the turn
    The whole point of view… you learn

    Though real our love, you who are what men are made of
    A little bit of trouble and a little bit of innocence
    A little bit of rising… a little bit of falling
    You can go pretty far before you’ve gone too far

  • Backwoods Jupiter
  • There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we might
    Let every lover of liberty swear by the blood of what is right
    Let every well-wisher to his prosperity submit to the declaration
    Let it become the political religion of our sovereign nation
    Let not our proud fabric of freedom become endangered by passion’s hold
    The jealousy, envy and avarice, incident of a darker soul
    Build a new temple of liberty not resting on custom and emotion
    But carved from the solid quarry of sober reason and devotion

    Let us share the privileges of government
    And assist in sharing its burdens

    The irony of men and women being sold
    The value of a life measured in gold
    Seven blocks from the capitol awaiting their fate
    While those in power denied the truth and upheld the choice of each state

    The repeal of the Missouri compromise
    To extend slavery where the eagle flies
    What moral right for one to own another
    The political landscape was ripping apart with brother fighting against brother

    Right and wrong standing face to face
    The right of kings against a state of grace
    Let past differences as nothing be
    The equality of men is the central idea upon which we all must agree

    The union must be preserved
    Now and forever
    And the cause of civil liberty
    And the vows we have taken

    The sovereignty doctrine is as thin as the shadow of its reason
    The north will be preached into rebellion against the cause of such treason
    Neither let us be slandered from duty by false accusation
    Nor frightened by menace of destruction… nor of dungeons to ourselves

    To make concessions to the rebel cause
    Is like the lion who agreed to cut his claws
    Because the parents of his beloved were afraid
    Once his strength was compromised they killed him where he laid

    Those who seek no sign shall come to light
    Revolution is a moral right
    Without such cause it is a wicked exercise
    To be fought against and defeated by the righteous and the wise

    No state can secede without consent
    The machine must be run by the elected government
    No grievance to warrant this campaign
    The first shot established southern blame

    The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield
    To every living heart all over this broad land
    Yet will swell with the chorus of the union when again touched
    As surely they will be… by the better angels of our nature

    And if we are defeated, we’ll fall back and mourn our dead
    And wait until the morning light and once again charge ahead

    It brings to mind the fellow who asked for an appointment of minister abroad… and finding he could not get that, came down to some more modest position… finally he asked to be a tide waiter, but not even that could he get… so he asked if there wasn’t an old pair of trousers, and thanked god the union was one… but it was good to be humble

  • Balance
  • Looking for the rapture in a world defined by opposite extremes… and broken signals in between
    The song, the law, the lies, a thousand words to write and memorize…
    All of the attention like some gospel choir quick-fire jamboree… eve of judgment day
    One time down the center, next one with more balanced energy… like the poet used to say

    Desire without balance is incomplete… want begetting want
    Mercy without balance is weakness… the will burning down into darkness
    Ambition without balance is selfishness… goals forever unattained
    Reason without balance is madness… the faithless depth of the soul

    Because the falling star never made it home
    Because the narrow death has widened the world
    Because the city is what we will it to be
    Because you can live in a past that never was

    I was riding on the 1 train one afternoon
    Heard this guy talking about the left hand of the arc
    Who was the left hand of the arc
    Wasn’t that the one who prepared the way to the celestial light
    Set the balance in dreamtime and then tripped the wire
    Be my mind open to the higher
    Be my heart the center of the light
    Be my soul of equal measure
    Perfected by the four orders of nature
    Be my body the temple of the inner plane
    Prayers so loud you can hear them on the far side of the horizon
    But the poet warned about living upon hope… you can die of hunger
    And that ain’t satyagraha… nothing higher about it

    Who am I to pass judgment
    The way I feel is the way you feel
    Projecting hope and insecurity
    All I see is my reflection
    Less looking and more doing
    Looking didn’t build the pyramids
    Looking can’t offer guarantees
    The only guarantees are the changes

    Rapture found me singing out of tune in an absorbing landscape… on a Saturday night
    The words had all been written without measuring the endless road
    Road leading back to the take me to the river jamboree… in the pale moonlight
    One by one our present days come looking for that balanced energy

    Prayer without balance is fear… all hope denied
    Love without balance is confusion… a broken mirror
    Nature without balance fails… a prelude to war
    Faith without balance is blindness… the game of false prophets

    Back on the 1 Train later that day
    Same guy shouting sermons to the faithless… like Seneca under the bridge of piles
    Poverty is no disaster, he said, as long as you haven’t succumbed to the madness of greed
    What can be taken from us… there is nothing to lose

    Nothing…working…trying to set the night on fire
    August… and then what… every day a stage for life
    Questions… answers… the sight of stars made Vincent dream
    The twists of fate we translate into our destiny

    Nothing left to do except continue writing Balance to the end… start all over again
    Keep above the echoes until the wind beneath me changes direction
    Before the falcon flies across the east gate of heaven… preparing the way for the raven
    But first things first, the way the universe has always been

  • Book of the 7 Seals
  • Who is the left hand of the arc
    Who prepares the way to the celestial light
    Who consecrates with fire
    Who purifies with water
    Who set the balance in the temporal world
    Be my mind open to the higher
    Be my heart the center of the light
    Be my soul of equal measure
    Perfected by the four orders of nature

    Saw in his hand the book of the 7 seals
    He asked if I was ready to turn the page
    I’d been thru the fire but still had a long way to go
    So I approached like a child to the unknown

    The first thing I read gave pause for reflection
    That men freely cross that see the shallows
    Have I been blinded by desire
    Believe in the hope of tomorrow

    Live upon hope… die of hunger
    Who knows what tomorrow brings
    The way I feel is the way you feel
    All I see is my reflection

    The way a child thinks
    The way the wind blows
    The way the sun shines
    The way an angel sighs

    The way the rain falls
    The way the river flows
    The way the world was made
    The way everything changes

    Because the falling star never made it home
    Because the narrow death has widened the world
    Because the city is only a dream
    Because the end follows the beginning

  • Breathing
  • I better start waking up from my payback fantasy
    It feels more like Prometheus racing toward the sun
    Fifty thousand hours deep inside the energy
    May never be enough to get to the far side of the horizon

    ‘cause sometimes Atlas feels the burden
    but he knows the way out is thru
    and sometimes he’ll set his burden down
    what else is he gonna do

    nothing beyond reason
    nothing beyond knowing
    Atlas looking back with bittersweet memories… but he kept on going

    It’s not like I expect to be shown the inner light
    Or demand to be given the gift of second sight
    I believe it could have been the way I had hoped it would be
    But that’s a long time gone
    It’s time to move on

    Two years… shot down every time
    What a fuckin’ joke
    What a fuckin’ crime

    The good lord knows I’m not making excuses or accusations
    I always accepted my responsibility
    I’ve been thru this before… it’s not like I don’t know the score
    But losing yet again is having a profound effect on me

    Sometimes it feels like there’s something important I’ve forgotten
    But then I come up empty ‘cause there was never anything there
    A thousand times a day desire leading to frustration
    So I smoke some pot and do a shot and then I just don’t care
    ‘cause then I descend into the place of rhythm and energy
    Where the music of the spheres connects the future and the past
    I used to say it had to be this way if I wanted to create a unique reality
    But I was living a lie trying to justify a time and place I didn’t think would last

    Twenty years later I’m still jamming in the abstract
    Less guilty than I was from these neurotic falls from grace
    But resignation this far down the line is probably weakness
    Imagine my dismay knowing the years are gone and can’t be replaced

    But resignation doesn’t extend to the subtlety of hypocrisy
    Barking like an angry bitch for six months
    My gasps for breath an affront to the night
    So I walked away and tried to find a little bit of harmony
    Alone, I see the irony of a love that was never meant to be

    And that puts everything in doubt
    More bad moments that the day before
    I can’t even talk to you about it
    It’s like trying to reason with a hurricane
    I don’t even think you understand what I’m trying to say
    I don’t even think it matters to you
    Anything outside your mind just serves to piss you off
    Then anger becomes a fire… and I’m tired of getting burned

    What the fuck do you expect me to do
    Accept a life where my greatest pleasure is a sin
    I don’t even think you give a fuck
    As long as it doesn’t cost you anything

    I once wrote that love can last forever
    But that was just some lyric bullshit I knew was a lie
    Even when I wrote it I knew never was the future
    And the future became denial as we both watched our love die

  • Byron
  • And the word was with the one
    Sometimes in shadows

    Beauty before the fall
    Beyond the Aberdeen wall
    Thru the sin and rain
    With the mark of Cain

    Bottle of wine and tears in your eyes
    The malice of his muse
    Feed the crows on Avalon’s plain
    The love that dare not speak its name
    The love of a willing doom

    And the passion of the word
    The august moon on the horizon
    No redeemer’s hand
    Just lovers damned
    A shattered prayer
    The son, once fallen, must forever fall
    Seek redemption… in the arms of the condemned

    Oh, my lord… no my lord
    The pilgrim’s plight… the pale moonlight
    Careful pilot of his proper sorrow

    A soldier’s grave… for thee the best
    Choose your ground and take your rest
    What once was, like ghosts inside a dream

  • Change
  • New year’s eve lament
    Even though you’re sorry
    Even though a rhapsody
    Those we chose to sanctify the soul of the nation

    Come on… you’re kidding… you’re not
    This is self-expression
    Truth and consequences spun around by false accusation

    Oh no… this may be losing control
    Watching it on CNN and it’s the same thing
    Watching is the common thread
    Fragile prayers by which we’re lead
    Sunken bells of antique dreams are tolling

    Change… give it a shot…. worse that could happen is we’re back to the beginning
    The bullshit… it’s gotta stop … the trend is to continue to descend when you do nothing

    Late night deal near the edge delaying a fall from grace
    Cover your ass with the tin shield of self-preservation
    What are you preserving… what do you have to lose
    A couple of pounds of righteous indignation

    The price of human nature
    The gospel of everyone wanting it all
    The circle has been broken
    Thru the cracks we fall

    Getting low instead of getting high
    Visions of the founding fathers realized
    But the champ took the dive
    Settled for the old hit and run… now he’s running for his life

    At least he’s staying in shape
    It’s never too late to reclaim your destiny

    Listen to the music
    Turn off the TV
    Come together
    The way it’s supposed to be

    Change… Open your mind… The light thru the shadows
    Let it go… There’s still time… If you plant the seeds they’ll grow

    Unless the well ran dry
    Better dig a new one
    Or they’re gonna die

    There was a time
    Balance was set
    The woman thru the arches doing a pirouette

    If the theory of mutuality is true
    The way I feel’s the way you feel too
    That explains why the world was sold

    Like the civil war
    When the whole world lost control
    Or the night on the bayou… and the next night I get rolled

    Change… Time to begin… Corrupt politicians to a marriage vow
    Patience… It’s wearing thin… The revolution starts now

  • Civilization
  • Nefilim blessed the land between the rivers
    Measuring the earth the lord separated from heaven
    From the desert came the Bedu
    From the east the children of Adam
    A new generation born eternal
    Sons of the sons of Noah

    After all the needful things
    After order and the name
    The law and the luster
    Banish the grabbers of the faithful’s herds
    The rise of civilization

    Where orphans won’t fall prey to the wealthy
    Where metals were refined into industry
    Where pictures evolved onto symbols
    Human nature accepted as inevitable
    Where the children can learn to learn
    Where the sick could find treatment
    Where the law is sanctified

    After Sargon harnessed the divine word
    He wrote upon the stele of vultures
    With freedom comes responsibility
    To guide future generations

    After trading totems for truth
    After the pulse and radiance
    The seeds of self-destruction

    A place behind the tears of Job
    Before the lament of Jerusalem
    The endless drive for immortality
    As time progressed and need outweighed virtue
    But how lonely was the poor man
    Picking up the ears of barley left on the ground
    His child watching the tide come in
    Upon its waters the promise of the future
    But the passion for salvation brought suspicion
    Without a strong foundation a divided house must fall
    The god of gods directing the energy
    The energy
    The rise of civilization

  • Clear Away the Harsh Sand
  • My eyes are closed… hands in the darkness… waiting for some inspiration
    Free expression… just like confession… knowing there’s a sky beneath me
    Sometimes when I least expect it… always if I let it go
    Just gotta breathe… thru the rhythm… keep it steady… keep it steady
    Like the cello player in the subway station playing thru the number nine
    Knows life is a compromise… but it ain’t about that
    It’s about doing what you were born to do and maybe having that sustain you
    At least earning your pay in a serious way and getting better every day
    Even with that steady sound in the distance… coming on like a hurricane
    Soon to overtake him… his mind starts wandering… how can he accomplish anything
    The mood is lost… the people gone… the song unsung… what went wrong
    Perhaps it’s part of a bigger sound
    The ebb and flow of life underground
    When in confusion… stop what you’re doing… take a deep breath and let it go
    The train will move on and balance will return, like quiet after a battle has ended
    The wheel keeps spinning and it won’t slow down… waiting for the melody to come around
    It won’t turn back and it won’t stand still… if the thunder don’t get ya’ then the lightening will

