♫As Real as A Newly Made-Up Face♫

LYRICS=

I look out at the evening

how many of them remain

in this life...

with this splendid moon

the soft hum of insects

between the-

passing fingers of the wind?

I have wanted to sing since I was born,

but the forces of repression

are strong enough now

to kill the drive

before the thoughts arrive

I have followed the light

through the land of shadows,

by watching its reflection on

the things that were not there,

and sorrow has followed me

like my shadow

down all the days.

Always at my heels

always yapping

like small dogs in sweaters,

with ribbons in their hair.

Ribbons that were placed there

by the vanity of women

who were never young

even as children

Women who use beauty as a weapon

against those who would move on from them

to worlds less occupied with mirrors

and with time.

I do not trust the future

that fools promise I will get

If I pay them now

for what I don’t have yet

I do not trust the past

that I am told was once in place

and was as real

as the image in the mirror

of a newly made up face.

The stages in the distance

are overrun with cacophony

All the bad... unlived poets...

push ahead

They hope that through artifice

they will achieve

what inspiration has denied them

Their exhausted ships are beached

and broken

by the greater power of the sea

and here

I sing forever

between the waves

that overcome my voice

I sing until the crowds have gone away

into the void of confusion and noise

driven by the desire for shape

driven to the endlessness of new markets

for crap that shines

like a half-life in false light

I do not trust the future

that fools promise I will get

If I pay them now

for what I don’t have yet

I do not trust the past

that I am told was once in place

and was as real

as the image in the mirror

of a newly made-up face.

They go like streams of waste matter

through sewers designed for what they call art.

They go like trivia in search of substance,

like pretension in search of a dimension

where talent can be generated

like soft serve ice cream

that is sold to the idiot children of invading cultures

who cannot even speak their own language,

much less the languages of music and math.

They go into that waiting space between

all of the temporary lifetimes that remain

like pieces of a puzzle that fit nothing to hand

but everything yet to be created

which they will never create

and cannot even effectively mimic

without making wildlife laugh

I do not trust the future

that fools promise I will get

If I pay them now

for what I don’t have yet

I do not trust the past

that I am told was once in place

and was as real

as the image in the mirror

of a newly made-up face.