Ages of Cages: Everything Has Changed

Everything Has Changed

Dead flowers on Spring's doorstep

Strangers in their hometown

Bring a black bird for the lynching

And a fool to wear the crown

Monitoring the teenage live stock

Blowing up their geisha dolls

Rodents are leaving this city like a sinking ship

While commanders weep in stalls

Can you hear the wind wolves charging?

Through the corridors and trees

Leaving us ignorantly startled

With a trail of bagged bodies

Now where do we go?

Oh honey, I don't know

These days, they are so strange

How quickly everything has changed

Simon, the traveling jouster

Leans against his broken lance

They say don't mind his disposition

Or the stains upon his pants

He stares through the pawnshop window

At his past life's artifacts

And he beams at the scarless buyer

Buying all his handmade maps

Saturday papers waltz down the barren streets

As he bathes in the wishing well

While the police chase M-80s

Under April's mystic spell

Outside of the homemade soap store

Sunbathing against the wall

Pagan women recite Haikus

To the creatures from the mall

And the guitarists, they play sad songs

But they make the children smile

While tragic beauties lick their skate-punk knees

Falling in love, Lon Chaney style

Kissing ravens in a thousand dreams

Wounded grins while passing on

The spectators applaud the outcast

For pretending to be strong

Dogmen wave scarlet bandannas

To whom among us could they say

That the panthers of digression

Will not lead us the right way?

Living in endless subdivisions

Carbon-copy neighbors twitch

As their daughters pack in the back of the truck

With the boy they all call "Stitch"

Smoking cloves, watching the sunset

 from atop of the tiki bar

Simon drinks to their youthfulness

And to the daylight's brilliant mar

Now where do we go?

Oh honey, I don't know

These days, they are so strange

How quickly everything has changed

Just a year ago

We were lying in our beds, just dreaming

Of a life that had more meaning

And now here we stand

With blood on our hands

And the pain is not relieving

The guilt just isn't leaving

And they say the music is too loud

When it is never loud enough

***

All these big folk, they seem so small

When they tie us to the tracks

They're just clockwork Republicans

And invertebrate Democrats

And if the temperature keeps rising

All the hatters will come out

And we'll all go back to our fishing shows

While red herrings rain like trout

Paper ships drift down the sidewalk streams

While Gargoyles turn to dust

And at the stop sign still waits Simon

Losing all his faith in trust

Written in chalk along the sidewalks

The brick walls that hold our eyes

There our words of peace and reason

They were written by the wise

And the protesters, they flood the parkway

Their chants echo in the parking garage

Downtown looks like some Mexican carnival

Till the rubber starts to lodge

Simon laughs at them and screams out loud

"We're in hell without our minds!"

But cynicism is just submission

Of a more holistic kind

***

The guitarists sleep in coal trains

Their concubines sweep confetti tears

The protesters drink their chi tea

Counting the president's years

Simon looks at them with disgust

But it is he who is alone

Then he remembers his own round table of old

With its crimson and yellow throne

And when the sand sculptures of today

Fall with midnight's murky tide

Whose deeds will they find noble?

Who among them will decide?

Now where do we go?

Oh honey, I don't know

These days, they are so strange

How quickly everything has changed

When just a year ago

We were lying in our beds, just dreaming

Of a life that had more meaning

And now, here we stand

With blood on our hands

And the pain is not relieving

The guilt just isn't leaving

And they say the music is too loud

When it is never loud enough.