    Timeless our union, said Jeremiah… throw my soul into the fire… let it burn for a thousand years… a whisper above the echoing

    Once I met a moneyman from New York City… already found what he keeps looking for
    Sometimes he knows it… sometimes he don’t… sometimes it’s like something in between
    Then there are the moments that are easily forgotten ‘cause the only one affected when he put his money down
    20 dollars in the slot… cut away the upswing
    You’d think it was a fantasy… ain’t nothing but the blues
    Back on the noisy crowded street turning a hazy shade of misty gray
    And a little more in focus and a little less self-conscious
    It ain’t denial but you ain’t on trial
    Even St. Peter wore leather shoes
    And sometimes it’s worth paying for your disgrace in the moonlight on the Bayou
    Especially when the rhythm flows so naturally
    And the words fit like skin and breathe so easily
    And the music all around sounds so empty and vain
    And the poor old moneyman has got the gray sky blues again
    Not everyone can guide us… and many more lead us astray
    And Cain walks with the fire
    And sometimes we find the way

    Then there’s the comic on the cellar stage talking about his research for a character he was creating
    Those transvestite hookers from the meat-packing district with nothing to talk about except if you were dating
    The rest is a story as old as evil
    A whisper of shame on the lips of the dead
    They didn’t understand you just wanted to talk
    They just thought you couldn’t figure out what you wanted
    Do you know any jokes about your profession
    Or anything funny you can relate
    He stared into space… make-up running down his face… and asked for a third time if I wanted a date
    Yeah, that’s just what I need… a little round the world from a toothless bearded junkie…
    But it had been a while, and those big fake tits were looking pretty real to me
    A little laughter from the ten people in the room… like a marked prince after the fall
    The joke went over a little better last week at that club in the Somerset Mall
    Not that a slow night’s always a bust
    But where were the friends you thought you could trust
    And that critic who promised to write a review
    In the second set those ten became two

    Another night of little consequence
    Can’t figure it out ‘cause it don’t make sense
    Like those homeless guys under the Bridge of Sighs who found the light behind the lies
    They know they’ve lost… how hard life can be
    But they’re still alive and that’s the key

    The end of innocence, cried Jeremiah… who wrote the words to the song of desire
    It’s wiser to sing a different tune
    The song you were meant to sing
    One that feels good when you sing it

    If you think back there was a time when you looked for answers but you felt blind
    But now it’s all right… the answers found you… ‘cause you kept it steady and the rhythm grew

    A multitude of mountains, Jeremiah screamed… the lion came forth from the dream
    To lay down beside an innocent child… who must learn the ways of the world

  • Come on Jonny
  • After instant karma punished my enemies
    Stood there watching as those motherfuckers died
    Same as their fathers and the ones who came before them
    The center somehow shifting when you learn you’ve lived a lie
    Came to them in memories that inspire jealousies
    Everybody want a little then they want some more
    And the books and symbols that promise to redeem
    Many generations had heard it all before

    Here we go again
    Dawn of a new day
    A big misunderstanding
    No fuckin’ way
    Nothing there for me
    Just a memory
    Of things not meant to be
    Better to stay hungry
    Even with the sound
    It’s safer underground
    Without you around
    Without all the drama
    Forgive and forget
    I’m not ready yet
    To lose another bet
    So you can feel better

    20 years ago you raised your voice to me in anger
    Then you lied again and left me standing on broadway
    Some bullshit about misunderstanding and you’re sorry
    I told you to lose my number and I walked away

    You best know losing when you see it
    Or it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy
    I let me brother go for the same reason
    ‘cause everything comes back around eventually

    Play me once
    Play me twice
    I won’t get played again
    Jonny’s on the rebound and he’s holed up underground with his brotherhood of self-destructive men
    Come on Jonny do you hear me
    Come on Jonny do you care
    Come on Jonny I mean really
    With your first class ticket on the local to nowhere
    Come on Jonny it’s about time
    There never was a you and me
    It doesn’t take two it’s all about you
    You’re following your destiny
    Come on Jonny look around you
    Your friends become your enemy
    Your children run away because the fucked up game you play is the only game they know you know and that just leaves to misery
    Come on Jonny
    You’re not a victim
    You’re living a lie
    That’s why

    Every universe
    Like the song I wrote before you
    Many times before
    It feels like déjà vu
    Time to turn the page
    Leave the past behind
    You played your little game
    No response next time
    If there even is
    I’ve tried to make it clear
    But the desperate only hear what they wanna hear
    Look how that’s turned out
    Not so great
    Another on the way
    It’s like you’re tempting fate
    How’s that gonna play when the turns don’t go your way and you spend another day stoned talking bullshit with your friends
    That might pass the time the lower that you climb and you fall so far behind that you fucked it up again
    Come on Jonny are you stupid
    What else do you need to know
    No one’s gonna sanctify a sinner
    Your children even told you so
    Come on… it’s easy
    Street corner viper selling a small-time hustle
    Jonny oh Jonny watch the future turn against itself
    Lying and trying and nothing but a revelation
    Might even elevate desperation to a whole new level

    You don’t even know what I’m talking about
    Jonny looking back in anger, looking in the mirror
    Now the dye is cast with colors from the past
    Black and blue and no one who will listen any more

    You talk about collective anger as if it’s a crusade
    It’s just misery looking for company
    And sometimes they find it
    And it always goes wrong
    That’s what separates the strong from the run-around
    Strong men work while other men sleep

    Jonny tripped the wire
    Jonny set himself on fire
    Oh Jonny Jonny poor Jonny’s gonna burn
    Now there’s more at stake
    No more refuge left to take
    Oh Jonny baby only fools never learn
    Jonny underground
    No where left to go but down
    How far down to the bottom
    Jonny knew it all
    Always high before the fall
    You get what you give now you got ‘em

    Come on Jonny just accept it
    All life is bondage
    Strong men break the ties that bind
    They stopped looking for what they’ll never find

  • A Common Man
  • Feel a little like Jack Kerouac a second pack into final call
    All the words and neon nights, the high life wasn’t so high after all
    Why then all the slight of hand… it seems like such a waste of time
    Al Capone who died alone paying for all of his crimes

    Share the past and consequence
    Goes by too fast to make much sense
    Virtue giving ground to expedience
    The price of human nature
    Underneath the rainbow where friendships come and go

    Those you have forsaken
    Who have forsaken you
    Somewhere in the balance is the truth

    Looking at the faded pictures hanging on the wall
    We all understand that sometimes heroes fall
    You think you know the story of a life, but who can say
    Surprised, the king when things didn’t go his way

    Share the past and consequence
    Goes by too fast to make much sense
    Learning from experience
    Like the Reverend Mason said
    Once was a common man… heard the angels sing
    No more, the meter’s running… gotta keep it going
    And why the lies and the pride slowly melting like a snowdrift that made it all the way to spring

    Split a piece of wood and raise the stone
    Common man knew when to atone
    Every chance and combination
    Sometimes sin… sometimes salvation

    Did the common man put his guns in the ground
    Stand upon the spot and take a look around
    And did the Reverend Mason teach the gospel of the common man
    The only dreamtime memory the people understand
    In the moonlight the purple shadows we knew as a child \

  • Cutting Diamonds
  • I can draw my own conclusions
    Like drawing water from a well
    Sometimes the well runs dry
    Sometimes it’s time for a change

    Where friendships come and go
    And strangers to remain

    You kept on cutting diamonds
    Like I cut time
    Owned by something… wanting something
    An instinct to survive

    Handicap the way of the world
    Sell short before the whole thing crashes
    One step ahead but losing ground
    Thought diamonds were forever
    But someone else bought shorter at the bell ad now you can’t sell

    Silver and gold and you
    Cutting diamonds like cocaine
    If it was valor but it’s more like desperation

    My time is mine not your what have you done for me lately
    Nothing you can say can make me change my point of view

    Draw the line… try to understand
    Your diamonds my blind some but not everyone
    Not to say no beauty for the price
    Run the deal until it runs away

    The first few steps
    On Jacob’s ladder
    Keep on climbing
    Godspeed, my friend

    You kept on cutting diamonds
    Like I cut time
    Owned by nothing… owning nothing
    The dream will never die

    At least we finished what we started
    Still such a long way to go
    Depending on the proposition
    If there is one
    I don’t know

  • Desperation Angel
  • Throw away the ballast of the soul
    Illusion of the selfish, baby
    Beauty by mistake
    Sunset of nostalgia and control
    No one lives there anymore

    Looking for some leverage in the silhouette of night
    Litany of a liar on the stand about to break
    Words are getting heavy and are dropping out of sight
    Time to write your epitaph

    Caged bird standing on the grave of dreams
    Before the brave go underground and sleepers awake
    Distant lighthouse spark ain’t what it seems
    The sword of Damocles

    Thought you were a better man
    Thought your friends would understand
    One calling… one demand
    Now you got no one

    All that possibility
    Echoes in your memory
    Promises not meant to be
    With nowhere left to run

    Blind man without second sight
    Darkness at the edge of night
    Standing naked in the light
    Reason with no name

    Pressure bearing down on you
    Tell me what you’re gonna do
    All the lies you thought were true
    Only you to blame

    Always what the preacher would say
    Reeds in the rushing water
    Don’t abide you fade away
    And so it goes

    Full effect of the infinite cause and a five dollar bill
    Dreamtime bum’s rush thru the past but you never will
    Tried to buy redemption with a bag of stolen prayers
    Falling down the neon night and no one really cares

    Desperation angel
    Threw it all away

    Broken signal and a weary soul
    New York City skyline getting farther out of sight
    How far down the winding road
    Many roads becoming one

    One is where the muses set the balance long ago
    Last one sometime later to complete the cabal
    Crystal prism sunshine thru a stained-glass window
    Getting to the other side

    Zeno at the painted porch one night
    Something to consider as you’re running toward the wall
    Missionaries reborn as they fight
    Fill your soul with love

  • Devil in the White City
  • Rain against the window
    Foundation laid tomorrow
    First to touch the sky with steel and stone
    The devil walks alone

    Even the lies were lies
    And God turned a blind eye
    A real life Jeckell and Hyde
    More than the bloodlust of the damned
    Feed the need to possess
    But possession is a transient thing
    White city of the wilderness

    How did Holmes even know
    Anyone
    Quiet desperation far from home
    Such sorrow
    Poor Chicago
    Court of Honor overthrown
    Just like the Garden of Eden

    And in the east the fall from grace
    To the bottom of the world

    The white city burning
    And Alice in a shallow grave far from home

    That’s how a city goes
    A reflection of humanity
    The other side of harmony
    Thus was Holmes

    May God have mercy

    For dreams will always become cities
    The play of light and shadows
    Cold as the wind in December
    I remember
    For you

  • Drawing Back the String
  • Drawing back the string of a crossbow
    Arrow down the center of your soul
    Sunset on the far horizon
    Better live a lie than lose control
    Double down… hoping for salvation… and the revelation… and the call
    One more fortune teller telling… hedging what he’s selling… you bought it all

    Now you’re in an ‘I don’t care’ state of mind
    Prodigal son is going blind
    Desperation in the Garden of Eden
    Smoke more weed and drink more wine

    Heavy metal dreams with both hands tied
    All the power plays and the ways you tried
    Music and the violent echoes
    Thirty years of lies you justified
    Nothing’s changed… the air is getting colder… your children getting older… so are you
    No more angel on your shoulder… she knows what you told her wasn’t true

    Seven songs and four before the fall
    You told the world you had it all
    Drive and the road will follow
    A few more rounds past final call

    Wrote about the promise and survival
    Promise realized in an abstract way
    A self-fulfilling prophesy

    All your might to fight another day
    To compensate for this world possibility
    No nirvana here… nothing magic about it
    The challenges of love and destiny
    Could rise to grace but I doubt it

    Three daughters maybe two
    It’s easier when it’s all about you
    Measuring the bottom
    What would someone with the promise do

    Another arrow laid across the crossbow
    Drawing back the string
    Running from your shadow
    Gotta keep running

    Che Guevara won the fight
    It cost him his life
    Time was not effected
    Only the instinct for survival
    And justice
    And revenge
    Look around
    Who are you
    El commendante
    Make him angry
    And you will
    You’ll see

    The other side of your decision
    Have the right to deserve… to lift yourself higher
    Same old fortune teller telling, pointing and yelling fire
    Should’a read the writing on the wall
    Another antique hero about to fall
    Jump but the net was tangled
    The high life ain’t high after all
    So where ya gonna end up brother
    More than name… something
    If we were only honest with each other
    If the snow drift makes it all the way to spring

  • Energy
  • All the way
    See if I can get through it
    Know it won’t be what I can’t see
    But that doesn’t bother me
    It’s the one step forward and one step forward and one more ‘fore the next one
    With an appreciation of what I’ve done

    But the grass is always greener
    And the world is getting meaner
    Caught between the if and then on the way to where I’m going

    But there ain’t no telling the way the wind’s gonna blow… because you don’t know
    All you can do is hold onto your hat when the wind starts blowing

