No Longer The Man I Only Thought I Was

I’m not the man now I just used to think that I was before

Anymore, I’m not the man I only thought I was

I am no longer the man who once used to believe I was

I’m simply not the same man I really never was

It’s really just not like we only thought it was before

Things aren’t like we used to make them out to seem to be

Nowadays just aren’t the same as we used to have them feel

It’s different now than we simply believed it would be, before

Tomorrow isn’t even what we thought it was going to be

The future isn’t as bright as we could see it, way back then

Our kids real lives don’t match the fairytales we always told them

The future is simply not the same as how we held it up before us

I’m really not the man I believed I was always in the act of becoming

Yesterday just ain’t the same as we made it out to be back then

These days are different than that ancient history of ten long years ago

Pretty soon has been disconnected from the good times we were waiting for

Now, Who Was I Really?

Can I finally risk a moment now to stop and ask, or am I still just in far too much of a hurry

What was my story again? just text me the take away

Did I ever even try to know? yeah, right…so why would anyone else even ask

Was I swimming hard but just holding my small place there, close to the bank

What were those unspecified goals towards which I moved with ever increasing speed

Did my influence end simply when I finally ceased spending more than I was earning

What slowly diminishing rippling effects spread out in that wake I long ago stopped making

Who is there to answer for me, if even I did not try and question it at all for myself

Who was I but some uncle who died long ago, barely known, leaving them nothing

And who were they, but minor characters, overlooked in my unscripted personal melodrama

Do I abide in a saccharine heavenly glory, or have I been sent to their tragicomic hell, or?

Where are those missing final statements from the boring ledger of my passing life

Who was I really, if I myself could not be bothered to take the time to stop and ask

Was I that gray and sick old man they turned from, who could not even sit up in bed

Maybe the smiling, hurried so-called professional who could not stay too long

Then again, there was that dripping boy who so reminded them of his grandfather

Who was that guy I looked at in the pictures someone else took when I happened to be there

What were those things that I found so important back then that they kept me so long in a blur

Was I the one always laughing too loudly, way too often, at the expense of others

Did I really spend a third of my life in bed and fully another fifth in front of a TV

Why cant I find all that stuff I held as the very dearest to life, not really too long ago

Where are those little darlings that made even all that work seem so worthwhile

Where has that woman gone I loved so much that it could make me cry

Is it true there really is no way, looking back from now, to find out who I was then

Why does the value of my pleasures seem to have drained through my hands like so much water

How come I don’t remember all the holidays I spent so much time looking forward to

How can I fail to be able to reckon up the present value of my lifelong reckless habits

Who was I and did that answer already disappear many years ago, somewhere in my clueless past

Does it all really dribble out to nothing at an empty dead end, just past nowhere

Then again, there certainly were moments, though I have sewn no meaningful tapestry

Can’t I reach back now to enjoy the worth of all the things I always did - for the future

Now can I ask for some of that that time I was always working so hard to try and save

Yo, Conservatives: Do You Really?

Do you really ignore their careless toxic dust way up your nose and far down your lungs

Are you good with harshly ignorant laborers throwing up cheap shit all in your face

Is their flimsy pre-fab on flattened and devastated earth a relief to your tired eyes

Does that smoggy orange haze that you drive through soften your haunted outlook

Do you really fulfill your spirit from some musty old book supposedly written by a god

Can you actually enjoy that giant, poorly-engineered, way-overpriced gas guzzler

Do you think the lame media in which you immerse yourself helps you to grope your way thru

Are you still so sure you won’t live long enough to need any Medicare or Social Security

Do you really think energy efficiency spells the end of what you mistake for comfort

Do you perhaps take a vicarious pride in our cowboy diplomacy and wars of liberation

Are you gathering cosmic truth in your cycle of meaningless work and mindless recreation

Has living for today and grabbing all that you can not even worn you just a little bit thin

Does it grow difficult to lose yourself in prescribed meds, alcohol, religion or media rapture

Can you truly believe that our blind and greedy rush can continue even another 100 years

Have you actually considered the size and permanence of your stumbling daily footprint

Did you ever answer if you’re better off in today’s version of Morning In America

Do you really think if you just keep the family safe and happy everything will simply work out OK

Does the blasting noise of all the cars and harleys and trucks somehow blend to soothe you

