Lyrics/Poetry

many years ago in a smoky bar,
The Crossroads,
I was lectured about life.
a half-drunken man told me to go
back to Nashville, told me God
told him to tell me.
and then he said this:
something I’ve heard
many times since,
not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse?
“things will get worse before they get better.”

I never went back to Nashville
and things got worse,
wound up living in a shit-hole town
where they’d just as well shoot you
then give you the time of day.
I was given 18 years for
gross copulation
but escaped with my greatest treasure.

believe them when they say
life can be hard, it’s true.
there’s always something,
a cog in the wheel,
a joker in the deck,
cancer.
but believe me when I say
you can achieve what you dream.
hell, I might even go back
to Nashville.

things get better, it’s true
but you really have to want it,
to work for it, to grind it out every day.
grind it out every fucking day.

the old truck hums
into the weary morning,
rolling medicine
for the forlorn soul.

over mountains of despair,
through prairies of mystery,
along rivers of lost dreams,
to the ocean of new beginnings.

broken lives and broken hearts
will break again and again,
each break creating a stronger
bond.

feel the drone of asphalt,
the rotation of wheels,
disappearing fog in distance
reminding us that hope remains
on every mile of the healing road.

Water down the mountain, joker in the deck
Scraping by catastrophe, cousin’s in a wreck
People on the outside, thieves on the in
I’m stopping for a breath, you’re running again
He used to be a track star, used to be a sport
Followed him on Snapchat, laughing with a snort
Grandpa has a hernia, grandma’s in the grave
Tried to raise you right but you just misbehave

Everybody wants a piece
Everybody’s gunning
Everybody’s waiting
For the second coming
Everybody’s beautiful
Sexy, gorgeous, stunning
Everybody looks the other way
You’re still out there running 

Uncle drives a Cadillac, the faucet’s on the fritz
You’re falling into poverty, dreaming of the Ritz
Consuming more than ever, yet always getting thin
I’m looking for retreat, you’re running again
He promises percentages, pays you in pills
Graffiti tells a story, imagination kills
Doctor’s don’t give a shit, DCR’s are king
Stuck in a hamster wheel, haven’t learned a thing

Everybody has a price
Everybody’s cunning
Everybody’s waiting
For the second coming
Everybody’s innocent
Bums are out there bumming
Everybody looks the other way
You’re still out there running

Drama got the best of you
I’m turning off the show
Worthless politicians
Should be the first to go
Reading the statistics
Two more dead last night
You’re still out there somewhere
But I’m giving up this fight

Everything you touch is hot
Hear the drummers drumming
Everybody’s waiting
For the second coming
Everybody’s ignorant
I hear the blues man humming
Everybody looks the other way
You’re still out there running

Everybody wants a piece
Everybody’s gunning
Everybody’s waiting
For the second coming
Everybody’s beautiful
Sexy, gorgeous, stunning
Now I’m throwing in the towel
While you’re still out there running

Lyrics Copyright 2022 by Dan Steven Erickson

in the library reading Bukowski
while the homeless bums hang
outside on the corner.
the addicts are down the street
in a recovery, believing
so much in themselves
that they don’t need that shit.

Bukowski is rambling on about
whores, horses, Mozart,
but mostly about himself,
deprecating. he’s a fake.
he’s a fraud, a hack,
a no-good-piece-of-crap writer.

in the library
imitating a fraud,
pretending to understand the ugly
underbelly of this dirty city
AS IF I WOULD
ever gamble or chase whores.
some days I think I’m getting pretty good.
most days I hope to die before I’m discovered.

the bums and the addicts
have gone so far to feel as worthless
as Bukowski and me. they don’t even
try anymore, just clinging to life
for the moment, for the next high.
it’s what I see, feel, nothing really.

chalk me up as another hack trying
to etch out a residual drip
for retirement. I’m a fake. I’m a fraud,
a no-good-piece-of-crap writer.
it’s the bums and the addicts who are real.

if they could only write it down.
if only their emotions weren’t stuffed
so far down their throats and up their asses
we’d have so many better poets
and storytellers in this world.

in the library reading Bukowski,
a bum who used the toilet just
shouted, “that’s awesome, buddy.”
if he only knew.

why do we yearn for pain, to be branded,
to stamp ourselves as some kind of product,
a reflection of our culture and its conduct?
I don’t understand it, yet we demand it
at the price of selling our own souls
to the highest bidder, just fodder
for the masses.

why do we allow the world to shape us,
choosing self-mutilation over recovery,
letting lies outweigh self-discovery?
we let hate take us and break us
into pieces that only the lucky retrieve
and weave into something colorful,
a beautiful tapestry.

why do we willingly allow the hot iron
to burn its mark into our skin,
accepting the brand of another’s kin?
we disengage from our own rage,
breaking connection from our deep
collection of experience, never fully
realized or released.

why do we join the enemy’s feast,
knowing they serve something poisonous?
yet we swallow, we wallow in the hazardous
waste that’s twisting our face
into something unrecognizable,
convincing ourselves that a brand
is a needed reprieve.

there’s more to life than being branded,
understand that delaying punishment
is the establishment, our environment,
there’s no point in joining that parade,
it’s just a charade, the real you
is more beautiful, unusually
fruitful and distinct.

scrub it off if you can, the intentional
brand you chose to wear, as if you’re
nothing more than decorative flair,
yet, let the hard marks of life remain
on your heart, seared and scarred
and cut deep into the love that you
make as you create your art.

my sight is fading,
the distance blurred,
i wake more tired,
less rested than yesterday.
maybe, i should pray
to a god i can no longer
see, feel, or hear?

tell him, her, or it
that i am done,
that i have nothing left to give,
that i relinquish

my heart to the wide-open prairie,
let the twisted wind tear it up.

my breath to the endless sea,
drowning me in its infinite power
and beauty.

my arms to my children,
so that I might hold them in eternity.

my feet to the needy,
so that I might run the race for justice,
forever.

relinquish
my hands to the drum,
my voice to the melody of life,
my groin to an African queen.

oh, god of my youth, you are fading.
your voice is no longer in my ear,
your mercy is merely a joke,
for no merciful Being would strike
a man when he’s down.

yet,

if this is what you wish,
to break me into oblivion,
then i relinquish

my soul into the dirt below,
my blood and bones fertilizer
for future generations.

my spirit to the sky,
in all its splendor and glory.

my will into nothing
because it was never mine,
never free.

in elementary school
I was never much,
a small kid, scrappy,
but if you tried to take me on,
I’d usually whoop you good.

what I was missing in muscles
I had in smarts, in quickness,
and I didn’t care about winning,
but only to be left the hell alone.

in high school
I wasn’t really that tough,
but if I felt something wrong,
like when Rinaldo the bully
kept on mistreating us,
I’d reach a point where I knew
that enough was enough.

others stood by doing nothing,
kids and adults alike,
I chose words over fists,
wrote a letter to the captain.

it takes guts to stand up
to injustice and mistreatment
when you know the results
could leave you bloody
and broken, and locked
in the basement for days.

but when deep in your bowels
you know that it’s right,
you feel the instinct to act,
you do whatever it takes
to stand up.
even if he knocks you down
26 times,
you stand up.