Darkness at the break of noon,
shadows even the silver spoon,
the handmade blade, the child's balloon,
eclipses both the sun and moon.
To understand, you know, too soon.
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn.
Suicide remarks are torn from the fool's gold mouthpiece.
The hollow horn plays wasted words,
proves the war,
and that he not busy being born is busy dying.
Temptations page flies out the door.
You follow, find yourself at war.
Watch waterfalls of pity roar.
You feel the moan,
but unlike before,
you discover that you'd just be one more person
crying.
So don't fear if you hear a foreign sound to your ear.
It's all right, Ma.
I'm only sighing.
As some warn victory,
some downfall,
private reasons,
great or small,
can be seen in the eyes of those that call
to make all that should be killed to crawl,
while others say don't hate nothing at all except hatred.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
as human gods aim for their mark,
make everything from toy guns that spark to
flesh-colored Christ that glow in the dark.
It's easy to see without looking too
far that not much is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates,
teachers teach that knowledge waits,
can lead to $100 plates,
and goodness hides behind its gates.
But even the president of the United States
sometimes must have to stand naked.
And though the rules of the road have been lodged,
it's only people's games that you got to dodge.
And it's all right, Ma.
I can make it.
Advertising signs,
they con you into thinking you're the one.
That can do what's never been done.
That can win what's never been won.
Meantime, life outside goes on all around you.
You lose yourself.
You reappear.
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear.
Alone,
you stand with nobody near when a trembling,
distant voice
unclear startles your sleeping ears to hear that somebody thinks
they really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit,
yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy,
ensure you not to quit,
to keep it in your mind,
and not forget that it is not he or
she or them or it that you belong to.
For though the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools,
I got nothing, Ma,
to live up to.
For them that must obey authority that
they do not respect in any degree,
who despise their jobs,
their destiny,
speak jealously of them that are free,
do what they do just to be nothing
more than something they invest in.
While some on principles baptize to strict party platform ties,
social clubs in drag disguise,
outsiders they can freely criticize,
tell nothing except you to idolize and say,
God bless him.
While one who sings with his tongue on fire,
gargles in the rat race choir,
bent out of shape from society's pliers,
cares not to come up any higher,
but rather get you down in the hole that he's in.
But I mean no harm nor put fault on anyone that lives in a vault,
but it's all right,
Ma,
if I can't please him.
Old lady judges watch people in pairs,
limited in sex they dare to push fake morals,
insult and stare,
while money doesn't talk it swears,
obscenity,
who really cares,
propaganda all is phony.
While them that defend what they cannot see with a killer's pride,
security,
it blows their minds most bitterly for them to think
death's honesty won't fall upon them naturally,
life sometimes must get lonely.
My eyes collide head on with stuffed graveyards,
false goals I scuff at,
pettiness which plays so rough,
walk upside down inside handcuffs,
kick my legs to crash it off,
say,
okay,
I've had enough,
what else can you show me?
And if my soft dreams could be seen,
they'd probably put my head in a guillotine,
but it's all right, Ma,
it's life and life only.