    And the balance between revenge and family
    And matter and energy
    And what is and what will be
    And maybe I’ll get lucky… but I doubt it

    When I was a young man… older than Andrew but still quite naïve
    Thought I saw a crime committed but I drove away
    Even then I knew I was trying to deceive myself into believing
    Same theme and variation that I hear today

    Better people are luckier
    I’m sure I saw him hurting her
    I wish I could go back and help her

    Help my karma

    Om mani padme hum
    Om mani padme hum
    Riding the energy
    Writing my history
    Om mani padme hum
    Om mani padme hum
    Center and balance dissolve
    Win some and lose some… and some you let go… like the shaman and the arrow
    Knowing the sum of the first ninety one… If I drive is the road gonna follow
    I don’t think so
    But I’m still on the road
    Alaska down to three arrows

    All the way
    Almost thru a season
    Underground working it… unlock the secret… better do something about it
    One step forward and one step forward until I’m where I want to be
    Right here right now creating energy

    Energy is my soul’s willing deed
    Energy is deep within me
    I flow with energy
    Like rivers to the sea

    Letting go
    I’m trying to let go
    I’m letting go
    Wherever I’m going
    While she’s sneaking around me… hoping that I’ll see… being a mystery
    The future looking back at me
    And the energy keeps flowing

    Om mani padme hum
    Om mani padme hum
    Riding the energy
    Writing my history
    Om mani padme hum
    Om mani padme hum
    Center and balance dissolve
    October skies and the winged ship flies on a rhythm that sounds like a calling
    Higher the flier laid low by desire who fell ‘cause he felt the sky falling
    Rising
    Falling
    Letting go
    Letting go
    Thru all the stages and rusty cages to the road at the end of the rainbow
    Drive and the road will follow

    All the way
    Much more to consider
    Signs of the zodiac
    Having a heart attack
    Working
    Best laid plans don’t mean a thing when the foundation is crumbling
    Feel the sand in the palm of my hand… the end of the new beginning… the beginning of a new ending
    7th house ascending… It’s the age of Aquarius, baby

  • Every Universe
  • Every universe… dropping in decay… too much talking… too much like the totems of a cult bound by fear… Shining brightly for a moment… bitter disappointment… and the prophesy is always shouting what we wanna hear

    Even gods from nowhere… separated from the earth’s soul…

    I’m not upset that you lied to me
    I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe in you

    Freedom’s just a word with broken wings
    Prayer upon her lips as she lay dying
    Calling forth the twin divine grace and wrath
    Maybe this time god is listening
    Maybe this time you’re listening too
    Both ends burning catching up to you
    Even victims understand the grace of god is in demand
    Your children pray you pay for what you do

    And what you’ve done
    And what you are

    Every universe… when the end is written… doesn’t matter what your brother said because we’re free
    Fortune teller must have seen the future… turned away before she laid her tells upon our history

    Every universal truth like good and evil… strength forged by vengence… God as our witness… Justice turns toward innocence and passes judgment… nineteen years in the shadows… they all turned away… Randy waiting, knowing… someday sacrifice to save his family

    Love you more because of what you’ve done… followed me to hell and back… hand of fate upon the prodigal son… serving time running… we’re free…

    And now they know
    And they’ll ask how
    I don’t know

  • Everyone wants
  • Meredith

    Never know when the rhythm’s gonna end
    Washing away the constant calling for revenge
    Second to second then it’s back again
    I am just a man not a judge of men
    But if I sat in judgment and could issue my decree
    Calling forth the three rays bound by ancient memory
    Ordering sanctions and a siege on the city
    That lays until an apology
    Or maybe
    Maybe it’s because I’m looking down
    Spending all my free time underground
    Put away the malice of my muse and look around
    I wish it were that easy
    But it’s not
    Not by a long shot
    Better men have struggled
    Better women sacrificed with no duplicity
    If it happens again shame on me

    Everyone wants
    Everything changes
    You became less sincere
    A farewell to what once was, my dear
    Whatever works for you
    It never worked for me
    It doesn’t work for Zoe
    That’s when I get crazy

    Come on, you know me
    Is Andrew easy
    Even if he is, I’m not
    You knew it wasn’t cool
    You tried to play me like a fool
    Then you, oh but wait, like you forgot
    I didn’t
    This was a fall from grace
    This was passive aggression
    A housewife making a stand
    Outside the promised land
    It’s time you learned your lesson

    Promises meant to be broken… words left unspoken… putting your glory before your family because jealousy and a Westchester state of mind
    Then you tell her you’re sorry… and do you hate me… buy her affection with flowers and lies… it’s no surprise… once bitten twice shy

    I once wrote how friendships come and go
    Real life underneath the rainbow
    The way we feel about others is the way they feel about others and the way the rhythm shapes the condescension and the flow

    And you think I don’t know how to play
    And get aggressive at the mention of
    With friends like that, who needs enemies
    We can’t afford the price you charge for love

    My hate is alive
    My will to survive
    My heritage is threatening
    Forsake and deny
    Watching love die

    This ain’t no Hollywood ending
    Complete with a double standard
    What you said’s not what I heard
    I heard the runaround and excuses too useless to put into words

    Come on, baby
    Gimme a fuckin’ break
    The world’s rough enough
    Maybe I made a mistake

    But talking about it feels like throwing stones at the sun
    You’re never gonna hit it
    Sometimes it’s just about the throwing

  • Flowers and Bones
  • Mountains in the moonlight
    The black into the pines
    Symbols flash across suggestive states of mind

    Live on paper and canvas
    The lines and the spaces
    Outside and inside trade places

    Told she’d have to paint whoever asked to be painted
    Georgia preferred control
    The need t o transform experience
    Childhood landscape burning deep in her soul

    Horizons
    Emotions
    Flowers and bones
    Flowers and bones

    Just some shapes in a minor key
    Charged with solemn mystery
    No kindness with all its beauty
    Like the desert sky

    Losing my balance
    Bare feet on the stones
    Capture the vision
    Flowers and bones

    Sometimes I see what you see… sometimes I don’t
    If I don’t want to defer to your feelings, then I won’t
    Live in the desert free alone
    Flowers and bones
    Flowers and bones

    Horizons and dreams… emotions and trees… crosses and flowers and bones

  • Following the White Lotus
  • Calm for a while, then it happened
    Shadows across the mountains
    Time to go… I don’t know… come on
    May god have mercy on us

    They made their way across the valley
    Holding to the shadows
    First the Roaring Tiger held against her will
    And the weight of history came crashing down

    Why, said the daughter… 9 years old…
    Because the lion throne has been abandoned
    The White Lotus is on the run
    Without our beloved we follow
    Lotus reflection signs the way
    Thru the lie of revolution
    Chains of exile wrapped around the future
    If we don’t who’s gonna bring the light

    What’s that daddy… thunder, go to sleep
    The sound of artillery barrages at night
    Crimes in the name of liberation
    White Lotus into the unknown

    And the instinct for survival
    And the here and now
    And uncertain freedom

    Seven weeks of struggling to survive
    The snows in the mountain passes higher than the peaks

    We commune with her in silent meditation
    The inner reality of which the Buddha speaks
    And then word the White Lotus was safe
    A ray of light in the darkness
    A prayer for survival
    May God continue to watch over us

    And so he did

  • Ghosts and Strays
  • A tell upon the land of the rising sun
    Water washed away her history
    Angels standing on the bridge of heaven
    Dip their sacred swords in the storm
    Passed away in the autumnal fire
    Purify the soul of the world
    10 worlds gone
    Until the divine wind
    The wind is the mind of us all
    The all is one
    The moon receives its light from the sun
    We are all composed of the two lights
    The light is everlasting
    Mountains tumble to the sea
    Everything changes
    The ground began to shake and the sirens scream
    Wave after shockwave of sorrow
    Water like an angry god
    The quantum of the unjust dead
    6 reactors melting down
    The sum of all destruction
    The government keeps stalling
    Angry god keeps calling
    The rising sun is falling again
    Angles signed the way before
    Recreate the world
    Built upon the shifting sands
    The angels are drowning
    The divine wind is dying
    Washed ashore in the clothes they wore
    10,000 Shinto souls
    10,000 more drawn by tide and time to the bottom of the sea
    Ghosts and strays and a thousand years
    Before the level 7 fades from history
    A thousand nuclear winters
    Ghosts and strays and fallout days and time decays like suicide
    Ghosts and strays… the northeast of the island… sacred swords among the debris
    Spent fuel pressure in the atmosphere
    Radioactive runoff in the ocean
    Ghosts and strays evolving into dust
    Their epitaph written long ago

    Ghosts and strays and fallout days and time decays like suicide

    The all is one
    The moon receives its light from the sun
    We are all composed of the two lights
    The light is everlasting
    The light behind the rising sun

  • Hey Honey
  • She didn’t get it
    She got what might have been
    The promise given away
    Who knows the reason
    Do you
    Do you
    I don’t think so
    Maybe the tide is turning slowly
    Maybe the signs after running lines… lines… lines

    Who stole the thunder
    What is the answer
    Time
    To hear the voice inside the silence
    Stay in the moment

    Hey Honey
    Calm down
    Don’t lose today
    Because tomorrow

    Split a piece of wood and raise the stone
    As you find your way back home
    I’ll follow
    I’ll follow you
    I’ll steal the thunder if I have to

    Hey Honey
    Calm down
    Your time will come
    My love is

    The sun and the rain
    The pleasure and pain
    A voice on the wind
    A calling
    Just listen
    We hear it too
    We know you will rise and fall… and rise again

    Then another fall T
    he Garden of Eden
    Love yourself

    Passing thru the drift of the eastern gray
    To where you wanna
    Where the many become one

  • Hidden Behind the Leaves
  • Hidden
    Behind the leaves
    The swordman reflected
    Like an old bowel thru the hands of the humble
    The wind thru the fire

    At the lowest level
    Serving no purpose
    Then in the middle
    Still afraid of dying

    Higher
    The trackless road
    Upon the road the secret
    The final ronin
    The old swordman listens

    Remembers the lesson of the heavy rain
    The first samurai the seventh lie
    One night in the rain
    He got wet all the same

    Like the sun
    T he wooden ships
    Rise as the water rises
    Accept the turns of fortune
    The old swordman accepted
    Good and evil is the way of man

    In the heat of battle
    Not even time is effected
    Only the instinct for survival
    Deny even the gods if they stand in your way

    The sun and the wind
    The mind and energy
    Fire burns away impurity
    The way of the warrior

  • Hiphop
  • Somewhere in December and I
    Gonna change my mind like the winter turns to spring
    Fifteen months and maybe more
    Never gonna sound like when the angels start to sing
    Something like the prince without the glow
    Deep inside but he can’t hide ‘cause everybody knows
    The sunlight through the open window
    All from one soul the way a raga and time goes
    Look at it from every point of view
    The prince has got his own… who can know another man
    I guess I’ve got my own too
    And the garden’s overgrown and been abandoned
    And fear and habit pull like gravity
    The cast of insecurity too deep to fade away
    Gonna see the man in new york city
    Sixty dollar ratsa tops growing on broadway
    A phone-call away from sin
    Justify the damage with illusion

    And the prince got tangled up in trouble… again
    And so it goes… listen

    Nature without balance fails
    Reason on a cold wind blowing farther out of town
    Bet on heads, lands on tails
    Should’ve cut my losses but instead I doubled down
    And the music and the questions remain
    he road not taken may not mean a thing
    Catalina driving in the rain
    My parents in the front seat smoking

    And this here and now
    And energy
    All alone and underground
    God keep watch over me

    Fifty-two soon
    Run the numbers
    They’re running away

    Rhythm… truth… shadows
    Rivers running thru me… it ain’t easy
    Bend it like mr. natural
    Breathe in
    Breathe out
    Breathe in
    Breathe out
    Breathe in
    Breathe out

    New year every year in times square
    Few hours later and there’s no one around
    I’m not saying life ain’t fair
    But you can lose a war with more troops on the ground
    Diamond sutra and sun tzu
    And war based on deception
    Once this ramble is through
    Find a way thru different doors of perception
    But once is slipping into the past
    3 weeks to go on the temporal plane
    Every day is going to be the last
    Viper soul pull me back again

    That Sunday on a warm December night
    Way too stoned and then
    What was I just… wait no that’s not right
    Oh my god it’s happening again

    From hell to lessons learned
    You play with fire you’re gonna get burned

    Saw the prince on TV… again
    And so it goes… listen

    Always trouble with a ragtime smile
    Sometimes on
    Sometimes gone
    Sometimes golden chains
    Sometimes saint
    Sometimes sinner
    The truth remains

  • Jonny Dee
  • Made his way to New York City
    Looking for the man turned his world around

    You come and you go
    Like a shadow
    Winds of change will blow
    Straight into tomorrow

    Long way down and far away
    Brothers in an abstract way
    But Jonny ain’t no avatar
    He laid down with the lion
    The man sang songs of brotherhood
    Anyone who heard them understood
    I was lost but now I’m found
    Transcend the limitations

