Crazy Unthinking Killers In Your Face
The Falling Is All Over (Song Lyrics)
Thank You, De La Vega (Rap Lyrics)
O Great Athena,
accept my praises.
Though all others’ belief is gone,
I know you lurk in the darkness
of the light that only blinds,
as strong as ever,
it is their focus that has lost you,
rolled you up into the
One and forgotten your flavor.
But I, Athena,
pierced by the past, remember.
Remember your daring birth,
exploding out of the head of
Father Zeus,
dressed for battle,
wild in your armor burning like a city
invaded,
fierce inside your helmet,
with eyes like dark lightning, flashing everywhere
with the hunger to know,
the shield you did not need, that you bore for others,
and the sword you used to cut through
every doubt and lie.
I remember your ideas, Athena,
sharp like a blade, slashing mediocrity,
transforming it with its own blood;
bright like a
torch, turning every question into a light.
You wouldn’t settle for being
the little girl hidden in the palace,
stunted by others who wanted to play the role of hero the easy way,
by keeping you weak.
No, Athena, not you. And so, you jumped out of the
place of smallness, to stand tall amidst screaming chariots,
and stare into the eyes of charging horses,
in the place where the sky pounded the earth
like a wave, and everything was a storm.
You made the men be great,
for you would not let them believe something of themselves
without being it.
And yet, great Goddess Athena, it was not like them,
not like the drunken killers hearing only one half of greatness,
that you came.
For you,
uncompromising in brilliance,
unrivaled in shining,
with thunder in your every step,
came also sweetly,
with the second half of valor,
its reason for being,
carrying the love only a mother can bear for her child,
and the tender adoration only a young girl can bear for
her first sweetheart.
Great Athena,
how generously you built me up from nothing!
How generously you drew me after you, like a
magnet draws to it that which needs it.
And I saw the face of your statue move,
a tiny smile, a trace of warmth
that caused me to hurl my whole life
in your direction.
And I took to the sea,
because I felt your heartbeat there,
comforting me from within my destiny,
turning the raging ravenous waves
into your warm receiving bosom,
the terror of death into your tender reassuring voice,
and into your sparkling eyes of pride that I could not ever let down.
And my solitude became a secret love affair,
wrapped in the hugeness of the sea,
something greater than flesh’s concealed power waiting to erupt,
it was the time alone with you,
beside your wooden figure on the prow
that seemed to smile to herself whenever I was not looking.
It was the eyes of the owl
too bright and full of purpose not to be yours,
and the strange dove always walking back and
forth along the railing of the ship, every time I called your name.
It was the green islands always appearing to me
just as I was about to vanish into my thirst,
and the beautiful barefoot women
who came to me with the whisper of
their jewels,
like chimes hung in the wind,
each jewel worth a ship, though they called them trinkets,
as they rescued me from the splinters of my mistakes,
changing me back from sand into a man.
You were there, too,
Athena, just beyond their beds,
comforting me with forgetfulness until it was time to remember,
warming your hands at the edge of the fire
you lit with our bodies, mercifully given to each other
in the vastness.
You would not let me be alone.
And then, when it was finally time to go, Athena,
when I was at the point of becoming lost in another,
it was you who became the wind,
driving my ship away and breaking hearts,
none worse than mine,
you who became the argument,
the inadequacy
that freed me, with pain,
the insatiable longing that drove me from longing
to seeking. It was your Sword, your Fire, your Eyes,
everywhere,
beyond the world,
and at its center,
that slowly brought me back to the missing pieces of myself,
the stray and abandoned pieces,
the pieces stolen from me, and the pieces I had run from, not ready for them till I met you.
You who fit me back together like a puzzle, and made me whole,
not because you needed it, or the world needed it, but
because I needed it
and could see through the terrible price to the beauty;
and because all your flying power and battlefield cries
had never severed the cord of secret gentleness that bound us together,
that kept you caring,
underneath your untouchable armor.
Athena,
Great Athena,
cold they call us, sharp as a sword edge that draws blood,
indifferent as a balance that weighs lives from afar,
dressed in garments of cloud,
too high up to
ever come back down to the earth to answer the prayers of people who
will not hold up their end of greatness.
But say what they may, Athena,
We, at least, understand one another.
