Old sagging flesh so lame
Oppose attriting time in vain
To Love and strive
A losing battle - still - will
Undefeated - struggles hard
Resistance is its own reward
Incarnate again - familiar grind
Chart the changes, tame the mind
Choose your partners,
darn your gown
It's the only dance in town.
Double-wide trailers,
straighten your bola tie.
Population, elevation:
take your pick.
Girls in pink pinafores
and boys in clean jeans.
This hotel's a hellhole
and your host's a ghost.
Our pate's short shorn
'cause we're native-born.
Sippin' hundred-proof corn
from dusk to morn.
We dug gold ore
till there was no more.
shut the general store
and barred up the door.
Call it civilization
or whatever you please:
Greed past need's
a pandemic disease.
We got boot-cut jeans and SUVs.
Park your truck in the shade of the cottonwood trees.
Just a fly swat, flea bit,
used to have a name:
Nobody but the bedbugs
and yourself to blame.
Hey hey hey hey
We dug for ore
Hey hey hey hey
Till there was no more
So we furled the flag
and hobbled the nag,
stuffed the calico cat
in the carpet bag.
Hooves, boots, eighteen-wheelers:
Hundred years
just a flash in the pan.
Moccasins, boots, eighteen-wheelers:
A hundred years
just a flash in the pan.
Ping sequined suits,
users & dealers,
hunger, fear,
lust & pa**ion of man.
Sippin' hundred-proof corn
from dusk to morn,
tumbleweed, Bibles to read.
We needed dough
and we baked our bread.
We needed to go -
and now we're dead.
Hey hey hey hey
We dug for ore
Hey hey hey hey
Till there was no more
Speak, speak freely,
in our own rhyme and time,
in our own place and music,
with the angels, divine:
We're not here to be all alone.
Tumbleweed, Bibles to read,
preachers and prisons
and god-awful words,
pa**enger pigeons
and buffalo herds.
So we furled the flag
and hobbled the nag,
stuffed the calico cat in the carpet bag.
Call it civilization
or whatever you please:
Greed past need's
a pandemic disease.
We got boot-cut jeans and SUVs.
Park your truck in the shade
of the cottonwood trees.
Population, elevation:
take your pick.
We needed dough
and we baked our bread.
We needed to go -
and now we're dead.
Speak, speak freely,
in our own rhyme and time,
in our own place and music,
with the angles, divine:
And the lion shall lie down
with the lamb!