Thoughts
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
(work in progress)
I ran across the past of my youth
Looking for some undefineable thing
And when I understood that it didn't exist
I set about creating it.
I saw the future in machines
Made in the image of ourselves
A living literature, a moving mosaic
Able to keep itself alive.
I've never dreamed of children
only of the future.
I've always lived for tomorrow
sometimes missing today.
What makes me do this? What drives me?
What, in the corners of my soul
cries out to be,
I don't know. Maybe I never will.
I pound out my thoughts, sifting for answers
looking for the grains of truth that never are
because truth is life, and life is change
and change can't be caught in the threshers net
I wonder who I am
I wonder where I'm going
I wonder where I've been
I wonder what is real.
All the long dead men cry from the brittle pages
warning us of our intrinsic fate
telling us to take heed of the warnings long ago
to turn back from the dark abyss, before it is to late.
we turn upon each other, reasonless and blind
and the seeing few seem crippled
by the images of time
telling them the same has always been
but the play's the very thing to know the minds of kings
and find out what they really truly are.
And sure enough, expected, each and every one
took the crown by murdering our future.
shall we let this stand? will we lay and die?
forfeting out chances to make some sense
of all the rightious wrongs made in the name of gods
without the merest chance of recompense.
nothing's really real that lies in the minds of men
though real enough it seems to you and me
we're woven in the warp of a fabric of no depth
trapped within the threads we dare not see
liberty is feared, for no-one knows themselves
captivity is safer when a jailer pulls your strings
they play upon the harps of a thousand tortured souls
cracked is the casing of the freedom bell we ring.
letting others think for you is slow and steady death
a creeping malady of mind and will
piece by piece they take from us a treasure beyond price
and give back petty coinage from the ugly clinking till
what's a person worth, when all is said and done
what's the price to put upon their head?
a quantity of tears for the dreams of our youth
and silence for the words we wish we'd said.
but the few, the mighty, the fearless and the bold
will they buckle down to feed the growing greed?
as the generations turn, the youth become the old
stamping down the unexpected hated changling seed.
while the overlooked, the different, the wyrd and wicked child
explores the world and understands the price we pay for fear
the missings, and the turnings, the paths we'll never take
afraid to face the challenges to what we hold so dear.
the child is quite delighted to learn that they are wrong
a better way they forge from the ashes of the old
choices ill-advised, but experience becoming
a new and brighter story that the old books ever told.
the simplest of stories had a clear dividing line
between the consequences of our actions, good or bad
the concience that we teach to our children while so young
the luxury of concience that since then we've never had
we lie to our children, we lie to the young
telling them of witches shut in ovens burning fire
the wicked die in stories while in life live all around
and we never lift a hand against their raging dark desire
lulled into a sense of calm by stories that we tell
we make up all the heroes that we think we cannot be
and set them up on pedistals of ivory and stone
removed from such beginnings as the likes of you and me.
And we tell ourselves the heroes from our dreams, they never come
so heroes must belong to some lost forgotten time
when we were somehow different, when something from within
could not stand by idle, but had to draw a line
against the sucking darkness of the greedy voice within
telling us that power can be had without a cost
that slaves we make so willing just deserve the fate they get
to die in places underneath, their voices ever lost.
the sounds of their suffering will echo in your soul
never reaching out to help the weak and fallen stand
each diseased reflection of the echo that you hear
burns another death-mark on your soft and idle hand.
So lift your hands, lift your heart, lift your eyes and see
create the future, make it what you wish it would become.
And say to those who travel after down the endless path,
"I've been all that I can, but the work is never done."
I ran across the past of my youth
Looking for some undefineable thing
And when I understood that it didn't exist
I set about creating it.
I saw the future in machines
Made in the image of ourselves
A living literature, a moving mosaic
Able to keep itself alive.
I've never dreamed of children
only of the future.
I've always lived for tomorrow
sometimes missing today.
What makes me do this? What drives me?
What, in the corners of my soul
cries out to be,
I don't know. Maybe I never will.
I pound out my thoughts, sifting for answers
looking for the grains of truth that never are
because truth is life, and life is change
and change can't be caught in the threshers net
I wonder who I am
I wonder where I'm going
I wonder where I've been
I wonder what is real.
All the long dead men cry from the brittle pages
warning us of our intrinsic fate
telling us to take heed of the warnings long ago
to turn back from the dark abyss, before it is to late.
we turn upon each other, reasonless and blind
and the seeing few seem crippled
by the images of time
telling them the same has always been
but the play's the very thing to know the minds of kings
and find out what they really truly are.
And sure enough, expected, each and every one
took the crown by murdering our future.
shall we let this stand? will we lay and die?
forfeting out chances to make some sense
of all the rightious wrongs made in the name of gods
without the merest chance of recompense.
nothing's really real that lies in the minds of men
though real enough it seems to you and me
we're woven in the warp of a fabric of no depth
trapped within the threads we dare not see
liberty is feared, for no-one knows themselves
captivity is safer when a jailer pulls your strings
they play upon the harps of a thousand tortured souls
cracked is the casing of the freedom bell we ring.
letting others think for you is slow and steady death
a creeping malady of mind and will
piece by piece they take from us a treasure beyond price
and give back petty coinage from the ugly clinking till
what's a person worth, when all is said and done
what's the price to put upon their head?
a quantity of tears for the dreams of our youth
and silence for the words we wish we'd said.
but the few, the mighty, the fearless and the bold
will they buckle down to feed the growing greed?
as the generations turn, the youth become the old
stamping down the unexpected hated changling seed.
while the overlooked, the different, the wyrd and wicked child
explores the world and understands the price we pay for fear
the missings, and the turnings, the paths we'll never take
afraid to face the challenges to what we hold so dear.
the child is quite delighted to learn that they are wrong
a better way they forge from the ashes of the old
choices ill-advised, but experience becoming
a new and brighter story that the old books ever told.
the simplest of stories had a clear dividing line
between the consequences of our actions, good or bad
the concience that we teach to our children while so young
the luxury of concience that since then we've never had
we lie to our children, we lie to the young
telling them of witches shut in ovens burning fire
the wicked die in stories while in life live all around
and we never lift a hand against their raging dark desire
lulled into a sense of calm by stories that we tell
we make up all the heroes that we think we cannot be
and set them up on pedistals of ivory and stone
removed from such beginnings as the likes of you and me.
And we tell ourselves the heroes from our dreams, they never come
so heroes must belong to some lost forgotten time
when we were somehow different, when something from within
could not stand by idle, but had to draw a line
against the sucking darkness of the greedy voice within
telling us that power can be had without a cost
that slaves we make so willing just deserve the fate they get
to die in places underneath, their voices ever lost.
the sounds of their suffering will echo in your soul
never reaching out to help the weak and fallen stand
each diseased reflection of the echo that you hear
burns another death-mark on your soft and idle hand.
So lift your hands, lift your heart, lift your eyes and see
create the future, make it what you wish it would become.
And say to those who travel after down the endless path,
"I've been all that I can, but the work is never done."
