I still don’t know exactly what these are but I guess I’ll call them poems. I would much prefer to hear them sung by some angsty punk-metal band frontman though. My partner pointed out that the prior installment sounded like a Cake song to him. That would be acceptable as well. I actually wrote the meat of this one several years ago, but only today picked it up again an revised it.
The Race
Go on and rush to your deathbed
Collecting titles and plastic power as you go
Leave your instincts in the primordial hindbrain where they belong
And break cosmic silence with the success only you could sow
Put living on indefinite hiatus to have a life
Ignore the screams of suffering
You know nothing, owe nothing, for their strife
Love one, one and only one ’cause love is zero sum
But hate, hate all you can ’cause “us and them” spells endless fun
Bust ass to make cash for a family you never see
Tell em money can’t buy happiness, but nothing in life is free
Make a small fortune
Buy clothes made by kids half the age of yours
Give to charity
Keep the real wealth to even score
Leave your ethics at the door of the million-dollar church
Where the little people go to be ascribed a sense of worth
Put a dollar in the hat and pass it on in holy song
Take forgiveness with a grain of salt, get dressed to be blessed and get gone
Feed the rabid underdog with imagined criticism and adversity
Don’t give into the nagging voice that says you’re inherently worth something
Go on and rush to your deathbed
Leaving trampled others in your wake
Your awards are meaningless without an audience
So keep breeding–God makes no mistakes
