Fake Jive
It's just a painting, it's just a song
Wonderous plate, miraculous rag on
Holding the promise of happiness high
Beauteous speck in a dilated eye
O you draw yourself a little leaner
And you sing like somebody meaner than you are, don't you tiger
Of paper? A many false windowed thing
A kite in a lecturing wind
Awaiting intellectual strike, cast the pens down in the dome tonight
Have you read the poets lately?
They don't get a weekly, monthly, bi-annual
Now you may cry but I doubt you will
Ten years is all it took, ten years in thrall to a lickspittle crook
Now you don't know the crooked lay of the land
You don't trust any man to shake your hand without
Taking a thumb or a finger
How the vilest scent will linger while the sweetest
Pass away so swiftly
On this patriot day sound the national band
Sweep the plain you sunburnt and bland
And I'll pollute the perfect stanza for music
In a deft show of hubris unplanned
Hitch a skiff with a dusky daughter
Sail down a river of grey water musics
Keeping the drain alive with all this fake jive
Life is a painting, life is a song, it holds the promise of happiness
I could tell you where it goes wrong
As good as tell you why the longing long
You the poor painter, average singer
Maybe you never went through the ringer enough
Or loved it so you came out wrung
Like a cracked bell I continue to tell
The same sad tale and toll all my failures to hold any note
Or I quaver and cast about for the bluest port
In a black and white storm
O I've got lots of advice, never listen to any advice
Be a pole, hoist your own flaming petard
And when you blow, blow hard