    You come and you go
    Like a shadow
    Winds of change will blow
    Straight into tomorrow

    Show the way the world was made
    ‘til the last note is played
    No false hope out on the street
    That’s where you’ll find salvation
    Time like a refiner’s flame
    Burn away the guilt and blame

    Purify my soul

    You come and you go
    Like a shadow
    Winds of change will blow
    Straight into tomorrow

    Look toward the western sky
    Saw a shadow going by
    Like a thought inside a dream
    So many things to see

  • Like Leonard Said
  • Strong from a wild life
    Twists of virtue have been tied
    You do it your own way
    A place of pilgrimage inside

    Ten rays coming together as one
    Whatever you want it to be
    Learn from the turns of fortune
    From the gangster out of New York City
    Like Leonard said, You only live once

    No thinking… Just do it
    When you’ve done it, it’s done
    Lowest equal to the highest
    Thru time, as the rivers run
    That, and the instinct for survival
    A .44 and the same universal vibration
    Leonard wrote his own rules of reform
    Life’s little pleasures that get in the way of salvation
    Like Leonard said, There are no secrets

    Tough… rebuilding… changing
    Sometimes needing to be a little late

    The signs …The past… The word
    The way of the world in the hands of fate

    Perfection in multiple form
    Calm in the eye of the storm

    Like Leonard said, Don’t be afraid
    No one’s getting any younger
    Where righteousness has fled on the wings of lies
    Hidden truths lying just below the surface
    Playing for the moment
    Holding on… Just holding on

    Obey what you feel inside
    Take a few steps beyond necessity
    Like Leonard said, You are your possibility

    Look back on those who gave of themselves both body and soul
    Only a fool would deny the past… that’s how you lose control
    Like Leonard said, It’s kinda like evolution

    Find the place of letting go inside
    Memory recalls the struggle of ambition
    Like Leonard said, It’s time for me to go

  • Maybe Peter
  • Standing like a thief with fingers crossed
    Another gives the sign
    A racetrack hustle with some damage done
    Probably thinks he can read your mind
    Rolled more souls than cigarettes
    The easy marks that place their bets
    The best laid plans of a restless soul
    Who denied the truth and lost control
    So you run away
    But you can’t let go
    With the mark of Cain
    You get real high then you get real low
    And that guy and the feeling
    Like you didn’t give a shit
    Then the moment of doubt
    And a whole lot more if you thought about it
    What about the 4th of July
    Sleeping in a doorway in Venice Beach
    Pushed your family away
    Pushed them so far now they’re out of reach

    Adversity can strengthen
    When you care about the reason
    And your will has not been broken

    It’s not impossible
    It seems pretty simple
    But when you’re looking for trouble
    It’s easy to disappear

    Yesterday is gone
    Tomorrow’s not yet come
    You only have today
    It’s time to listen

    Calling out the three rays
    See what they reveal

    Vision
    A decision

    Write about your real life not your fantasy
    A bridge across the symbols you don’t understand
    We see what you see
    Holding a prayer in the palm of your our hand

  • Measuring the Endless Road
  • Better take care of that
    Just played like a demon
    Wonder how long it lasts
    Time doesn’t lie
    That and the other thing
    I should settle down
    Redirect my energy and go on

    Time, when we see past tomorrow
    Still gonna get you if you don’t watch out
    Look at Jimmy Carter and you knew you had a good man
    Then came a shadow ‘cross the surface of the sun
    Something to believe
    Darkness into light
    More trouble down the river
    Gonna have to run the rapids when they’re running high

    Always the other side
    Wait a minute… what was that… the calling
    Wonder if I’ve been wrong… there I go
    Playing thru doubt and pain
    Even my morning prayer
    Fading like yesterday
    Working from fear instead
    It doesn’t matter anyway
    It’s been said many times
    The secret that we know
    When to go and when to stay
    Listen to your inner voice

    Simple… like it is
    About what you believe
    Admit you’ve been betrayed and move on
    That’s life… so they say
    Your life to create
    Salesman gone five years give or take

    Told me sooner or later I’d break down
    That’s what it means to grow older
    It’s not the way that we hear it
    The thread that holds us together
    The sun and one day the darkness
    No time to hide in the shadows
    How will the symphony end
    Like thunder heard from a distance

    Never been a time when I knew… it’s crazy
    Mostly saw it coming, it’s true
    Long grass in the wind… bending
    What have I to do in the palaces of kings
    Speaking to the one at the break of day
    He is sure to overcome desire
    The strong, but always one stronger
    The dark waters lie still and silent

    The best thing one can do when it rains… let it rain
    Facing all the questions and then decide
    Surpass the understanding of all but a very few
    Who knows your mind better than you
    What we least expect to occur will occur many times
    Have fewer expectations
    What’s been true will always be true
    A man is just a man and I’m trying to be a better man

    Thinking, then I’m back to where… then I
    All the miracles we’ve seen
    In the way a child thinks
    In the way everything is
    Jimmy Carter bringing me down
    Where you gonna go when the well runs dry
    Many sides to the story
    Which one’s gonna prevail
    Wonder if the ‘heys’ are gonna
    Or if more than two will hear ‘em
    Reason and the rhythm and I
    I still believe in providence

    How did Sugar Ray learn to dance… like Shiva
    An oak tree in the north wind
    Measuring time slowly
    ‘cause the wheel never stops and it keeps on going

    The best way out is always through
    Not to be a rushing on
    Measuring the endless road
    The unbroken course of time constantly renewed

    The sight of the stars made Vincent dream
    The beauty stealing inward

  • Miles
  • Drew away the afternoon
    There he was drawing… everyone watching him draw
    Little bit of Miles
    Little bit of history
    Got a signed photo and a beautiful memory

    And the question was answered
    There is no in between
    The will to survive
    Revolution dancing on a dream

    Drive up to the edge of possibility
    Fuck the shine that Satchmo used to do
    Set the world on fire and watch it burn
    The song that everybody’s dancing to

    Two chord blues make Joe Lewis smile
    Stretched out sound uptown
    Sounds just like the seven steps to heaven
    High and fast and everybody dancing

    From the ghosts of Congo Square
    Lines laid bare the inner mounting flame
    Was no coming back
    No justice if you’re black
    Blow your horn until the weather changes
    The devil keeps on swinging
    Testify by singing
    The way he voiced the changes
    Never saw nothing in hard times but the blues

    The question was would Jack Johnson dance to that
    As far as I can tell he’s dancing still
    Dancing like thundering silence
    Everybody’s dancing

  • Moving On redux
  • Gonna rock the ride… ride the rhythm… ideas flowing on waves of sound… every day, just to keep it going… build it up, break it down… Running thru the city like a spendthrift saint… Falling from grace to harder times… Angel wearing heels try to stem the tide… walking on water to the other side… but you can’t and you don’t and you’re drowning… and you go and you relive yesterday… it’s like the world wants to be deceived… seems to be the only way… and the things you’ve done and the things you said… looking in the mirror and it’s looking back… looking like the will of an angry God… gathering strength before the next attack… living like shantarm on avenue a… and that fuckin’ guy telling people he’s like Basquiat… and he wasn’t really anything like Basquiat… love is metaphysical gravity… from tragedy to fantasy… lose today waiting for tomorrow… another fait accompli… perfect shot at the satellite… clouds obscuring the lunar eclipse… shadows of shadows… any day can turn to wilderness… like Icarus when he got too high… or the price of just getting by… the moon receives its light from the sun… we are all composed of the light… show me the light again… show me the light again… show me the light again show me the light again show me the light again show me… the best disguise is no disguise… what you’ve come to symbolize… the mountain doesn’t come to you… you climb the mountain to see the view… getting to the top a very hard climb… no right angles to the flow of time… twelve years gone, what did I learn… you play with fire, you’re getting burned… the first call after we said goodbye… then the next to say hello… just because, for all I know… then you asked me for money… everyone’s got a story to tell… we all live day by day… some day are good, some days, well… it’s always been that way… like the woman on the news who crashed into the moonlit bay… reminds me of the theory of mutuality… what I think about you is what you think about me… you thought so much you lied about that fuckin’ guy… then you’re on the phone to me asking me for money… what a buzzkill… and when you realize your best laid plans don’t seem so well drawn… the erratic equilibrium of possibility… Dipper hawking stove-coal at five years old, a nickel for a water-bucket… and you tell me you didn’t say hello when you saw me and I didn’t see you but you call me and ask me for money… it only cost me a grand… nothing for nothing… maybe… we’ll see… if the balance was set… and the way that we feel… and the theory is right… and our love was real…and Dipper can go from the streetcars and hustlers and the sleeping silent city to the top of the world…. And the candle’s still burning… and the wheels keep on turning… you never know the way the wind’s gonna blow as long as you hold onto your hat when it does… the two other phone calls though… you didn’t bother to even say hello… you went right to the apology… a fair-weather friend asking for money… three fifty this time for the past… when able to attack, Sun Tzu said, we must seem unable… when near we must appear far away… hiding order beneath the cloak of disarray… no sense demanding when they have nothing to lose… or win… collateral damage… and then that gets lost in translation… show me the light again… show me the light again… show me… relinquishing control is the challenge for the warrior… learning to obey, you learn how to command… I’m trying to believe because belief transforms doubt into precepts of symbols I think I understand… I’m the one who’s still dwelling upon… the past and the future resolving somehow… as those precepts of symbols become something more than a fantasy forged by what I don’t have now… It ain’t over ‘til they turn on the lights…

  • Peter & Beverly
  • Peter Lake was floating
    A child among the rushes
    The Bayonne baymen found him
    For twelve years he remained
    Survival
    Have to know something of bitterness

    Beverly thought how beautiful the earth
    Hurled into the cold extreme
    The fated sky our sole salvation
    A tent upon a roof
    And the abandoned stars
    And Peter Lake was thrown so hard he’d be out of breath forever… forever

    And so the forger of connections… fell in love… with a perfect pure soul slowly dying of consumption
    The one chosen
    Command the heavens
    The pulse and radiance
    Peter’s destiny

    Beverly died on a windy gray day when the crows in the north wind did ride

    What was Peter Lake who had seen more than the prophets
    Whose song of sorrow the weeping angels had sung
    Providence… the fall of innocence
    To shine so bright and die so young

    For in this
    The hope of this
    The weight of this
    Where the eternal rainbow ends

    In a silent prayer that transcends time

    He knew visionaries paid for visions
    The price of love’s eternal glow
    Her motion flowed in a hundred thousand pictures
    The master of time a walking shadow

    For in this
    The hope of this
    The weight of this
    Like Peter’s father as he watched his son sail away

    Perhaps all of our tomorrows
    Are but a slow decline
    Dust scattered by the wind
    Some time to be reclaimed

    The far side of the horizon
    Where the paint is mixed that colors the world

    And how just it would be
    If those we loved… if those we loved
    Just imagine

  • Poetry In Motion
  • Looking at the faded pictures hanging on the wall
    Silhouette of antique heroes about to take the fall
    You think you know the story of a life but who can say
    Slight of hand surprise and you’re living day to day

    Poetry in motion
    Staring at the sun
    Poetry in motion
    Now look what you’ve done

    Common man raised the stone and split the wood in two
    Something antique heroes promised they were gonna do
    Watch an old crusade try and light the world on fire
    Common man knew the high life couldn’t take him higher

    Poetry in motion
    Gold dust in your eyes
    Poetry in motion
    Living all those lies

    And did the antique heroes put his guns in then ground
    Stand upon the sacred spot and take a look around
    And did the blind man learn to use second sight
    Why look back in anger when there’s no one there to fight

    Poetry in motion
    Thought he heard the angels sing
    Poetry in motion
    Didn’t mean a thing

    Poetry in motion
    The moment is gone
    Poetry in motion
    Time to move on

  • Powermind
  • empty room off sunset… back of the beyond
    ocean dreams against the jagged edge
    distant voices long denied… still longing
    and he passed away

    two in a row
    ashes in the sand
    times winged ship sailing on

    thirty years of silent reproach without a reason why
    minnesota on the line and you said good bye
    the illusion of a trinity never meant to be
    more than a store on thirty-seventh street

    lying
    crying
    powermind was dying
    blood and stone
    refused to atone
    to live and die alone

    solo

    today I pray
    today I embrace
    today I remain determined
    today I am
    today I will

    today I see the light

    energy leading the power astray
    who you are not what you say
    struggle converting to suffering
    not knowing
    the need
    determination strong
    lift yourself up off the paper
    no more running away
    may you rest in peace

    believed you were forever giving
    the power of manifestation
    the secret was you were living
    without a family
    days of tangled expectation
    hope a snowdrift thru spring
    tears behind the motivation
    never heard

    lift yourself up
    keep hope alive
    honor your right to deserve
    the back of your mind
    the love left behind
    the angels that you’re gonna serve
    it’s all in the past
    the falcon has flown
    horizons beyond your control
    coming back home
    where you belong
    God watching over your soul

    seas have become peaceful
    balance has been set
    destiny fulfilled in ways beyond imagination

    trust
    choose
    hope
    today I stand
    today I strive
    today I share
    yesterday and forever

