It's not worth it!
But all the same
They rise to fight,
They rise and rise and rise again,
Day after day,
Fearing the time
When they must fall helpless
As do all eventually,
Into decay.
And with every rise
They sacrifice a little more
To the machine,
At first begrudgingly,
And then with steam,
Until finally,
They chant in time
To the grinding of its wheels
And march along in silent disregard
Of the ones it crushes
Beneath the mass 
Of its enormous frame.
And you would think
That it was all there was 
Of the world
For how they rise and rise.
But it's not worth it!
Stay down!
If you can't rise
To something more than that.
Stay down!
And die if you must!
But do not live to serve
The grind
That drives the souls of men
To hell and to the grave!
Oh man! Don't rise!
And let that great machine
March on without you!
Let it grind
The bones of the poor
Without your pushing it along!
Oh man! Is it not worth your life
To be free from the blood of these?
Don't rise, oh man!
Don't rise.

I hesitate
​And the world weeps.

Thank God that I am only one
Among so many!
Otherwise,
How would I find peace?
And thank heavens I am yet apart, aloof, alone,
Here within my cabin,
Deep within my candlestick,
The push behind my pen,
Here burning dim
Behind the panes of glass
That separate me
From the cool and shaded 
Frosty wood
That lies in the hidden place 
That you can't see.
Oh, thank God!
Otherwise,
Well, I don't want to think!
I don't want to see
What I would be
If I were something more
​Than me.

There was betrayal,
Deep betrayal,
But I did not revile back,
And you wrapped my feet
With your whip
And dragged me over the cobbles
Till my head was a bloody mass,
And my heart burst out
With blood and tears
And together they flowed
Out and down
Upon the ground.
And the evil nymphs danced 
Upon my grave.
And good men passed me there
And looked down in pity and distain,
For they believed
And there was no one
Left to disagree.
You alone knew the secrets
That could explain
The thing I was 
And the thing I couldn't be!
But you did not.
And with a heave,
You piled the dirt,
Piled it high on top of me
Until...
You also couldn't see.
And now you're miserable,
Paying over and over
With four score trouble
For all of your deceit.
And strangely, by some miracle -
You won't believe it,
But it's true
Somehow it's all ok...
And I wonder - dear God...
How can it be?
But it is,
For I did not revile back
And because of that
I still can see.
I see before the thing
That you became.
Back I see
To the very one
Who trusted me.
And it was the gift
Of your betrayal
That taught me how to suffer well.
And because of that 
All is not lost 
For you and me.
And so,
When you've paid
That awful price,
Come home
And greet me with a kiss
And let me hold you 
Sweet child of mine!
And love me better then
For all that is passed,
All that's died,
And all that yet will be.

It's not so bad
If you'll let them in,
Let them help,
Let them listen for a while,
Not so bad
If you can bear chagrin
And stand silent through
The sharp distain
That paves the way 
For your admiring friends.
That's how it is
When you embark 
To stand in the market 
As you are.
That's how it is 
To truly be a thing
And not pretend.
So don't loose heart
When you're not wanted.
Just wait until you are.

