I've spent half of my time
Tilting at windmills
Baking up pies, making up lies
Gaping like regular people do over the freaks at the fair
And half of my time
Pounding on all those
Who wouldn't go forward, now, don't tell me your word's
Any better than Absalom's,
Taken in war by the tangles of his flowing hair
O, Absalom, Absalom, son of my heart,
Your foolishness went out and tore you apart
Like lions who lounge in the blood of their prey
Your pride was roaring, and you were carried away and
By now, I just figured I'd have perished in battle,
My armor was thin, my feet barely shod
My hands, both too bloody, were tried and found wanting,
Unworthy to lay even one brick for the house of my God
Oh, we all want what we want at all times in all ways
Oh, how can we count the unnamable number of
All of our days.
Oh, we're fighting that clock
That's ticking with whatever's left of our prime
Oh, imagine that you had to do what you do with just half of the time.
I've spent half of my time chasing the white whale
While sunsets and dumb bets get what everything young gets–
Half the attention they really deserve to receive.
That's half of my time sipping elixirs, mingling with fixers,
Missing the birth of my children.
And still, when I try,
In my mind's eye, to see it, it's something that I can't conceive.
Your mother once told me that when you were born,
She passed out from losing so much of her blood
While the midwives were stirring and frantically panicking
She saw you there in a field full of mud
She ran up to greet you, to finally meet you
You were already swaddled in a wild waiting
Game A crown on your head, she was halfway to dead
By the time you first heard her lips whisper your name
Open your eyes, start counting the stars
They're just past the bars they put on your window,
The ones meant to tell you they need to jail cell you,
When they don't know what you're even in for.
Vanity, Vanity. All this is vanity.
So says the teacher with wives by the score,
Who still can recall when his father had fallen
And sobbed the dead brother's name to the floor and
And every child knows it, the spirit that chose it
Has hidden a secret down deep in their heart
And no one can figure out how to lure it out
Except the soul where... it first washed ashore