Tomorrow People

Hey tomorrow people
How do you like it there?
How do you see yourself
And how does now compare?
 
Hey tomorrow people
Tell me what happens next
How is your nuclear threat?
How good is the virtual sex?
 
Hey tomorrow people
Have you sold the world itself?
Do your dreams have commercials?
How’s your commonwealth?
How’s your mental health?
 
Hey tomorrow people
Do you still blame the shit you do
On different colored people
That are not just like you?
 
Hey tomorrow people
Sorry about the earth...
Have you found a cure for death?
Have you found a pill that works?
 
Hey tomorrow people
Do you still hate poetry?
Are you high right now?
Are you where you wanted to be?
Are ya feelin free?
 
Hey tomorrow people
Don’t look at me man
I may have made a deal with the devil
But I never shook his hand
 
Hey tomorrow people
Is it worth it to pretend
That life is like a movie
When you already know the end?
 
Hey Tomorrow people, hey tomorrow people
Does violence turn you on?
Are you high right now?
Is your motivation gone?
Do you feel withdrawn?

Paradise Alley

I saw a killer with an eye patch and limp
Darken the doorway
Of a one time palace, that in 100 years
Became a halfway
 
He never spoke but I knew his name was greed
He stole the world with no trace of need
And he’s taken more lives than anyone could tally
Now he’s the king of Saturday night
Down in paradise alley
 
Everywhere she goes, the queen of doom
She takes her writer
Who hands her scripts to read aloud
When someone tries to indict her
 
The forgotten girls of west street knew her name
But nobody calls it now, since she lost her fame
A lot of lonely men knew her as “Sally”
She used to make the dead men grin
Down In paradise alley
 
Assassins in drag are throwing roses
To street performers  
In the bankrupt empire 
where the mayor hides
Out in the corners
 
Of endless bowels of this graveyard town
He breaks every single law he ever laid down
Before the whistleblowers all start to rally
He’s gonna sneak away
Back down to paradise alley
 
Peasants are casting stones wrapped up
In pages of the bible
Into the windows of the clinic
Where they sell you survival
 
While the queen and the mayor wring their hands for a new day
And the loud mouth bells of judgement have no more to say
The song of a million souls will sing a finale
Where they crucify their time
Down in paradise alley
 
You got a lot guts to show your face
Out in the open
It’s you they blame, 
haven’t you seen the news? 
You’d better get going
 
When they find you out, you know they’re gonna string you up
They’re drunk on blood and my friend there’s never enough
They’ll drag your name through the mud of this whole damn valley
If you need a place to hide,
Go back to paradise alley
If you need a place to go my friend
Go down to paradise alley

Movies

From Sausalito to the Rio Grande
They say the heart away grows fond
But I’ve been on this absent highway
For so long
 
When I was young I fought in the war
I was shot three times and left for dead
The doc gave me codeine
Said now the fight was in my head
 
They don’t make movies like they used to
They don’t write those stories anymore
They don’t make heroes out of celluloid like before
 
They say the hardest parts of the day
Are the beginning and the end
But the hardest part for me
Is knowing the day won’t come again
 
So while you’re living in your stolen time
Remember to know just what it means
Some day some actor is gonna dress like you and steal your scenes
 
And you’ll say...
 
They don’t make movies like they used to
They don’t write those stories anymore
They don’t make heroes out of celluloid like before
They don’t make heroes out of celluloid anymore

Hands Down In Your Pockets

A flower turns to rotten words
The morning sky grows dim
The papers all eat themselves 
And everything's a sin
 
A skeleton man with a flesh pen
Signs his golden name
Upon the wall, like a child's scrawl 
Like spirits leave a stain
 
Holy towns, holy worlds
And holy walking meat
Butchering itself
While blood rains in the street 
 
And even a dead man wears a mask
There is no death’s retreat
Just the siren's famous wail
That sings you sweet to sleep  
 
Headless headlines hollow breath
Lead us in that dance of death
And if you think you’re not in line
Then you ain’t being honest 
 
The rules come from the top my friend
They run the world you’re living in
The hypnotist, illusionist
Got hands down in your pockets
 
There’s no trace of Eden here 
Where the new martyr bleeds
Guns ring out in a house of God
Like thunder in your feed
 
And the twisted vines of myth they climb
Till you can’t tell who’s lying
The war gets close and no-one knows
For which side they are dying
 
Smog and fog and diamond shit
That shines and makes you ill
Is there one single unbroken heart
Out in the mire still?
 
 Well if there is then tell me this
How long do you think it takes
Before the divide gets inside
And bleeds it till it breaks?
 