He was crazy - certifiably  - for sure - crazy
And his crazy was so familiar!
Disturbingly familiar.
It was the crazy
Born of denying the thing you are - gone crazy -
Of hiding in the dark
Year after year
Because you are just one thing
And it's not wanted,
Or so you think.
And there it is, I believe,
That I see what it was that was so crazy - 
For it was wanted,
Wanted by some - wanted by many!
But he was crazy! - half crazy at least - more - far more!
Crazy for believing he could not sing!
And that was the craziest thing of all,
Because there was music in his soul!
Fine music!
Pay for the album fine music!
And there it was - upon the paper
Written down and sung over and over 
To the emptiness of his room
But he denied us the thing he was
Because...
Crazy!
I don't understand it!
And it saddens my soul - deeply. 
And I can say - because I've rolled it over
And over in my mind.
That I don't think that he was crazy -
Just afraid - 
And crazy,
Crazy like a muzzled, pent up bird goes crazy,
Crazy like the violin afraid to sing - gone crazy
Crazy cause he did not dare 
To let it out
Accept upon the inner walls
Of his very own self-made prison.
And there it burst out
Uncontrollably
On every surface
In random, useless beauty
For no-one there to see --
Accept her.
He drove her crazy - absolutely crazy!
I don't know how she did it.
It wasn't compassion
It wasn't love.
For she was crazy
Crazy for not leaving him,
Crazy for not forcing him out of the house,
Crazy for not telling him
To man up and sing
Or die!
But then again,
Perhaps she saw
Behind the sunken eyes
And the yellow pallor of his skin
The beautiful soul that waited there
Longing to be seen, but fearful.
Or perhaps still, she was not crazy.
Perhaps she liked it just that way,
Perhaps she loved to keep him there,
Not because his art delighted her
But because she could say
That it was hers,
Like the chickadee kept against the law
And gone mad for want of wild things.
Yes, perhaps she liked him just that way
A little or lot crazy
Or not - who can say?
Who dares to try
To comprehend
The lot of those gone crazy?
There's been many a madhouse
Filled with such who could not let it go.
And so, I lay it down 
Right here.
And walk away.
I will not stay.
For I've a song to sing today.

It's over.  You realize that, don't you?  It's over because nobody cares for spiritual things.  Or rather, they care for them wherein they may profit by them, wherein they believe that those things will bring them some sort of security.  You will deny this and point to the millions who show up to church on Sunday or the millions more who meditate or attempt to practice mindfulness.  But it is not practice but priority which determines one's fidelity to the otherworldly.  What serves what?  From all that I can tell, in 99.99% of the cases, (I would say 100% but I know a fraction of a handful of exceptions) pious observance and spiritual practice are tools to obtaining the "good life".  Now note that I am not taking into account what people say about their observance, or even the observance itself.  I am observing whom they serve with their pious devotions and what they expect in return.  And what I see is that the spiritual is used as a tool by which individuals may more devoutly approach the god of success - the god who will give them what they want and prove to themselves that they are all that they believe themselves to be.  But that is not Truth.  We are not what we thought ourselves to be.  We have imagined a self that serves the whole, but it was not the whole but the self we served in all our serving.  And it is Truth that comes with a knife, to faithfully sever from us such fancies.  It stands there ready to pluck out such an eye which offends and keeps us from the kingdom.  And that hurts.  But Truth rejoices when there are two in a field and one is taken, two in a bed and one is taken.  It shouts praises when one of a city chooses Truth over that by which she may profit.  And it revels in the ruin that inevitably precedes rebirth.  For remember that the message of all true teachers throughout all history is that something is wrong with what the world desires.  And it is that very desire which Gods and angels stand waiting to extinguish.  But the world has given up on that in practice.  The desire now is for the end result.  We've thought to hack the system.  And that is why it's over.  You see, you don't really want Truth accept as a means to serve some lesser god who aligns with all that you've imagined for yourself...And so, what can such a person say accept
"Come sweet ruin
And crush all that I've imagined. 
Give me just the thing
That I don't want,
The thing that I can't stand to see."
In this there is hope.

The world's on fire.
It's burning high into the night,
And that's ok.
It always has been that way
Somewhere.
And while it grew
Into a hideous, gruesome sight
And men's souls
Were weighed in the balance
And found wanting, 
And they lost themselves 
In passion,
At that same time
Somewhere
There slept the infant 
In the cradle
And the mother 
Picked away at her needle work
Beside the fireplace.
And the Papa
Loaded wood into the box
Beside the fire.
And there was perfect peace 
Somewhere - 
And all because they minded 
Just their business
And dared to choose peace
And to believe 
That what evil fell beneath 
Their own eye
Was just their evil
And didn't seek some evil
Far away.
Today, they import evil
And rouse themselves 
To foreign passions
Ten, fifty, a hundred, thousand miles away.
And the baby screams 
For want of mother
While Papa, Mama browse for other evils
And miss just the evil
That they might have only thwarted
The one beneath their noses,
The evil of their very own today.