Circles and Sticks (A Way Back In)

Electronic attitude adjustment
O where have you been
Lost
Lost in my gym bag
Waiting to be used
Used
Until your battery ends dead
Dead
Turning me around
Lightening my muddled path
With dark and snow
In a pleasant montage
Making myself easy
Easy

Like a drug
Made by men
To enter like a ghost
And never exit
This alone
Makes you less dangerous
With no toxicity
No chance for overdose
Unless you ask a court of law
Or Tipper Gore
And then it may become infectious
But unlike elemental metals
Ultra trace minerals
You bind effortlessly
And can only be found
In outward manifestations
The inward manifestations
Subtle
And untraceable
You crafty craft

Did I say less dangerous
I meant
Ask anyone what personally moves them to action
They call it a battle cry
A rallying sound
An anthem
And that's what it is
Keeping check with our bodies
Keeping track with our hearts
Keeping track with tracks
Tracks to train
The clickety click
And the clackety clack
Count that
For a syncopated symphony
And then you're back
To a stick and a sack
Walking along
With a hum in your drum
Or a tune for the waning moon
A whistle for thistle
Some juke for your plume
Some boom in your room

And it's easy to live there
To get stuck like a child
In Neverland
Stuck just not growing up
For the sake of kids' stuff
(the best stuff on earth)
Not always made for the hearth
The stuff can get rough
A dragon chasing its own wagon
They call it the wheel
On strings of steel
And the way it would feel
To be permanently whizzing through space
Attached to a ball
With a smile on your face
It could be us all
Since it sounds a lot like what we do
Anyway
On any given day

But without those sounds
Those dangerous thumps
The bumps in the road
Could be seen as code
Or even worse some spellbound curse
Attaching the myth of a bitch's brew
To anyone stiff enough
To call it a stew
Which is why they always seem
Like they are trying to change the world
Because they are
It's a tragic slump
We've fallen into
When we can't jump jump
For fear that we'll be seen
As over he hump
The hump that leads
Straight to the weeds
Where we hope to hear
Eight from the reeds
A sobering fear
For those near and dear
Feeling a slight tug at the strings
From these dangerous things
--
5.20.08