  • Ramble Too
  • Run thru the rhythm like the saints
    Like the ghosts and hustlers thru Congo Square
    The call across the generations
    Since the day the angel Gabriel was there

    Scat

    With the intuition of an old voodoo priest
    Walking thru fat Tuesday to the silver city
    Sleeping silent city wakes up singing
    Ancient songs been sung since the beginning
    So much to play… so much to hear… so much to learn
    Sanctify the souls willing deed

    Scat

    Different chorus every time he played
    Knew it was the blues… yeah you knew it was the blues
    Dixieland the sound of yesterday
    Blowing the soundtrack of tomorrow
    Sweet jasmine sounds

    Scat

    Playing more than music… playing style

    Scat

    Get so far behind the beat you’re daring tradition

    Scat

    Right back to Congo Square

    Scat

    Couldn’t imagine a different hustle
    Five years old hawking stove coal
    His horn a wand of rainbows

    Nobody’s gonna give you nothin’
    Just don’t wish for anything you can’t get
    Travel like a tiger… gonna take a few choruses… look out… look out… look out

  • Rastafari
  • Lion of Judah
    Your voice thru the dim past has spoken
    Bring me out of Babylon
    By you the chains of exile shall be broken

    Just as Garvey prophesized
    Revealed in the book of revelations
    Our king of kings shall set us free
    I and I shall find salvation

    Word… sound… power

    I want to get ready
    The black man on top of the world
    Free to move around Jerusalem
    As it was written
    And on that day in the African sun

    Lion of Judah
    Sitting on the sacred ground
    Then we pass the chalice around
    I and I am dreadlock come from bondage

    Word… sound… power

    I want to get ready
    Someday the train’s gonna come
    Then we’re back again in Babylon
    As it was written
    In Jeremiah 51

    And the words like thunder
    Prophet shed him blood
    He sought shelter where
    The old woman who fed his soul when he came home
    When he came home
    When he came home

    Black star liner seven miles long
    Sailing into the heart of the lion

    We draw strength from unity
    Back ‘em up… fire, burn
    Grace the cup before our draw
    To the promised land we shall return

  • Revolution Running
  • Revolution running… where the fires burn the sky… all the false prophets lose control… thirty years of mirrors… looks like crystal night again… cover them in silence… watch the fire grow… burn down islam… the whole world… like it was with cain and able… another crusade… another powerplay… lost between eternities… can’t blame human nature… the instinct for survival… all those antique heroes… what would the prophet say… already an interpretation… from Tunisia where bouaizizi burned… the hand of fate upon the revelation…did bouaizizi die in vain… will the tyrant die a martyr… murder his own people… a prelude to civil war… the shattered prayers of the poor… lambs to the slaughter… the power is shifting… the old weight is lifting… the new weight is waiting… will the fires forge the truth… who will write the history… the children of the revolution… who died for their country to be free… burn bouaizizi burn… nowhere left to turn… may Allah have mercy on your soul… revolution running… to the shores of Tripoli… in the streets of cairo… on TV… can a protest change the world… will the tyrant be arrested… serving future justice… the quantum of the unjust dead… the tyrant died a tyrant hung in effigy… the symbol of a nation… the new world order starting with bouaizizi… valor forged by desperation… the evolution of the word… because that’s the way it’s written… it depends on your interpretation… the truth remains… the law and the blessing

  • Seeing Without Illusion
  • Finally figured out the rules of the game
    Accepting what was always there
    Wind is gonna blow thru the trees
    Hanging on the leaves like a shattered prayer

    Rhythm of the angels banging on the moon
    Climbing up the tree of life to see the view

    No more confusion
    Seeing without illusion

    All those years I felt behind
    Seemed so real… I was blind
    As the symbols of a higher way flashed across my soul

    Knowing when the tiger’s walking the wire
    When he’s waiting in the wings
    Tiger won’t attack ‘til the time is right
    Descending to the end to a new beginning

    Fixed ideas of center and boundary dissolve
    Zoe growing slowly as the planets revolve

    No more confusion
    Seeing without illusion

    Breaking thru to the other side
    Behind the light where angels hide
    The past and future in harmony
    The struggle to be free

    Now I know how to feel the rain
    To see beyond deception
    Going back doesn’t mean the end
    Knowing when to move ahead again

    No pure land since the time of Cain
    It doesn’t matter ‘cause we’re all the same

    No more confusion
    Seeing without illusion

    This doesn’t mean I won’t fall from grace
    A few steps back to the other place
    It all comes together eventually
    I’m following my destiny

  • Signal 9
  • Late winter take me over lose myself inside the rhythm while the winds are blowing and are cold as ice
    Coldest afternoon since someone locked the gates to paradise…
    Paradise, yeah
    Gravity is pulling me down
    The winter we were told was on the way
    It’s almost thirty below outside and the winds are howling
    And it’s been that way almost ever day

    When I was a kid back in Oceanside I could stay out in the snow ‘til the sun went down
    Lose myself inside the wonders of nature ‘cause winter then wasn’t so extreme
    Ride the waves hours a day when the tempest was turning the ocean into an angry master
    Who came out of his reverie right before I hit the bottom... Like it was a dream

    Then I heard the signal 9
    Mark twain sounding like the sky was falling
    I know I should go but I hesitate ‘cause of the hour or more
    The clouds thru the trees beckon me to a higher calling

    I don’t know… It’s so fuckin’ cold outside
    Could be a package and heavy lifting down an icy incline
    I’m underground around the groove and I just might hit it
    I’d love to help the world, but not this time

    Old man never gonna hit… I don’t know… I’m not that old
    It really is that cold outside
    The guilt behind the signal 9, what it feels like to catch myself lying…
    Trying to write the future one word at a time
    Old man never gonna get it… I don’t know… still got a while to go
    Rapping like a dreamer who recognized he’s far from home
    Two steps down the ladder… 20 below and there’s more tomorrow
    On the desperate seas where sinners long want to roam

    Writing underground, the rhythm flowing
    Looking out the window and it’s snowing, first day of spring
    The more things change the more they seem to stay the same
    A signal 9 in the middle of my wandering… You gotta be kidding
    There it is… I gotta go… a few deep breaths and I’m out the door
    It’s funny it’s guilt that’s motivating me
    Drive up to the station like every scene I’d seen on TV
    Go on the call and get the history
    Could be anything
    I go for the last-minute reveal
    I’d rather not know ‘til I need to
    Could be a heart attack
    Or a fall from grace you never saw coming
    Even the 911 step aside to let me through

    Following protocols
    Keeping everything calm if I could
    Showing compassion
    It’s part of a brotherhood

    Bring it on
    Could be an overdose or an MVA
    Either way I gotta keep it together and try to do my thing
    Plane crashed in the mountains, then a building exploded on the Lower East Side
    And I’m underground writing reasons why I’m writing
    One, ‘cause it’s what I do
    Two, ‘cause I’m lit like a lighthouse blazing
    Which came first, the reason or the rhyme
    The need for speed or the signal 9
    The need for speed, ‘cause that’s where the energy’s crazy

    Thus as the stars like a golden chain shall remain
    One voice says to stay and another beckons me away
    It’s too cold outside

    Old man never gonna hit it… I don’t know… I’m still going
    Even though it’s fuckin’ freezing outside
    CPR on a 99, so I guess I wasn’t lying… trying to write the future one word at a time
    Common man once heard the angles sing
    No more, the meter’s running… gotta keep going
    Snowdrift made it all the way to spring
    Everything that ever was and always will be and always changes as the river runs back to the beginning
    In the moonlight the purple shadows that remind us of dreaming
    There’s no limitation
    Every chance and combination
    Challenge the past and it’s gone

  • Silver Laughter
  • Silver laughter… never heard by the desperate
    The last word… a submission to the world beyond
    The fire… first specter of a generation

    The dead shall wake the world again… listen
    The hymn is heard above ill fate
    The language which is time’s expression
    Eternal voice of love and hate

    The river… as it flows thru the future
    The symbol of a spark that has flashed ‘cross my soul
    The echoes… a reflection in the mirror

    Spendthrift saint knew where to go
    Before the shattered prayer falls to the ground
    Would the light or shattered chaos follow
    Would the past come back around

    Yes time is a tyranny
    Working over memory
    The crowns are burned in effigy
    The chains of exile slowly melting

    Silver laughter… in a world bound by sorrow
    Dreams… like a candle that burned thru the night
    The silence… sacred key in the song of tomorrow

    The wisdom weary voice is calling… listen
    A simple liberation of the rhythm of the mind
    Yes the fated darkness is falling
    The voice of the eternal never dies

  • Sometimes
  • Times and times and sometimes
    Outside the perfect circle
    Racing with the devil thru wind and rain
    Escape into the unknown
    No boundless flight inside a dream
    Try to hear above the echoes
    Only one direction home
    I’m on my way
    Times and times and sometimes
    You pay the price to feel humanity
    A long way down in the darkness
    Angel watching over me

    Saint Theresa and the wind… and every possibility

    Roll like fate upon another New York City dream
    A thousand night on both sides of what was meant to be
    A thousand more before the silent thunder

    Times and times and sometimes
    The pearl moon’s savage mystery
    Rising over the towers
    Casting shadows upon the future
    Don’t lose the night in fear of the dawn
    Or truth behind the symbols
    Everything is everything
    And still a long way to go

    What is there in darkness to imagine into being
    A doorway to the far end of the bridge of sighs
    And there no shelter from the lightening and thunder
    Like judgment raining down on me
    Let me make it home

    Solo

    Times and times and sometimes
    Responding like an echo
    Thru the wind and rain
    An answered prayer

  • Stand Fast
  • Anyone can buy a gun
    My country ‘tis of thee
    Don’t stand at my door too long
    Sweet land of slavery
    Humming thru the rhythm
    Trying to survive
    Three days to keep the dream alive

    All the songs of ancient times expressing love and pain
    Stubborn mule waits and plans for a sacred kind of day
    Freedom for my brothers, ain’t no freedom there for me
    Ain’t gonna make their lesson easy

    Soothe in contemplation
    Pass the love around
    Half moon inhibition
    An epitaph of sound

    Willows weep while the children sleep
    Could be in the morning
    Could be just a lie
    Some day cruel anxiety will die

    Pistol in the pocket of the groove
    Playing thru the nighttime of your innocence
    Like the man… who joined the crucified
    On the street… the day that reason died

    God plays the blues with Charlie parker
    Painting a self-portrait of love and pain
    Spirit running like his soul’s on fire
    On a sacred kind of day

    Love is not my bag, he said… Extended form and improvise and horns… blowing above the soul… leading with his fingertips… a prayer of hope upon his lips… Keki under wing… sisters dance and sing… listen…

    Freedom for my brothers
    Ain’t no freedom there for me
    Don’t know when their coming me
    Ain’t gonna make it easy
    Could be in the morning
    Could be just a lie
    Underdog never been afraid to die

    Everyone is fragile, even warriors
    Hustling small-time Harlem possibility
    Like the man
    Like the stubborn mule
    Sunlight thru the nighttime of your weary soul
    Stand fast… mule’s afraid too
    Loving soul and imperfection in its most lustrous bloom

  • Stillness
  • The hunter awoke before dawn and prepared for another day of survival
    The drifting snow of the eternal night whipping across the frozen sea
    The shadow of death reaches out like an old man whose glory has faded
    The open sea awaits like the first specter of eternity

    Strong snowslide roll past my weak house
    There sleep my dear ones in the world
    Let them sleep until the spring
    Let their nights be calm

    All songs are borne in man out in the great wilderness
    The song of the seal whose soul we pray for
    The song of the caribou, whose skin keeps us warm the frozen winter
    The songs of the great raven, who planted the seeds of life
    May these songs take flight across the hunting-grounds
    May they be heard by the great spirit that I might drift upon calm waters

    The great sea moves me… the great sea sets me adrift… and I tremble with joy

    Alone thru the canyons of stillness
    The vault of heaven frees my spirit to wander to the other world
    It moves me like the running waters

    The hunter glides thru the darkness in a kayak made of walrus skin
    Listening for the breath of life
    Thru the frozen stillness
    The narwhale breaches the surface where the gentle breeze whispers his name

    How to endure the struggles until my brother’s soul is laid to rest
    To respect his sacrifice… to give no pause for revenge
    Just as nature’s personal reign
    Will deliver me across the frozen sea

    You earth… our great earth… see, oh see all those heaps of bleached bones

    Oh cycles of tide and time… see us thru another season of acceptance

    And when my legs are not strong enough to dance the ancient dances
    And when my arms are too weak to chase the narwhale across the open sea
    I’ll sit upon the rock in quiet meditation
    And unburden myself of the memories of youth
    As the great raven carries my soul back home

  • The All Is One
  • Water on the seven seas
    Moon on a thousand rivers
    My mind open to the light
    All the ways
    Move among the mystery

    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one

    Playing with abandon to the edge of possibility
    High above the echoes and it feels like déjà vu
    Back inside the shadows of a world that only seems to be
    And is and then another world breaks thru

