We too were once young and hopeful
Certain of each new year’s promise
of new epics everlasting
Until monotony overtakes
that liberating embrace of mortality
Disappointment of empty inheritance
we give to cushion your fall
with diminished expectations
Because nothing is really epic
Because today we are here
and tomorrow gone
Apps and ads are comingled
ruthlessly intertwined with
their shameless marketing managers
Eloping with Wall Street
because every whore knows
that anything is for sale
Yet who names the price?
Analog man stumbles
through this landscape surreal
Battling against odds improbable
and chafing at the idiocy
of self driving cars and amateur dentistry
All those things you’ll remember
that someone once said
It seemed like a good idea at the time
Those famous last words
of some character actor
whose name you can’t remember
Lost in the credits of films
equally forgotten
The megafrequency drones
Sonic tapestry conducts the hive
They believe only the truths they are told
Incurious and distracted
No proofs required
The chosen have ordained
You, the unwitting tools
support their construct
they hand you shovels, now dig
Every sentient being stamped
marked in DNA
To be humbled by the universe
it’s enormity so shaming
All life spent in proving
that we’re bigger than we are
Convinced that we’re too big to fail
Our true failing is this belief
December’s dawn begins in midnight chill
as we stare in abject horror
at November’s spawn
Left writhing in the road
pathetic rearview spectacle
Terror turned luckless pedestrian
yet heartless we drive on
The new day dawns cold
the grey of all we have left
Our anthems echo in the emptiness
They declare frightened confessions
of liberation at sixteen
The uncertain nature of freedom
such risk can not be allowed
Driven to Disney’s plastic cocoon
attached to that warm bosom
and condemned
to a diet of sour milk
Drunk on this poison
Convinced of your mission
To save a rock in space
that doesn’t care if you’re here
Your tower of Babel awaits
the shrine of another
Utopia in ruins
Rain specked glass
Airport terminal window
merciless
unmedicated
impending dread
Chorus of monitors drone
echo through the concourse
….holiday travel will be heavy this year….
Countdown to boarding
and the sick ether
of grey damp and jet fuel
and the glimmering hope
this bird never lands
November fires burn
their sweet smoke ascends
to the setting grey blanket
Hearthstones glow orange in shadow
as winds tap the window
They are voices of old
A train whistle calls
joins the chorus
They wish to escape the damp
to the place of their birth
We still hear them
their plaintive cries forever trapped
on wrong side of the glass
Fevered dreams
divide by zero
Soundtracks past midnight
when the airwaves were free
Now perfected, digitized replicas
Memories held hostage
to satellite subscription
Backbeats and feedback
from the time we believed
we could make a difference
