life in the empire

Show Do Tell: A Reading Series & Art Review

Life in the empire /The sentries sing at sunrise/ Their Gods are deader / Than the look in their eyes / And I am tethered / To the awaited surprise / The turn in the narrative / The truth in the lies / Where all will make sense / Be at last contextualized / We’re alone in our own reality / Where no one may hide Life in the empire / Culture is a transparent bag / Accusing you of having / Things you never had / And some tin-eared pawn / Celebrates the new hit / While another gatekeeper / Decides if your copper slipper fits / They danced in the street / Because they thought they won / But nothing is stopping / The next flood The songs inside me must be born / Like the clothes outside you / Must be worn / And the seawall constructed / On the cusp of Babylon / When there still were matinees / In days halcyon / Such a feat of engineering / A true union job / But praying in high-water / Bought me closer to god / May the old become new / And life continue on / We are but the remnants / Of a world that is gone Life in the empire / Requires many saints / The selfless among us / Submitting to their fates / To tourniquet with grace / Though the wound is terminal / Who offer their shoes / With many miles to go / Their passenger faces alight / In siren red / They offer their hand in crises / Instead of retreating instead Life in the empire / At least I have your love / In the brain-damaged polarization / None of us are above / And the sanity of our negotiation / Keeps my hope intact / I am special, I am someone / With you, as a matter of fact / And the wishes of a child / Are honored by the birds in flight / Though all the glory offered / Is a paycheck and fluorescent light The gift I offer strangers / With a trembling hand / Is all the fury inside / We never understand / The song cycles forever / Until nature runs out of chords / Someone becomes the subject / Another impersonates the lord / And the personality imperiled / By all this hell breaking loose / With violent solutions / That cannot be refused / May the old become new / And life continue on / We are but the remnants / Of a world already gone