Headless headlines hollow breath
Lead us in that dance of death
And if you think you’re not in line
Then you ain’t being honest 
 
The rules come from the top my friend
They run the world you’re living in
The hypnotist, illusionist
Got hands down in your pockets
 
Tents under the overpass 
Broken glass and dread
Driving by, you lock the eye
But turn away the head 
 
And the 1% can pick and chose 
The fates of all of us 
What's it like to see
The golden rule turning into rust?
 
Voices voice the void in vain
On radios of silence
Like weary waves that push and pull
And give the ships no guidance
 
As candles burn and beg the dark
To stop its slow decent
Is this the light of conscience?
Oh tell me where it went 
 
Headless headlines hollow breath
Lead us in that dance of death
And if you think you’re not in line
Then you ain’t being honest 
 
The rules come from the top my friend
They run the world you’re living in
The hypnotist, illusionist
Got hands down in your pockets
Jeff Bezos and Pope Francis 
Got hands down in your pockets
Mickey Mouse the capitalist
Got hands down in your pockets

White Shadow

Get outta here, leave us be
You’ve stayed too long it’s time to leave
Your day is done, you’re world is over
Your best attempts were mediocre
 
Your castle walls have turned  to dust
Your fake medallion’s showing rust
Here come the lawyers, here comes the hearse
It looks like murder, it may be worse
 
See the sleeping seas erupt,
See the fault lines open
The lava bed is set to blow
(White shadow)
It’s time to go
It’s over now, it’s time to go
 
You fed us bullets, carved our idols
Chewed up lies and spit out bibles
You made a ghetto out of paradise
Treated women like merchandise
 
It’s your turn now to fear the thunder
How’re you gonna breath with your head held under?
Your money won’t buy you from the hole
And even the devil don’t want your soul
 
Judges in their hazmat suits
Prostitutes in steel toed boots
they’re coming with their guns in tow
(White shadow)
It’s time to go
It’s over now, it’s time to go
 
Your medicine just made us sick
You’re running with the Bolshevik
Who’s got your kingdom in the pocket
Who’s eyes and mouth are full of vomit
 
There’s no saviors left at all
The repo man has come to call
And there’s no pieces left to move
Death is all he wants from you
 
Look out now here come the slaves
And your victims from the grave
They want an answer, they won’t take no
(White shadow)
It’s time to go
It’s over now, it’s time to go

Things Could Get Much Worse

Beware the man with everything and the man with nothing too
They wear the same kind of pain and they’ll try to put it on you
When you’re swimming in the rain and headed for the drain
And a childs prayer sounds like a curse
Just know things could get much worse, 
Things could get much worse 
oh you know they could
 
Chris Columbus he gave me silver for my birthday the other day
As it turns out, it was stolen so the law hauled me away
Now I’m stuck in a hole doing life without parole
And the only way out is a hearse
 Ah but things could get much worse, 
Things could get much worse 
oh you know they could
 
I’ve got a woman, she winds me up then she steals my photograph
She can’t disown me cause I’m not hers. I can’t loan her what I don’t have
So it’s both of us to blame for a love with no brain
Like a mountain full of fire about to burst
 Yeah but things could get much worse, 
Things could get much worse 
oh you know they could
 
Elon Musk, ya know he votes. He’s got a sticker, he shows it off
He hopes we’ll have the first robot president that plays golf
He’s got rockets don’t ya know, and they’re loaded up to go
Just in time to evacuate the earth
 Yeah things could get much worse, 
Things could get much worse 
oh you know they could

Someone Else’s Problems 

You say the world is getting smaller and you’ve got no place to stand
And the Law is getting taller and it’s shadows force your hand
And you wanna make a difference but you’d rather have it made
And you preach the sin of green while your pockets getting paid 

And you’re nodding in agreement when you hear the prophet speak
And the words of equal measure you’re so eager to repeat
But you don’t seek the answers I guess you already got um
And all the trouble in the world, it ain’t your problem

You say it’s such a shame all the families on the street
And you hold your children close when you pass the place they sleep
And you wanna give them something but you don’t  have any cash
Besides you know you pay your taxes, the city should clean up all this trash

 You’ve got deadlines and dues ya know the truth it ain’t that funny
The kids need their tuition and you’re not made of money
It’s a shame their at the ladder, it’s a shame they’re at the bottom
But the weight that brings them down it ain’t your problem

You said you’d live with nothing and you want to give it back
You tried to walk like Ghandi, while the cloths upon your back
Are made in third world sweatshops with synthetic golden thread
But you’re opening your eyes with all the scriptures that you read 