    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one

    Fixed ideas of center and boundary dissolve
    Shiva dancing slowly as the planets revolve
    A tendency toward complexity
    The contours of virtue shaped by adversity

    And then we’re called to testify
    To know where we are so we know where we’re going
    An oak tree in the north wind
    Aquarius rising

    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one

    Silent rivers overflowing
    Beyond the absence of opposites
    The far side of the horizon
    To the east gate of heaven

    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one
    The all is one

  • The Best Way Out Is Thru
  • Staring right at it… I almost had it… then I hit the wall
    Same wall that all the hearts that have ever been broken
    And all the empty words that have ever been spoken
    And all the nights on both sides of the give and go
    And now the price of life is at an all time low
    And destiny’s a week away
    Looking at it from today
    And looking became yesterday
    Destiny’s tomorrow
    And even that fell away
    Substituting Saturday
    Soon enough, I heard him say
    It’s time to let it go

    And the winged ships sailed upon the waves of a late winter one-man show
    Everybody at a different play… I understand thought… still
    What about

    What are you gonna do
    The best way out is thru
    Feel it from the center
    It’s less about the singing
    And more about the swinging
    And learning… and doing it
    And doing it and doing it

    Hi fi adventure in the energy again

    Four days later and I’m falling and I’m getting up

    Hide inside the energy with valentine behind me… listen
    Just read about the Backwoods Jupiter… there it is
    The cost of freedom
    And virtue forged by holding on
    Being who you are
    Running thru the rhythm like a spendthrift star

    Eleven people… nothing to hook onto buy the song… I remember… two o’clock in the morning standing there like a shattered prayer… in the middle of two million people… a castaway… the 4th of July and I couldn’t wait to get outta there

    The minor key energy I wanna transcend
    The always twilight existential here we go again

    The inner vision
    And indecision
    And silent thunder
    I wonder if that’s my destiny

    Even then, when Atlanta burned the Backwoods Jupiter knew
    The best way out of trials by fire is thru

    I wonder how the tycoon did it… yet he did it
    How much easier to surrender to the tide of history
    Some men can’t stop dreaming the impossible dream
    And most of us… even those with vision… somewhere in between

    Like gravity upon bodies in motion
    Depends on how deep my devotion
    Wishing didn’t win the civil war
    Gave it all and then gave more

    The never-ending cycle of cause and effect
    The process of struggle and becoming reflects
    The past and the future in harmony
    I’m just trying to be who I’m supposed to be

    Get a band… play the songs… tell the stories… do it…

  • The Caged Bird Sings
  • Greater visions realized
    Many more important than the journey
    As the seasons change
    The promise remains
    Like sunlight when it rains

    Hope the journey leads to somewhere
    Tangled expectations

    Sometimes my conscience binds
    As the darkness blinds

    Happiness starts from the center
    Ripples on the water

    Decide who you are
    That’s who the world will recognize
    Not what your life represents
    But your naked soul without pretense

    Light… in the shadows

    I know why the caged bird sings
    He sings of immortality
    The struggle to be free

    I know where I came from
    My spirit driven deep within
    Understanding what I’ve seen
    The meaning in between

    The challenge is in the moment
    Moments become the journey
    Live by intuition
    An instinct to be free

    Not afraid of looking back
    Kick the dust up from the track
    Follow the rise from the depths from which I came

    Leave the end of struggle
    To the master maker
    Who made death a reflection
    Contours of the journey
    Accept the limitations
    Discover possibilities

    I know why the caged bird sings
    The song from the beginning

  • The Lines
  • Symbols carved in stone
    Like an allegory written by a visionary
    Or maybe it’s the language of forgotten souls
    Whose lesser Gods died long ago

    Were messages once gospel only lies… dime-store wisdom
    The voice of the eternal never dies

    Somewhere someone heard the voices calling
    Ancient and telling of fantasy and fate
    A safe corner when the sky is falling
    From the beginning and the lines still radiate

    Making a connection
    A time for reflection
    Across the universe into the unknown
    Light years into seconds
    Star gazer’s beckoning
    Symbols and the signs point the way home

    Ordained by the grace of the dead
    Maybe the grace of a race long forgotten
    From a time when the lines were less sacred
    More a celestial beacon

    If you believe in a shared universe
    If you believe we’re created in God’s image
    If you’re hoping for the best but planning for the worst
    If you can read between the lines

    Only in imaginary landscapes, petroglyphs with special powers
    Tear them up before they’re read
    Dig a hole instead
    Jump in together

    A history foretold in the price of gold
    From sacred ground
    A heritage of up and down

    Lines… and the flight of time
    Those who claim absolute dominion
    Fall from grace… someone takes their place… by declaring a war very few will win

    Those who legislate the status quo
    Who sit above the echoes
    Holding on and never letting go

    Yes, if you take it… start a revolution if you have to
    A self fulfilling prophesy written into history
    Learn it
    Burn it
    Burn it down
    And from the ashes clarity of purpose
    And from purpose destiny
    Dressed up like a salesman selling redemption every night on TV

    The lines endure despite hypocrisy
    Sometimes messages need to be heard again and again
    Maybe from another world… maybe from the beginning
    And the fall from grace in the garden of Eden

    Just a metaphor… those who hide behind the mirror… and out front the work is done by everyone

    That’s how they built the pyramids of Giza
    The blood sweat and tears of ten thousand souls
    For the glory of one man who said he was God
    With an army he paid for with money he stole

    We imagine the lines to be more esoteric
    More of an interpretation
    Also built by the hands of the desperate
    That’s who built the world

    Balance… imbalance… survival… acceptance… truth… imagination

    The lines and the crimes and the words of the prophet who wasn’t afraid to die

    Free the mind the spirits challenge
    Free the body the soul to follow
    Free the heart love flows eternal
    Lines point the way over the rainbow

    Knowledge a word like hope or maybe but knowing can’t make it reality
    The lines and the signs link past and the future in ways politicians want them to be

    Together we can build a mystery
    Together we can glorify my name
    Give me your soul, I’ll give you forever
    I take the credit… you take the blame

  • The Man Who Knew it All
  • Existence is a yielding he said
    Not something beyond imagination
    Hear it in the song of acceptance
    In a Lester Young improvisation

    That’s how you know
    To be
    You can see more than that
    In the visions behind me
    Colors into motion
    Fragmentary thing
    Like dreaming out loud
    Like dreaming

    The world is how reality sounds
    Listen
    Faster than divine grace
    To feel let down is no disgrace

    See the world
    Thru far away eyes
    What I just saw
    What I wanted to see

    To lose myself
    In the mythic depths
    A history
    Yet to be written
    A fragile prayer
    A different perception
    The center is spreading

    I can feel it spreading over me… over me

    Since every thought unites as much as it divides
    Since words draw us in with what they reveal and what they hide
    The separation of self-consciousness from the objective truth others see in us
    Since every failure makes us feel our vulnerability
    Since, though innocent, we judge ourselves guilty
    Since human action is dominated by thought and alienated by lies
    We must set aside all habit of thought and learn to see what’s before our eyes

    Do as I do, he said
    The moments ordered like a life remembered
    An autumn evening 1923
    Becoming what we wanted it to be
    Organizing chaos
    Thru consciousness
    The power of reason
    Nature’s purpose
    The dual vision
    The play of resistance
    Being and nothing
    The colors of existence
    All I saw were colors
    The waves of forever
    I can feel them spreading from the center… over me

    Since the words are drawn from the harmony
    Guided by the secrets of a universal history
    On existential shores long want to roam
    So the man who knew it all came home
    Same abstract expressions of suggestive states of mind
    Sailing thru existence on the winged ships of time
    Since the transformation of the darkness
    Beyond our collective consciousness
    Consciousness

  • The New Man
  • Not the same as I was before
    Thru a baptism of fire… the natural order
    The suffering people are shedding their blood
    Break the chains with the flame of liberty

    If St. Martin’s hands were extended across time
    Rest in peace old fighter… we’re not afraid of dying
    The land and our sacred promise
    Obey the will of the people

    The revolution will prevail against tyrants
    The revolution for a common purpose
    The revolution is the promise
    The path to liberation

    Now comes the toughest part old fighter
    To make war with conviction
    An army of shadows
    Serving future justice

    The new man rising from the ashes to lead his children home
    Let death retreat… savage memories… the end justifying the means

    Awake each day with the prospect of killing
    And dying
    The symbols of our sacrifice
    Tomorrow

    The revolution does not seek clemency from death
    The revolution for the children
    The revolution is our sacred duty
    The hammer of truth

    The new man breaks free from the shadows to fight until the end

  • The Ones From The Beginning
  • From the beginning
    To live in the memory
    If we forget… even wanjina could… fade away

    What name creates
    What name destroys
    Keevari’s seen the endless destruction
    The fire that took the world

    To watch his mother burn
    Remember
    The darkness falls
    Find shelter where you can

    In the morning the whirlwind
    Boolies searching for death
    Swirl Keevari with the dust
    Speed over the western plain
    Dissolving over the horizon

    In the eye of the storm
    The hand that mixes the paint that colors the world
    The eagle and the crane… at the edge of dreamtime

    Defeat the darkness
    Light thru the shield
    Climb down the mountain
    Into her arms
    The woman he knows he’ll meet some day

    Thru the outback
    Three days running
    Keep the fires burning at night
    Follow the tracks of your ancestors thru the desert sands

    The land became clear from fire
    We paint ourselves with clay
    The instinct for survival
    Thru the cleansing rain
    Guided by the knowledge
    White smoke in the distance
    The snake just shed his skin, she said
    Dreamtime is over

    That night they dreamed of Balloo… Balloo the moon
    Across the moon the crow did ride out of the prophesy

  • The Pillar
  • Summer rhythm
    Djembes and xylophones dancing
    Around the tama pillar

    Always back to Farafina
    Birkina Faso underground
    Inner visions
    Sea Cliff revelations

    A rhythmic alchemy
    Turning thought into motion
    Motion into synergy
    Listen… listen
    Letting go… letting go
    The rhythm running thru me
    Thru me

    I go to places… set there for a while
    Then the winged ships sail away
    Leaving waves to ride
    Ride until I die

    From the beginning
    Until the end of time

    Time the antique heroes played around the sacred fire
    The pillar rising from the center
    Thru the event horizon
    Upon those waves I ride

  • The Promise
  • i’m not lucky but I have been blessed, I know
    2 up 2 down side to side, playing faster than thinking about it
    purify the sounds I feel and vibrations I hear
    expanding like the universe
    waiting for bottom rush that fades away
    unlike the faith of Abraham
    maybe the angel Gabriel

    fixed ideas of center and boundary dissolve
    wild as a stampede
    always gonna be running and riding and looking for trouble on a Saturday night
    wake up in the morning to fight another day

    someone heard the preacher shouting sermons

    the mountains in the background and the air keeps getting colder and soon you realize you better think about survival
    yes you could slay dragons but the dragons kept on coming
    burn away the metal energy

    thought you climbed the tree of life
    what about the view
    it’s not the astral mist
    nothing magic about it
    the promise of love
    real behind the surreal
    falling from grace
    the promise remains
    farther if you play them true
    shatter the illusion

    but how to understand our experience
    it slips thru our fingers and then the harder it gets
    the world of possibilities to compensate for meaning
    and when that’s better than what you got it’s time to go a different way

    all those broken promises
    on both sides of the give and take
    sow the wind and reap the whirlwind
    first for the climb

    a final chapter yet to be written… by the grace of God

    then you’re back to where expression costs the truth
    always giving… always keeping score
    where’s what you got on your side of the best revenge
    we’re all waiting to hear

  • The Remembered Earth
  • In remembering heritage, strength
    Heritage is people… people are the earth… the earth is life… remembering is all
    I remember there were eagles in the mountains
    Hunting buffalo on horseback in the rain
    We sang and danced the legends of creation
    Barefoot in the mist on the sacred plain
    Our story is the history of our struggle to continue
    Our roots run deep
    From that depth strength
    Strength is our shield against chance and disorder
    We speak with the spirits and come away with their wisdom
    We are all children of the great mystery
    The wind in the pines sings a requiem for tomorrow
    Upon the remembered earth we will always be free
    From the valley of endings
    No place to go but onward
    Paid by the blood of our fathers
    Their blood long ago turned to dust
    The dust blown by the wind to a different sky
    The never ending cycles of tide and time
    A warrior fights when he knows what it costs not to win
    Like an eagle in winter who builds a nest upon a mountain
    Drum beats sigh across the mesas
    The rhythm of the rising sun
    The warriors pray they’ll return to their birthplace
    The enemy just above the horizon
    The path to glory is filled with vengeance
    Find our way back… to the remembered earth