From the day you first sprang into the world
like an idea they were afraid to hold,
I was here for you,
a believer,
seeking nothing more than to be the one whose
hands could hold your fire.
Sister,
Mother,
or sweetheart shy and far from touching, gentle
within a Goddess’ ferocity,
your presence exceeds any human touch
like a wild storm exceeds a breeze.
You are my Goddess, the moment my
war became meaningful,
the moment my dream discovered it was
your dream,
and my life
became one of your thoughts.
Praise and glory to you,
Great Goddess Athena,
may you shine through me
into the world!
Praise and Glory to you,
Great Goddess Athena!
May you honor me so!
It’s over.
The servitude.
Maybe the love.
Old relationships are going out, up there in the sky,
like stars slowly being turned off by God,
the heavens are being closed down
like a bar at the end of a long night of drinking,
it is like the hour when one
discovers one is alone
with the stacked-up chairs
and the man with the mop who is hoping you
will notice what is going on
so he will not need to speak.
It’s over.
The dream that I was loved.
The dream that I was cared for,
which my need spun from itself like a spider
giving birth to the web that is all it has:
the universe it walks on, waits on,
listens to with its whole body
in the emptiness,
the last-ditch creation
where it gambles its heart
seeking something greater
than the truth.
But it’s over now.
The waiting and the dreaming.
The love was what I wanted,
not what was.
It was only the child’s beauty in me,
still grasping for its mother,
still wanting to be picked up
and held in the night,
still believing that its cries
could control the world,
could convince what was being missed
to create itself out of nothing, just to meet the crying,
just to be crowned by the crying,
and placed upon the throne of the crying.
Yes, I dreamt of love,
and hoped to make it real.
Something like the kiss
that turned the slimy frog
into a prince.
And how I kissed- and kissed - and kissed,
and bowed my head of dreams to them,
which was another way of kissing them.
And I let them shine, and be the illuminated stars and planets,
by becoming the night,
and I grew old hiding in the darkness of
my kisses that did not change them,
as the blood of life slowly oozed out of
my wound of needing them,
because I was so alone
I could never let myself discover how
little I meant to them,
never stop loving them,
which became my way of dying.
And only now have I come to understand that
they wanted me like jewels to lock in a safe,
to wear on their own shallow nights out,
as part of their glory
without roots,
they wanted my flower
but not what it stood for,
not where it came from.
They wanted pieces of me,
not who I was,
but only what they could use without having to go into my depths.
They wanted pieces of me,
like stones stolen from the foundation
of an ancient monument,
not enough to build something new and also beautiful,
only enough to collapse the monument,
and leave ruins of it in the desert.
But it’s over now.
The loyalty, the love,
all the sacred hollow things that are only
chains, once you wake up from the words, that only you believed in.
The sweetness in me that they nailed to their doorstep.
The wanting in me that they used to
keep me a captive in their land.
The honor in me that they used, like
a gullible child,
to keep me standing in pools of my own blood,
while my gold was left hidden in the earth,
while my purpose was left
unmet, like a stranger from Heaven waiting to be ferried
across a river
into the world.
Shame on me for loving
those who loved me not, for
letting unknown loves perish in the lie!
But it’s over, now.
Those old relationships
like serpents buried in the sand,
that stung me once and killed my youth in years of living outside my soul,
are finally fading.
Soon, they will only be traces,
whispers across my life,
like fossils of mighty beasts that once
shook the earth,
but today cannot even raise the dust;
like scars of ancient battles
quiet, now, upon my healed flesh;
like empty shells of vanished creatures
picked up on a white beach beside the cleansing roar of the whole world’s ocean;
like the hardened husks of cicadas
stuck on tress
with nothing left inside…
It’s over, now, gone.
Gone,
what was once the center of my life,
gone
what once I could not live without.
Gone,
what once I used to kill myself for,
over and over again,
every time I came back to life.
Gone,
the only place, I was told,
where I could ever be good.
Gone,
the fear of being a traitor,
exile, bandit,
coward.
Gone,
all of their other tricks,
potions, spells,
illusions,
the infinite shapes of tenderness and care,
of vulnerability and love
that the heartless and unknowing took to lure me into their lair,
to tear me out of my soul,
to devour me,
and feed on me,
to grow from my spirit’s flesh in their own twisted way,
to develop their own flightless wings.
