One More Chance

I know that I have lost the key
To your heart and to your door
But if you give me one more chance
To show what love is for

I’ll love you like the water flows
Upon the riverbed
I’ll sing to you with velvet tones
To wrap around your head

One more chance is all I ask
To hold you in the dawn
One more chance is all I need
To take tomorrow on

Words have ways of letting down
The vows our lips might say
But words of pure devotion are
All I have left today

I’ll keep you till forever is
An ember in your eye
Embrace you till your fire
Hangs a rainbow in the sky

One more chance is all I ask
To hold you in the dawn
One more chance is all I need
To take tomorrow on

One more chance is all I ask
To hold you in the dawn
One more chance is all I need
To take tomorrow on

Phillies Fever

My hometown team, the Philadelphia Phillies, finally won the World Series—their first in 28 years. Naturally a flood of memories comes back to me in an event like this. In 1980 I was a freshman at Penn and went to the series parade with my mother. (?!) Jimmy Carter was the President, City Hall was still the tallest building in the city, and about half the guys on this 2008 squad hadn’t even been born yet.

The much-maligned Philadelphia fans finally have something to shout about. No city with a team in all four major sports had gone longer without a championship. For that, you have to go back a quarter of a century to the 1983 76ers of basketball. Since then, a number of near-misses have consistently broken the collective heart of the City of Brotherly Love. While I may not be the only person in Knoxville, Tennessee who watched every World Series game played in two faraway cities, I bet I’m the happiest.

Splashdown

That moment when my lips pressed against hers
Fire forever seared in my mind
Was when time stopped; I felt myself weightless
A long reentry back down to earth

Was it just this mirage I was kissing
Or an atmosphere outside my own
In my ocean where I landed senseless
I find myself still awed by her sky

Three Days No Dreams

Three days now no dreams
Could I recall in the morning
Though I sensed my mind jumping those nights

Leave them buried within
Subterranean caverns
Three days with no dreams in my sights

What happens to those
Driven out of the slipstream
Without any fuel through the days

The colorless world
Swims in silence beside me
Three days with no dreams in the haze

Out of Everything

Thank you for stopping in today
It’s wonderful to see you
Unfortunately, we are out of everything

The corn did not produce this year
As expected a lean year for beef
Milk was low with the blighted cows

Our shirts are out of makers now
The pants supply is low as well
No more workers down in sweatshop hell

Our entertainment aisle is dismal too
No more remakes to fill CDs
Nor could the movies copy any more

Since creativity was euthanized
Little art left to sell you know
The writers have run out of words

This cash register however is for sale
It’s quite a sleek electronic thing
As for our other stock, do stop back

We are out of everything

Absolute Blindness

Your absolute blindness dumbfounds me America
Blind to the idiocy
Of eight years in chains
Will you allow eight more?

Blind to the poverty
Blind to the slavery
Blind to your heroes
You want more

Blind to hypocrisy
Of leaders and banks
Blind to the ingrates
Empowered by zealots and whores

Your absolute blindness is killing me America
With your plastics and chips
And your cities of gold
Your blindness brings nothing but war

System of Man

My reflections on all this Wall Street grief--in song, as usual....

System of Man

It was a lightning connection
It was a surefire thing
It was a blue chip stock
I threw my hat in the ring

I had the car with the toys
I had my GPS on
Still I got lost on Broadway
And it was totaled before long

Just like everything,
Just like everything,
It came crashing down
There’s no use hanging around
It all just slipped through my hand
Another system of man

I was a big name on Wall Street
I was the one in the know
I took my winnings to Vegas
And we were rolling in snow

And then the big markets tumbled
My stock was not worth a dime
If I could just get it back
All this investment of time

Just like everything,
Just like everything,
It came crashing down
There’s no use hanging around
It all just slipped through my hand
Another system of man

I had enough to retire
I had my wealth in the bank
I had my days all planned out
I had accountants to thank

Well they had run every test
My health was golden they said
Until I felt some explosions
In my heart and my head

Just like everything,
Just like everything,
It came crashing down
There’s no use hanging around
It all just slipped through my hand
Another system of man

Just like everything,
Just like everything,
It came crashing down
There’s no use hanging around
It all just slipped through my hand
Another system of man