    Earth is the mind of our people

    Our people commune with the spirits
    A connection to the beginning
    With moccasin strings of the rainbow we begin again
    Sad winds in the distance moan
    For our falls from grace we atone
    Fragile prayer of returning home
    The sky weeps with compassion
    Fragments of a broken dream outside the will of destiny
    What is there in darkness to imagine into being
    To bring our soul into harmony with this shared reality
    To follow a new trail to the point of knowing
    The war shaman leads the attack
    He knows only a slave waits for someone else to set him free
    Too much talk and talk and nothing done
    We gave what we prized most that we may live in peace
    What we gave was never enough
    Now we fight to reclaim nature’s wild domain
    Now we make our own path
    Delay the morning if we have to
    ‘til the dark blood that runs thru us returns to this good brown earth
    Oh destroyer of mutual confidence
    The miracle of death will surely find you
    Then you will at last know that heritage alone can accompany you in the other world
    We ran on the order of war
    War, a solemn religious matter
    For those who were a stranger to fear
    When dawn was a praise of silence
    The spirit voice recedes in time
    Like buffalo clouds in the distance
    Once we moved around like the wind
    Upon the wind ancient whispers
    Secrets of the remembered earth
    When the great spirit danced in the moonlight
    We will always remember the earth
    We will always remember our past
    We will always follow the eagle
    We will dance the eternal dance
    We dance for our children
    We dance for rain
    We dance for the great spirit
    We dance for the seasons
    We dance for strength
    We dance for pleasure
    We dance with our loved ones
    We dance
    In remembering the earth, we dance

  • The Spin Never Stops
  • The spin never stops jumping over to the other side… ragtime-talking raconteur found the door before he died
    Now he’s like Neal Cassady with second sight but still can’t see ‘cause freedom’s just another word he heard somewhere east of Eden
    Sold your soul been twenty years… a heavy load and all the tears a lost soul sheds when everything and nothing in between
    Fell asleep at the wheel… a landscape that seems so surreal, you can’t distinguish what you feel from everything you’ve seen
    A valley of trouble you never meant to wander into… break it so you look right past what’s right in front of you
    It always could be worse ‘cause the center of the universe is everything there is from a relative point of view
    So what am I trying to say… always seem to talk about the way… I listen to the rhythm ‘cause the rhythm sets me free
    Once fell in love so deeply that I lost myself completely, but when the world came back to me, that’s how it’s supposed to be
    Look at how the wisdom and the center and the radiance, lighting all horizons, growing stronger in the light
    What is love beyond tomorrow… ties that bind and time we borrow… traveling down the only road we know, which is every road
    And every time and every point of view… And everyone you’ve ever spoken to
    What if it’s true
    What does it mean
    What you went through
    Down in New Orleans
    Tripping on sunshine
    How the fire burned
    Took more than money
    You finally learned
    Then you forgot
    You tried to be cool
    Took another shot
    Got played like a fool
    Your history
    Your fantasy
    All that is
    Will forever be
    The spin never stops, spectral visions we perceive… up through the bottom like St. Thomas believed
    And not just the prophets… run the rapids when they’re running high… a metaphor for many things and many more until we die
    And then the winged ships come and take us back to Babylon, and maybe even further back to where we belong
    Right behind the mirror where the cypress tree… burning for ten thousand years or maybe an eternity
    If you think about it every now and again… and then another thought and another and then
    Maybe come back ‘round eventually… in the center of the circle stands the tree
    That’s where the many become one… that’s why the moon receives its light from the sun
    All of us composed of the two lights… children of the stars who are born with second sight
    But how quickly one light begins to fade… the hard truth about how the world was made
    It’s hard enough to realize your destiny… with everyone telling you who you’re supposed to be
    Listen to the melody that’s playing deep inside… ancient voices pick you up and take you on a midnight ride
    Set you down a little farther along the open road… then they’re gone, but where’d they go… it doesn’t matter… no one knows
    All that really matters is you
    Look at it from your point of view
    It all depends on how you see it
    Best through the eyes of love

  • The Tide
  • Jump or weave your own
    Either way the net is gonna break your fall
    Would my father step into the darkness
    Every day a restoration
    Maybe the first step… maybe a deep breath
    It’s hard to see the sky when the tide’s pulling you under
    No sense throwing stones at the sun
    Stand and try to become one
    When you deny the truth you live a lie
    Tell me why
    Tell me why
    Why’d you hide when Peter slipped away
    Kept on going ‘til he was gone
    Maybe it’s something I just don’t understand
    It’s hard to see the sky when the tide’s pulling you under
    Feel the center from within
    I always wanted
    And wondered
    And accepted
    Everyone who stood against me
    Everyone who stood behind me
    You have to stand your ground when the tide’s pulling you under
    Fixed ideas of boundary dissolve
    And if you’re pulled down
    If you’re pulled down just hold on
    Hold on… hold on
    You’re gonna see the sky
    Even if it takes a lifetime
    Even if it’s always been there
    I guess it doesn’t matter
    Except to those who love you
    Sometimes I sit and wonder
    I still don’t know the answer
    Maybe a bond to sorrow
    Maybe the tide will turn tomorrow
    Look up at the sky
    Watch the clouds roll by
    Rolling on

  • The Unbroken Chain
  • He spoke the truth without fear of death
    Knew the price a prophet had to pay
    Behind the mirror where Elijah drew his first breath
    Where we all return someday

    Blue star on an April night that shines its light
    Cleanse ourselves in the river of sorrow
    ‘The end of days’ the prophet cried, and he was right
    First the law and the blessing the dream of tomorrow

    How easy it is to lose your way
    How easy to resign yourself to fate
    Especially when you’re living day to day
    The life eternal has to wait

    There it is
    Cause and effect
    The unbroken chain
    Everyone starts to disconnect
    Only the truth remains

    A thousand years in the blink of an eye
    Still hear the prophet calling
    The unbroken chain
    The chain
    The chain

    Empires buried in the sand
    Trouble in the promised land
    Golden light just over the eastern horizon
    Comes to pass and then passes away

    Prophet said, love without balance… love without knowing
    Like throwing stones at the shadows
    A generation lost between eternities
    Bound by the unbroken chain

    Unbroken chain
    The chain
    The chain

  • The Wolf
  • Remember how hot it got and no one knew the reason why
    The one in a million answered prayer that almost passed us by

    To the ever expanding universe… and the soul’s reflection of first light
    Wolf sat back and thought about it… knew he’d know when the time was right

    Blow your mind like déjà vu
    That was never your point of view
    Betray his trust for a moment in the sun

    Someone always trying to take you with them
    Since we the Garden of Eden
    The Wolf knew about the fire
    Gonna purify the world
    That’s why the valley’s burning
    Beyond the cycles
    In time as the rivers
    Wolf set the balance again

    Live your life and justify your falls from grace
    There’ll be those who keep the cardinal points in place

    Question those who would limit the soul’s willing deed
    We are in the world

  • The Word
  • Chain reactions
    Inside a dream
    Shepherds down to the mystic streams

    The primal fire
    The root of Cain
    All is connected by the unbroken chain

    Three bonds of faith
    The infinite kingdom
    Walk through the mountains of darkness

    The unity
    The prophecy
    Behind the mirror
    Where the soul is set free

    Who knows grace
    The silent land
    Set the balance within

    Because he was
    Because of love
    The mystery… revealed in the world beyond

    Sign the way
    The seventh day
    The secret of the word

    The generations pass
    Prepare the way for eternity
    Humanity redeemed

    Thoughts divine
    The grand design
    Time and time to believe

    On common ground
    Where judgment is found
    The sign Elijah received

    What is an eagle that nests in a tree in a world that never was
    The language of dreams like the rhythm of the seas… submission to the world that is

    The thought ascends
    The kingdom ends
    The world of separation

    The angels cried
    Testified
    The mystery of creation

    Eternal light
    Second sight
    The secret of the word

  • Throwing Stones At The Sun
  • Satellite shine in the afternoon… but it’s okay
    Don’t have anywhere else to be today
    Had a run at Lisa in the morning
    Haven’t learned the lesson
    Still throwing stones at the sun
    Throwing stones at the sun

    Antique heroes walking thru the rain
    Waters rise as they try to explain
    Levee’s known to breech without a warning
    Antique heroes start to run
    Like throwing stones at the sun
    Throwing stones at the sun

    Turn right on a dime in desperation
    Survival, the muse of my imagination
    Run with the heroes ‘til they’re gone
    Am I the only one
    Throwing stones at the sun

    Light in extension
    Easing the tension
    Virtue by necessity
    My life becoming energy

    93 million miles away
    Hard climb out of yesterday
    The will to keep going
    Sometimes it’s just about the throwing

    Sometimes we all go to extremes
    Chasing impossible dreams
    The price of human nature
    A ship on the horizon
    Throwing stones at the sun

    The end of the beginning
    Losing and winning
    The will to keep going
    Sometimes it’s just about the throwing

  • Thundering Silence
  • When the moment became lost in time
    When the wind blew thru the autumn sky
    When all that remained return to the earth
    And the three rays like the moon and the tides

    Let us transcend the limitations
    Let us dance the eternal dance
    Where the rhythm is heard above the echoing
    Outside the thundering silence

    What is gained if the spirit is lost
    Surrender to the fate of the forsaken
    Listen to the music in the breathing darkness
    Sounds like twilight in a minor key

  • Tillie
  • Threw the world a slider
    Threw it back at me
    Standing right beside her… feel her energy
    I know what you’re thinking sunshine
    And don’t take this the wrong way
    But there are times and sometimes and today just ain’t your day

    Where you gonna go when the well runs dry
    Wait around you’re sure to die
    Better men have fallen down… fallen down

    Just the way you come on
    Coming back at you
    And antique hero dreamer schemer tangled up in blue
    But even antique heroes have their moments of doubt and pain
    But they knew the way out was thru
    You should do the same

    Where you gonna go when the well runs dry
    Underground and getting high
    Better men have fallen down… I’m falling down

    Yes I know the way out is thru
    Easy to say, not so easy to do
    I’m not trying to set the world on fire
    I’m just trying to talk to you
    You and every other man in here
    Your first impression felt like fear
    Fear and desperation
    That’s why the day’s undone

    Maybe tomorrow
    I’ll come on to you

    Then I threw a fastball
    Because after all
    If you can you should
    If your aim is good
    If you can’t you can get there

    Where you gonna go when the well runs dry
    Wait around you’re sure to die
    Better men have fallen down… and gotten up again

  • To Know To Dare
  • Nothing should be different
    Half the battle letting go
    What else do I need to know
    Still less to conceal
    Realize
    Chaos can be organized
    Harmony
    Memory
    Signs that light the way
    Fragile prayer
    To know to dare
    To keep silent
    One must learn to fall if one would fly
    I’m still falling
    Some days rising
    Some days just getting by

    Maybe what I’m saying
    Lose the battle win the war
    Lesser angels keeping score
    ‘cause the greater don’t care

    Fighting from the center
    After fighting bring it back
    Ready for the next attack
    The way of the world
    Moving… like the moon beneath the waves
    Energy
    What will be
    Symbols marking time

    Almost there
    To know to dare
    To keep silent
    Learning to obey and then command
    The challenge standing
    First light commanding
    Love and the tides flowing from inside

    Thru all the changes, should the king have known
    You’d think so
    But you never can tell
    The king was all alone

    Looking toward the future
    I know shadows fall

    Learning to surrender
    Letting go… letting go
    Unbroken echo
    In the silence
    Listen

  • To One Day Hear The Rain
  • Someone heard an angel calling
    Lift us when the sky is falling
    The symbols of the universe
    To one day hear the rain

    The truth of tomorrow
    From jealousy and sorrow
    The emotions of humanity
    To one day hear the rain
    To one day hear the rain
    To one day hear the rain

    A symphony of ecstasy
    A melody to set us free
    That which is shall forever be
    All is mist the wind will scatter
    All is mist the wind will scatter

    The struggle
    Between faith and fantasy
    The rhythm and the harmony
    The silence and the rain
    To one day hear the rain
    To one day hear the rain
    To one day hear the rain

    Songs across the bridge of sighs
    Tears that fall from silent eyes
    Immortal beloved is dying
    All is mist the wind will scatter
    All is mist the wind will scatter

  • Transcendental Divine
  • Under northern skies
    Hear the rolling thunder
    A ghost dance marking time
    Like a dream

    Leave all ties behind
    The lotus in the debt of night
    Broken chains by morning light… and he’s gone

    Sacrifice to those
    Love cannot be whole
    Riots on the souls for whom the man of sorrows died

    From too long our sacrifice
    Storms are forming

    How could God, who keeps his eye on the sparrow
    Could be so blind to suffering
    The artificial flowers of love and desperation
    Shake the foundation of the world

    Transcendental Divine on the main deck talking about the soul and how to save it
    On the gunpowder alter of God
    Deep still deeper the darkness and endless descending
    And give me an utter wreck if wreck I do
    Please God… help me… should faith renew

    Plunge like fate into the sea
    A Nantucket sleigh-ride
    Like Jonah on the inside
    In the breathing darkness

    Transcendental Divine… sacrificed the sinner… on the gunpowder alter of God

    What remains to give meaning to suffering are the allegories of the Divine
    All that’s left to celebrate the mystery… is a sailor’s simple song