Now you’re working 40 hours it’s too late to change your name
You’re just trying to scrape by between the gears of the game
And you’ve made a few donations, so they would not be forgotten
And you’ve done the best you could, but it ain’t your problem

And you go to sleep at night while the grief swims in your head
Before your kids can go to war, they’re killed in school instead
But that’s the way the west was won, in this godforsaken land
By the cigarette in their teeth and a pistol in their hand

So you drive your car to work and you watch the climate change
You think of all the immigrants who’s children have been caged
And the poor son that was murdered cause some racist cop just shot him
Forget his mama’s pain, cause it ain’t your problem

The Yankee’s fought the rebel the Arab fought the Jew
The few fight the many and the many fight the few
Yeah, the Christians fight each other 
The buddhists fight the fight
While the right blame the left and the left believe they’re right

And it started in the home, between the woman and the man
And it’s always been that way, ever since the world began
But all the holy wars, you know the dead already fought ‘em
And they’re really no such thing as someone else’s problem

Loser Town

Bandits in the hot sun beating on the doldrums, waiting for hang men, dressed up in bedlam
Shouting out scriptures, pointing at the pictures posted on the billboards, 
Paid for by war lords.
 
Unreal newsreel, tell Siri how you feel. Money from a bad deal, crushed by the big wheel
Paranoid humanoid unemployed schizoids, singed up, lined up, tied up and bound up
 
Yeah, yeah, yeah
See ‘em all falling down
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Living in loser town
 
Mary’s on food stamps, four kids, no grants, fighting off the side glance, pilled out romance
Words don’t appease her, hand to mouth fever, fire in a freezer, no one even sees her
 
Yeah, yeah, yeah
See ‘em all falling down
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Living in loser town
 
Call girls in China town, noose necked banker clowns, loaded up sex heads sneaking off to sick beds
Preachers and creepers, doorway sleepers. A vagabond Jesus is looking for believers
 
Strung out nut job, robbing all the doorknobs, searching for the house key, looking like Bukowski
Who sold his soul for rock and roll, poems in the bathroom, a needle and a hot spoon
 
Yeah, yeah, yeah
See ‘em all falling down
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Living in loser town

What’s The Matter Esther

You wear your head like a trophy
You wear your mouth like a badge
You show your heart to the watchman
Like you’ve got some right to brag
 
You come in through the door
Like you're looking for a war
But all you’ve got is pride
And it ain't worth fighting for
 
You say the moon is all cracked up
And the sky is too corrupt
But what's the matter Esther?
What’s the trouble babe?
What's tearing you up?
 
You put your guns on the table
Your rabbit's foot and noose
You poison your own drink
And you laugh at the abuse
 
You’re staring at the floor
Like you've never seen one before
Then you shatter into pieces
Like you're frozen to the core
 
You say your tongue is stuck
Like a stuffed garbage truck
But what's the matter Esther?
What’s the trouble babe?
What's tearing you up?
 
You throw your gaze out the window
You throw your mind in the street
Where people change positions
Where doom and dealers meet
 
You come out of the trance
And scream at circumstance
And the pettiness of love
But your words they make no sense
 
You say your luck is out of luck
And there’s oceans in your guts
But what's the matter Esther?
What’s the trouble babe?
what's tearing you up?

How It Has To Be

Neil Armstrong is walking with Mary Edwards
Talking about the love they found on Tinder
Crossing the street on the cold morning after
 
The protest is all over
There’s flowers in the street
And everyone you meet is still asleep
 
Half the people are in chains
And the other half have the key
That’s how it’s been, that’s how it has to be
 
Pocahontas, Walt Disney and Al Capone
They’re gathering up dust for the tombstone
All the mourners in their black veils sing and moan
 
There’s nothing left to say
The execution is over
The party went all night but now you’re sober
 
On the day that you’re born
You become someone’s enemy
That’s how it goes, that’s how it has to be
 
Invalids of the cloth, they hand out pamphlets
To soldiers who’ve been punished for their service
Even the secret service, they look nervous
 
As the killer’s face get’s painted
Across the evening news
Even the corespondent looks confused
 
God made the devil
If he did make anything
Iv’e heard it said, that’s how it has to be
 
Shadows have grown long around the city
You can still see Andy Warhol and Oprah Winfrey
Hanging pictures of Susan B. Anthony
 
On the walls of the mausoleum  
The gates of the colosseum
Hoping someone on the inside still might see ‘em
 
Love and hate, they will wound you equally
That’s how it works, that’s how it has to be