This is the Year (Song)

This is the year that I go home

Everything has to change--one way or another

This is the year--I'll let myself crash and burn

I've been holding my breath for four years

I've been holding my breath for four years

This is the only year I can live now

I gotta clear the tracks

Of the trainwreck in my mind

This is the year

Where I find my way back

Or my way out

Oh God save me from myself

Oh God save me from myself

I've been living in the past and holding out

For my dreams to come back together

I've been looking for a fix for the constant loneliness

I feel now.

This is the year I'm rediscovering joy

Oh, I've known it was you all along

I've known it was you all along

This is the year

That I stop running

Oh, you might have to hold my toes to the line

You might have to put a strong hand into mine.

Cuz if I don't stand up like a man

I'm gonna lose you all over again

They set off fireworks all around the hill in L'viv

They cheered for a new year, it seemed so optimistic and naïve.

I'm taking a deep breath

Oh I'm no hero I know

But I've got to change

If I'm gonna be a man

Oh I've got to change

If I'm gonna live again

This is the year--that I go home

Everything has to change

One way or another
This is the year--that I let myself crash and burn

In the fire, in your arms, or both

I'm still not sure.

I've been holding my breath for four years

I've been holding my breath for four years

This is the year.

Uncle Sam is afraid of the Truth

Safety is the big lie.

Uncle Sam's got a problem with

Frosty the Snowman

Uncle Sam wants to  

Bust out the hair dryer thaw him down

And then put him on ice indefinitely.

Uncle Sam's as insecure as a

14-year old prom queen with pimples

Overcompensating for perceived

Body fat and lack of popularity.

Speak softly and carry a bit dick

He's been feeling up the ladies

Mercantile milking economies

And predatoring about in the dark
For unseen enemies.

Uncle Sam's a peeping Tom

Verizon records, Merkel's phone calls

And I think he knows a lot more than

He lets on.

Uncle Sam's been patronizing, profiling,

Renditioning, and torturing

His citizens and his neighbors

For far too long.
There there, Uncle knows best,

Shakes us down for a dollar

Downs another green bottle
Mainlines a McWhopper,

And shoots another rocket up in the air

Uncle Sam's got swagger,

Uncle Sam's got sex,
Uncle Sam thinks he's in control,

Hot air hubris,

Propagandies, and F-35s.

Uncle Sam thinks he's in control,

What a delusion.

Defense spending.

Gluttony.

Incarcerasociety.

The all-seeing eye.

If you're for us big brother,

Then prove it:  improve our schools,

Love your neighbors as you love your

Latest war machines and stock offerings.
The Pax Americana is crumbling.

And the kids are in the bathroom

Playing with Uncle's cigarettes.

Unexploded Shells

There are still unexploded shells in the Somme

After a hundred years

Arrowheads litter the plains

And radiation the stratosphere

I've been thinking of late about the way

My ticking heart is wired

The way it's mined

With memory and throbbing pulsing pangs

There are 246 square miles

Of Croatian mine-suspected territory

And somewhere in BogotaKatmanduZimbabwe

A boy with a leg that ends at the knee.

There is a web of broken window glass

Stretching across this revolutioned city.

It lies just under the skin,

In eyes that don't trust

Eyes that know what mobs are made of.

Fault lines lie along the palms of hands

That shake, but are not shaking

Gashes open in the earth

Along the lines of skin and nation

The kettle's on again.

And when the whistle blows: bombardment.

The world flat-spins and

And we'll carve each other up

Like precision drones or yellowjackets,

Whittling bones again.

We fracture into you and I

As the flak of words makes a burning sky

The firebombs hit the shells and

Powder packed storehouses

Of every argument gone by.

No good scout between us left to fix

The knots untied,

The fires rise.

And the Khmer Rouge blooded bones

Sit in the fields unburied

And holding you opens the scabs

Of everything I've carried.

To live we must remember.

To live we must forget.

Mosquito (Silly song)

Since I haven't posted in a while...

No don't worry

I don't have chicken pox.

It's not measles or

Ringworm or fleas or poison ivy

Oh no no...

I've just been giving blood.

For the proliferation of

One wretched species

Ooo...mosquito

Tapping my veins like an oil rig,

Mosquito

I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do,

And when I smack you between my fingers

It's my blood that's on my hands

Oh you think you stick me

With your little straw

And just eat as much as you want

Because I'm sleeping

I just would like to say

My body's not a buffet

Oh, I itch

I hope that it was worth it

I hope that you are happy,

You little bugs...

Cuz half of your friends are blood stains on

My wall!

You might think, I'm an easy mark

Because I sleep like a rock

But when your groggy blood-gorged self is

Lazing on the wall

Above me when I wake up,

Well let's say, there's blood smears on my

Wall today.

Oh mosquito

That high pitched buzz is worse

Than horror film violins,

Mosquito

I think it's time for you

To go.

Yeah you might think I just be talking smack

But I've got these here two palms to back up the attack

And girl you're buzzing round my ear while I'm trying to sleep

You'll be a bloodstain on my wall before you can blink

I don't mean to be rude, but I'm a little miffed

You think it's okay to take my blood for your kids

Vampire bitch, and then for three days I itch,

I'll be getting my revenge and then

Wash my hands of it

Oh mosquito

This is war.

A Love Song for Brownouts

I'm happiest during brownouts, everything shut-down

Nothing to do but play guitar and sing

Or read by candlelight.

I think of calling someone,

I am naked without

A friend count (1363) to comfort me

To tell me I'm not alone.

I am instantly transformed into the finite,

Four walls, no possibilities.

No 100 messages to respond to.

No endless to-do list of things to

Learn and read and watch.

Just myself and the guitar strings.

Just my voice whispering out a song

So as not to wake the neighbors.

Whole, alive.