Gone,
the dependability
that once left me where their teeth could always find me.
Gone,
the will to please,
that was like the lemming’s plunge into the landless sea.
Gone,
the old me they once trapped in death
by saying "I love you."
It’s over now. All of it.
A new and ruthless me has come
to take the place of the fool
who let himself be eaten alive.
A new, hard me,
who is not afraid to hurt others
to be himself.
A new, cruel me
who can say "No", and
"this is what I need", and
leave the puppet masters crying with cut strings
dangling in their hands.
A new strong me,
whose roots are back in the earth of his birth mystery,
not in the thoughts and feelings of floating people who never knew him,
or felt the place he came from,
not in the art of the blind ones
who have never seen him,
yet would paint his face, and his rights, in their own way,
with his blood.
No, gone, now, is the innocence and the weakness,
the lack of enemies, and the powerlessness,
the comforting ring of false friends, and the wounded solitude,
dying beneath the tower of a dream
closed off by love.
Gone, now, is the love
that was only the wall built to shut out
true love.
And gone, now, are all the ones
who hid in that ideal,
using it to kill,
like soldiers camouflaged with green leaves.
At last I am released,
like one who has died,
into a new and fearful land
beyond all masks and gestures,
a land of substance only,
where the ones who once were kings
unfold as ghosts and beggars,
in need of a sun
whose light is daring enough to
break free of them,
to shine against their will
upon their own neglected gardens.
Today, let it be marked in stone,
I break with them forever,
in order to live;
in order to
become their light.
I am loyal to my killer.
I would never do anything to hurt
him.
Never get up from my knees
to leave the circle
of his power barren.
I would never kill him
by leaving him with nothing to kill,
never wound him with his smallness,
by denying him my life
to throw around and tower over,
never betray him, by breaking the
chains he put on me
to fill his life with my presence,
never deny his laughter
and what it needs to come into being,
the blood of my sorrow.
I am loyal to my killer,
loyal to the end…
Soot man
ash man
death man
poison man
takes the air away
from wherever he walks;
already destroyed,
he is determined
to bring everyone and everything
down with him…
There’s a war going
on inside me, and I
don’t know who will
win.
Since I’m not sure who’s
fighting, it’s hard to
take sides.
I think I’ll go with the
side that doesn’t
twist me in the outside
world,
though I have seen smooth
faces of angels
kill.
I think when I can
sense the presence of
the diamond
that can’t be seen,
hidden somewhere in the depths
of my confusion,
that’s when the war will end.
Then, if I’m a cripple, or a
shining prince,
it won’t matter.
Every inner window broken
nowhere to hide
filled by the other
with no place left for self,
nature finally broke the chains.
I lost everything,
which is how I got a second chance.
Even the snake whose legs were stolen
finds his way of walking;
and without his legs
must live closer to the earth.
I am tired of fighting.
I want to drift
like a jellyfish,
whose will is
surrendered to the ocean current,
away from here,
and let the fools divide the
world
into pieces of their idiocy.
I don’t want to fight
for a place
in this world anymore.
I want to go to a
distant hill
where all their missions and tantrums
will seem like nothing more than
the horn of a ship passing
far away,
not coming from my life
or going to my life.
If that feeling of
forgiveness sweeps into
my heart, I’ll let you know.
Up till now, it hasn’t.
I could try to force it,
or fake it, but why should I?
It takes a while for a river to
carry away the dirt
that’s been dumped into it, to
wash itself clean
and be like it was before.
I’d rather take the time, than say
"You are forgiven", with the
monster you put into my heart
still lurking around.
It is not my job
to keep him locked up
or spend my time keeping him
away from you, making sure he
doesn’t bite.
So I’ll wait,
like that river, I’ll
wait for the flowing of time
to bring me closer to
death, where the
things of this earth,
including the insults and betrayals,
fade away
like children’s cries,
picked up by the light in which everybody is fed, and
everybody has a mother,
where we are all just one
great brotherhood of wounds
heading home together.
But before the flower,
whose sweetness shakes
away our bitterness, opens,
before the desert of this earth
is crossed,
I’ll just wait here. Like that
river. And if a lifetime
is too short a time to forgive you, then
that will be all right.