  • Tuscon
  • Can’t afford the ticket… gonna miss the wall come down
    Can’t even kick the only reason up from underground
    Dreams and possibilities are getting kind of small
    Like a whore on any corner looking for her final call

    One more call so she can make it back
    Soon enough the play will fade to black
    More than faith to turn it all around
    All alone and underground

    Once again I’m feeling like a diamond in the rough
    Second guess the past
    Two things holding fast
    Dance the dance until I’ve had enough
    Or it’s had enough of me… whatever’s gonna be

    Two things from above are music and that few have heard
    Getting small’s a new thing… feeling like I’m falling
    Takes a little long to come up with the next word
    Maybe I’m just complaining… look outside it’s raining

    Massacre in Tuscon… Tuesday afternoon
    Caught between the crosshairs like they told him to
    Middle of the winter… eight more weeks to go
    Dreams of immortality buried in the snow

    But the world goes on
    And nothing changes
    The silver laughter
    Is still an echo
    And the desperate and politicians still feeding on each other

    The fires burn in Cairo
    Purify tomorrow
    Or burn the country to the ground
    The future turned around
    Can’t outrun the rising tide
    The water’s rising

    Being in the moment ‘til the moment slips away
    Back to feeling smaller than I did yesterday
    Psycho in Tuscon sent the message loud and clear
    No one breaks the bonds of sorrow living in fear

    Reconsider my imagination
    Accept my limitations
    Fire medic as a higher calling
    One small corner as the sky is falling

    Massacre in Tuscon like a tragedy foretold
    Promise them salvation and they’ll follow

    And the world goes on
    The good and the evil
    The past and the future
    Living and dying
    We all should take care of each other

    Working thru my issues in my way
    Just like Jared Lee on that fateful Tuscon day
    Or the kings of Cairo who stormed the embassy
    Everybody struggling to be free
    Reconsider my imagination
    Accept my limitations

    Never saw the eight rivers flow
    What else do I need to know

    Massacre in Tuscon like a mirror on the wall
    Those about to rise and those about to fall

    On the rise as the falcon flies and then down again I go
    Some will lead and some like me and some are born to follow

  • Underground
  • I work the underground
    Again the underground
    Again
    Back in the underground
    Look out of the underground
    Listen
    The sound from underground
    Throwdown in the underground
    Throw it
    The starlight underground
    Spent my whole life underground
    Work it

    Sanctuary
    Sanctuary
    Sanctuary
    Sanctuary

    Silent thunder underground
    Wolf moon rising at the speed of sound
    Higher
    About time underground
    Time for time to start slowing down
    Yeah
    Rhythm shifts into overdrive
    Feeling lucky I’m still alive
    I’m still alive
    Pete and Andrew and three guys with ’em
    Got a whole lotta rhythm goin’ down

    53… really… come on
    The energy
    From 38th and 8th in New York City
    All the way to underground ‘cause that’s my destiny

    I’m here

    World rhythm underground
    Hourglass is running down
    It’s running down
    Remember underground
    Salesman showed me what he found
    The key
    Measuring the endless road
    Laying down your heavy load
    Ancient rivers as they flowed to the indefinable sea
    What once was will come around
    A legacy underground
    A lifetime composing energy

    The right off Northern
    Could’a been
    And eight rivers
    That leaves seven

    Never been lucky… well
    There was the time
    And time is like a garden in the rain
    It depends on how you see it

    But I wonder underground
    Heavy metal thunder underground
    Future calling underground
    Final verse for this time around
    And time’s winged ships
    And a prayer upon my lips
    Still the silence and the sound
    And the energy underground

  • Validation
  • Made the calls after Maryann
    If that didn’t get her
    Where was the melody, she asked
    Waiting to be written
    One thing leading to another
    Maryann to validation
    Pieces of a puzzle of a picture of the future
    And validation
    Just another word like hero
    Standing in front of the silhouette
    Still alone underground
    Tangled up in wires after falling
    And rising
    One thing leading to another
    Prepare the way for validation
    Start to second-guess the music playing in the background
    And validation
    Just another word like destiny
    Validation
    Echoes
    Where the many
    Become one
    30 years after Maryann
    Still undecided
    Still bound by expectation
    The price of human nature
    One thing leading to another
    Sometimes the voice of reason
    Sometimes salvation in a world that never was
    And validation
    Just another word like sacrifice

    Validation
    Silence
    Words and rhythm
    And melody

    What will be
    Staying hungry
    Maybe validation in the rhythm flowing thru me

  • What I See
  • Why sacrifice the sinner
    It’s just the way the world was made
    The sharp edge of a rusty blade
    What is it I see in almost everybody

    The angels crying
    Gun-metal tears
    Falling like rain
    And shadows... shadows
    While someone else is walking in the sun… the sun

    Was it like this before
    From the beginning
    One man’s pain
    Is another man’s profit

    Right down the center
    Where friendships come and go
    Underneath the rainbow
    Just below the echoes

    Maybe tomorrow
    Maybe I’m unfair
    Maybe I can change the world

    It’s been like this before
    From the beginning
    Actions screaming
    I must be dreaming

    Before the mirror
    Before I looked away
    A day like any other day
    What is it I see in almost everybody
    It’s just me

    The restless sky again
    If not now tell me… when
    I’m waiting

    I’ve felt this way before
    Won’t be the last time
    Songs of sorrow
    Songs of joy

  • Take Care Of Yourself
  • Minding my own business is all I need to know
    Maybe you should mind yours also
    Lustre’s fasting fox three days after the climb
    Had no choice but to fast a second time

    As we come we go
    Did you hear the call
    Those three days showed the high life’s not high after all
    More a steady flow
    Less about TV
    Lose yourself inside the cult of personality

    The grass is always greener
    And the world is getting meaner
    And fast becomes a habit instead of a sacred rite
    And heroes fall from grace
    And some climb up the tree of life whose roots are nourished by first light

    I must be projecting
    The odds are one in ten
    Starting with accepting
    Worrying about yourself again
    Worrying and working and strung out on greed
    Fate-tempting stealing to buy what I need
    Fox in the vineyard having his fill
    Man with a shotgun ready to kill
    Like fish in a barrel

    Same old story since the Garden of Eden
    Over the walls of Jericho
    Some things you see where they go

    Take care of yourself

    Fox’s son grew up on his own
    Hiding in the shadows with an instinct to survive
    Practiced in the arts of things better left alone
    But forge an iron will and in the process purify

    The sacred fire
    The struggle between worlds

    The smoke thru the high lonesome rising
    Vision dreams of revenge on the killing floor
    Can’t escape the past until the enemy lay dying
    Fox’s son had dreamed it all before

    But revenge begets revenge
    Diminishes your humanity
    And misery loves company
    Worry about yourself

    Guilty innocent
    Wonder where the time went
    Watching time pass me by

    Fox and his son sometimes fade away
    Like the shadows of yesterday

    Whose roots become the center
    The wind blowing thru the future
    Reeds in the rushing water
    Before the fox’s fall
    After Eden

    Somewhere between the past and closer to the edge you gotta jump man jump hope the net will appear
    Better men will fall smarter fox’s climb the wall getting up and over while the ancient voices whisper in your ear
    Take care of yourself
    Take care of yourself

  • Would Jack Johnson Dance To That
  • The question is would Jack Johnson dance to that
    The wild wind… played with body and soul
    If he got too high… would the rhythm start a fire
    Or would it fade… like a bird too weak to fly

    Create what’s real… don’t deal in speculation
    Things take time against a critical world
    Flood the night with voices drawn from memory
    Dark history… a long painful road back to light

    Testify by singing
    The devil keeps on swinging
    The way he voiced the changes
    Never saw nothing in poverty and hard times but the blues

    The question is would Jack Johnson dance to that
    Stretched out sound played in a circular way
    You gotta fight to protect your history
    Or just like that… everyone turns away

    Running style floating over the rhythm
    Two chord blues that could make Joe Lewis smile
    Close the street and everything starts to crumble
    Can’t have no hustling street cats from uptown stomping on your feet

    The question is would Jack Johnson dance to that
    High and fast… there was no in-between
    Long spare lines… never out of tempo
    Just a matter of time… gonna change the scene

    This was all about living in the illusion of possibility
    Listening to each other’s voices experimenting with form
    Bad from the beginning… and it just kept getting better
    Everybody showing everybody something and moving on from there
    Seeing the pictures in my mind and letting the music express what I’m seeing
    Waiting for the sound to hit me and extending it into the future
    That didn’t call for no bullshit grinning the way Satchmo used to do
    This was about revolution… and everybody dancing
    Every motherfucker was dancing

    Square business… Jack Johnson would dance to that
    Steal the moment or the shit done pass you by
    Bird knew better… three days out and he flew away
    Ain’t coming back… a thousand miles high

    Turn the whole place out
    Everyone twist and shout
    A bodhi blowing his horn
    Drive up to the edge of everything possible
    Ignorance is slavery
    Don’t take no shit off nobody
    Play the gospels and the blues… harmonic lines laid bare the soul of the inner mounting flame

    Turn the whole place out
    Everyone twist and shout
    A bodhi blowing his horn
    Drive up to the edge of everything possible
    Ignorance is slavery
    Don’t take no shit off nobody
    Play the gospels and the blues… harmonic lines laid bare the soul of the inner mounting flame

    The truth is life can be a bitch sometimes
    Lose direction… people taking up your time
    Learn to fly… don’t wait for the sound to fade away
    A slow rush… the legend never dies

    There was no turning back
    No justice if you’re black
    Smoke them cigarettes
    Blow your horn at the height of the storm until the weather changes

    It was just a matter of time
    Trane rolling down the line
    Heading for the future
    The voice of violent change and the history of survival
    Forget what’s written down
    A different kind of sound
    The will to climb the seven steps to heaven

    Up the road from the east St. Louie blues flowers grew
    Jazz evolution… bop evolution… fusion evolution… the evolution of the soul

    Fight and die for them over there… kill us like nothing over hear
    Might as well have been in jail ‘cause there ain’t no work nowhere
    Where the fuck you gonna go but up when you’re already on the bottom
    But this was all about suffering pain in order to produce beauty
    Everything was happening and the rest you gotta do for yourself
    That’s the way life is if you don’t shine the way Satchmo used to
    But fuck that… This was about setting the world on fire… and everybody dancing
    Every motherfucker was dancing

  • Zozo
  • Went upstairs to apologize for getting angry about something I’ve been angry about many times before
    You didn’t want the bring-down and I can’t say that I blame ya ‘cause I felt the same way when I walked thru the door
    Push my point ‘til you feel helpless and afraid
    Push my point until I think it’s made
    Until I almost believe my own hypocrisy
    Then it’s just a self-fulfilling prophesy
    But you called my play
    You just walked away
    Kinda condescend… preservation and defend
    Even though you’re mine
    Even though I’m blind
    Even though I try to define your world thru my eyes
    With a father’s intuition and a middle-aged suspicion drawn from my life as I’ve lived it with some sorrow and some joy
    And you’re right to shoot it down and move to higher ground ‘cause sometimes your old man forgets he’s not a little boy
    I still remember my disgrace
    My mother’s hand across my face
    I think that’s where I’m coming from
    I ain’t going there no more
    Yeah right just like I said the last time that I lost me head and came at you like you were my enemy
    Wish you, but then again… you probably will but just not when you’re learning how to be and not to be
    Called you back downstairs even though I could’a let you go
    Called you back because you gotta know
    I do the best I can
    I’d like to be a better man
    I know you know I know you understand
    That’s the way I planned it
    Earned it and demand it
    Best follow the drummer ‘cause the drummer calls the rhythm
    It comes down to authority
    Mine as far as you can see
    And I can see for miles beyond the horizon
    Come on Zozo come on
    Come on Zozo Jesus Christ
    Come on Zozo who do you think you’re talking to
    We know each other like we know ourselves and that’s a good thing in the center of the circle where the seeds of love take root
    Those roots are nourished by first light
    And suffer all the damage of misfortune when we fight
    It takes some time for me to get it right
    But I get there… I get there

    Talked about my childhood in a righteous way with an emphasis on discipline and how my mother taught it
    Rivalry to trip the wire
    Set my family on fire
    Shared the sacrifice and earned one more because I thought it
    You think it too
    I know you do
    Never served me… it won’t serve you

    Listen to me baby, don’t walk away
    I’m coming after you like your shadow
    Don’t know about the future… take it day by day
    I hope I learn to let the bullshit go
    I’m asking for consideration
    Considering my situation
    Everyday the realization of causes and effects
    Sometime in the eye of a storm
    A moment when the world is reborn
    Transformation of the soul of an image my subconscious projects
    One day you’ll define your world
    Right now you’re still me little girl
    Who’s old enough to know when her father’s tangled up in blue
    Sorry for my insecurity
    Misery looking for company
    But you gotta admit it didn’t take long for laughter to shine thru

    Shine on baby… shine on

    How else can we know the measure of a man
    Who is gonna write my epitaph
    Influence the angels anyway I can
    I know I’m close to heaven when I hear my baby laugh

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