Time,
for me,
is like standing on a ship
as it pulls out of the port,
it is like waving good-bye
to all my friends
on the shore
and watching the land
where I was young and beautiful
fade from sight:
the loves of my life,
the country of my hope,
the dreams that no reality could ever match,
until nothing is left but the darkness
and the sea
and the money called life which I did not spend
when I had the chance,
useless now in my pockets;
nothing left, but that,
and this heartless ship
speeding on
into the night
over water that I cannot see,
under stars that do not shine,
carrying me swiftly,
away from everything I ever wanted
and longed for,
into endless loneliness.
Silence.
Why is it so terrifying?
I am moving my right hand now
to ward it off,
trying to befriend the paper,
to wring an answer from it I know I will not find,
talking to myself, moving the pen, cluttering my mind with
thoughts that pretend to be inspired,
pretending to gather the secrets of the world,
that are really in the silence I cannot stand, fleeing
from time I am afraid to lose
because I do not know how to use it. I have never understood it, and
am afraid that it is running out,
as if my desperate scratches on a piece of paper could stop it.
And my poem
is just a giant ball of fear
spun by nervous hands
to distract me from
the giant Church of
silence in which I sit.
The silence whose vastness is like the dark, still pool
of another heart,
which you could fall into
and never stop falling…
On this road
they split my heart
in two - one half is gone
forever, left behind me, back where I came from.
The half of my heart
that remains
is better than the whole one
which beats in the chest
of those who did
this to me.
Snow.
Here you come again
to remind me that things have not changed.
Still dancing outside my window,
waiting for me,
calling to me
with your pure white offer of
rebirth.
It should be as easy
as opening a door.
Why am I still here, trapped inside,
longing to be with you?
Is that really longing?
Today I will not run
to the place that makes me so
unhappy.
Today I will behave less
like a captive.
If my feet move slower
maybe my heart will follow.
If I miss the train,
maybe the next train that comes will be my
own.
I want to
leave the place of
being acceptable to them,
of being tied like a shadow
to their clothing and way of doing things.
I want to be strange,
which means to love.
I want to be
the kind of person they
would leave on the street to die,
which means being free.
I want to find the treasure of myself
and live from it.
I want to find the green of my own
heart, in their desert,
and live beyond their power,
which is only my weakness.
Eyes are on me,
everywhere I go.
Sometimes they
turn me away from
my road.
Sometimes they
will not let me run
from it.
Go to hell
with your tanks and guns.
I don’t want to die
a charred piece of shit
next to your machine.
I’ll die in my own war
riding alone
into a crowd of enemies,
my horse galloping on
after I have fallen.
Everybody’s writing poems
it seems, el, ella,
everybody and his brother.
The race horses are out and
running.
It never stops.
I’m just a little baby who
wants to be picked up.
I’m just a little baby
who wants its crying
to be heard in the night.
I may starve because of their
shining.
Why can’t I just speak
like a green leaf fluttering in the
breeze, or
a cool brook babbling to itself in the depths of the forest shade,
talking only to its own moving water
and to the stones it has made
smooth inside itself with its
unheard voice?
Why do I have to be this
gigantic jewel on the
top of a mountain,
just to get love?
Why do I have to run
with the race horses and win,
just so that I won’t
be put away in some
forgotten corner?
The greatest gift
is to be able to appreciate others,
to cheer their gold
and the doves that come out of their magician’s hands,
to let oneself be dazzled
and feed another human being with admiration,
rather than suffer
the feeling of an army at one’s border.
Right here,
it’s a pool of low
self-esteem.
The longer you stay,
the lower you sink.
Soon, nothing will be left
except what they want to be left:
the man who deserves nothing,
and has no future
except the one lived
underneath their shadow.
Soon, the persecution
will begin to seem like a gift,
and you’ll be glad for anything you receive.
They’ll take your coat off
in the middle of the winter,
and when they let you buy it back,
you’ll call them saints,
and defend them to the death.
Stay long enough, and you’ll even forget
you used to be a
king.
Right here,
it’s a pool of low self-esteem.
The longer you stay,
the lower you will sink.
Soon, nothing will be left
except what they want to be left.
I’ve had too
much endurance.
They hit me.
I just blinked.
They hit me again.
I felt proud like
a rock that couldn’t
be destroyed.
The hours of
my life ticked away
that way.
Burnt out,
nothing left.
He doesn’t feel like
swimming with them anymore,
they move too quickly through
the water of mediocrity.
He wants to drop out
but if you drop out in the water
you drown.
So he keeps on swimming,
far behind them, now.
Everyone calls him slow,
they do not know
the beauty of the vision
that has slowed him down.
She wants a diamond.
But I’d have to kill for it.
I guess I’ll stay alone,
because I want to
have myself
more than I want to have her.
Crazy Unthinking Killers In Your Face
I understand why there’s
so much killing in the world.
People with reptile brains
who can’t understand
a thing you say, come
slithering at you at full speed.
You try to reason with them,
and before you know it,
your home is overturned and
everything is about to be destroyed.
You see their teeth and claws
in your face
so you reach for a gun.
If there’s no bullets in it,
you reach for a machete instead…
Wildly, you begin to slash,
trying to hack your way
through their madness
back to a quiet place.
You feel the thud and sinking in
of the metal, into their flesh,
and rejoice in their screaming
which means life for you.
Over and over again you slash
until suddenly you realize
there is no more slashing
left to do, it is over.
You are alone, yet alone no more.
… You are finally a member of the human race.
The Falling Is All Over (Song Lyrics)
The falling is all over
I’ve fallen as far as I can fall
I’ve touched the very bottom
the bottom of it all
New ground’s beneath my feet
my first steps crunch like guns
upon the barren gravel
beneath mere traces of a sun
They call this the abyss
the well that has no end
where no sound ever leaves from
and there’s no such thing as friends
but at last the falling is all over
and after so much grief
even this endless emptiness
comes as a relief
Yes, the things that I once thought
would surely break me down
have come to pass despite my fears
and still I am around
The falling is all over
now I’m just like other men
there’s nothing else to do
but start to live again.
Thank You, De La Vega (Rap Lyrics)
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
You said this city could be big and mean
it could even make you give up your dreams.
"Hang in there.
Hang in there.
Hang in there,"
is what you said.
You said this city could be big and mean
it could even make you give up your dreams.
"Hang in there.
Hang in there.
Hang in there,"
is what you said,
and that’s the reason I’m not dead.
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
I was sitting on the street during my break
just trying to recover from my heartache
15 minutes to stretch, out of the cage
consumed by pain, ravaged by rage
but so burnt out that I just felt trapped
like I had no legs to get out, and no road map
like I was a bird whose wings don’t flap,
like a waterless river - just like that
like my life had left me and wasn’t coming back
and I was just a ghost putting other people’s books in the stacks
while the book in my head only made me sad
like all the good times you once had
once you lose them, and they’re locked in the past
and I felt like my whole life was in prison, yah,
like I was doing time on a murder rap
for the crime of dreaming, and having that knack
for the crime of wanting to be more than a bug or rat
and they were holding me down and holding me back
like my gift was some kind of terrorist attack
with no one to appreciate or understand
and the light of my hope just went black
and this big beautiful city seemed so cruel and bad
like a smile you believed in that was only an act
and left you waiting until your soul snapped
and your fantasy was killed by a fact.
And all these thoughts were going through my head
and I was thinking I might as well be dead
hanging out on the side of the dumptser left
on the curb, when those words I read
from the hand of the graffiti nomad sent
whose vandal-art was my life’s breath
speaking from the very place I’d been
and coming on to me like he was some kind of friend
leaving his wisdom there like Johnny Appleseed, then
bringing back to life what I thought was spent
recharging the batteries of my life’s intent
giving a new beginning to the end
and keeping that dream’s flag from fallin'
and I’ll pass them on, those words he said
in case they can help you too, my friend:
"This city could be big and mean
it could even make you give up your dreams.
Hang in there.
Hang in there.
Hang in there."
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
You said this city could be big and mean
it could even make you give up your dreams.
"Hang in there.
Hang in there.
Hang in there,"
is what you said.
You said this city could be big and mean
it could even make you give up your dreams.
"Hang in there.
Hang in there.
Hang in there,"
is what you said,
and that’s the reason I’m not dead.
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you.
Thank you, De La Vega, thank you...