Can you find safe and quiet refuge in the crumbling home that’s worth less than you owe

Is yours a parallel worklife with the next piece of veal in one more prairie dog cubicle farm

Do you really think that polarized 2 party gridlock inevitably gropes us forward

Must you judge all your actions with regard to convenience and time savings

Are you ok with those who fed chalky poison to babies helping provide food for your children

Do you really feel that things will just work out and we’ll muddle through like always

Do you really think it’s progress to channelize the rivers and fill in all the wetlands

Are you maybe only accelerating blindly toward some as yet unspecified objectives

Will you really reflect back in satisfied wisdom as you are fed and excrete thru medical tubes

Does their sporadic and uncontrolled noise really not rattle your uninsured teeth

Do you really not notice the billion wasteful and paranoid lights blotting out all the stars

Is adjusting the thermostat to your comfort really your only solution to climate change

Have you truly found peace of mind in a round of golf or an expensive pedicure

Do you not weary of making this or that hole a little bit bigger while moving it elsewhere

Do you really ignore the endless tolling of extinction, heat, drought and pollution

Aren’t you often looking forward for weeks to vacations that you do not even remember later

Can you actually believe that unencumbered greed is, in reality, sacred enlightened self-interest

Do you really sleep soundly thru the night, wake up refreshed - just to do it all once again

I Stood So Limply By

I stood by, and the best that I could muster up was just a couple squishy tears

I simply watched, numbed with shock, and did not stop the bulldozers gouging

I did not raise a finger as we eviscerated the very habitat that kept us all alive

I sat in silence reading of the disappearance of one species after another

I barely noticed our chances for survival as they disappeared in my rearview mirror

I did not press them to build things meant to last or which might even be repaired

I just let them go on de-humanizing animals into identical factory protein units

I bred, in a tacit acceptance of our witless and self-destructive overpopulation

I never even questioned that foolish, wasteful and expensive necessity known as war

I let them preach greedy unsustainable profit at the expense of all our futures

I watched as they spent more than they had on destructive toys that they quickly cast aside

I stood by as they made our important decisions in talks with their very own personal saviors

I deflected the many unrelated facts which pointed towards the need for real change

I observed from a distance as smugly smirking politicos confidently called the shots

I stood by and let simple mono-maniacal control freaks press their warped personal agendas upon us

I turned away from mounting evidence that we brought on our own slide into a dark abyss

I sat grimly on their sidelines as they played their shortsighted and selfish game

I stood by doing nothing to stop myself from being part of all that I condemned

I let them twist my angry silence into an approval of their boundless greed as our guiding light

I avoided conflict and let them carry out the wanton destruction they anointed as our progress

I simply kibitzed while they de-constructed this living earth and all its systems

I did not lift a finger as the lilies of the field were replaced by barren, hot, black asphalt

I looked right past the poverty, suffering and illness as I hurried on by to work every day

I stood by as it got hotter, drier and dirtier - convinced there was really nothing I could do

I only passively ignored their mindless, but expensive, mind-numbing media spectacles

I foolishly tended just to my own implanted needs thinking so would things work out alright

I stood by with but a blank look as a series of precious wonders disappeared forever

I did not get up and shout, much less so much as raise a hand in mild disagreement

I never even once protested the ecological holocaust of our convenience-driven advances

I stood by in silence as the teeming masses wasted or polluted all of our basic resources

I did not clean up the roadsides, beaches, rivers, lakes and forests that we fouled

I never mentioned how I despised their all-consuming pursuit of consumer goods

I stood by with hands free but not helping those who tried honestly to do better

I merely watched in amazement as we grew fatter and dumber, sicker and lazier

I did not speak out nearly enough to counter their glib lies and foolish promises

I leaned my fat belly on a shovel while the potholes grew and multiplied all around me

Choices That Help Define Us

Is it that expensive new car and the big-screen hi-def DVD-TV?

Maybe just a warm old wool sweater and a good book when it’s cold

There’s an extra trip to the mall and lots of trash cans for the packaging

Or recycling all that is feasible even if nobody makes you, or pays you to do it

How about that 8 foot high pickup with the custom exhausts

Then there’s that cute little hybrid with all its hitech gizzies

Is it the money we shell out for expensive food, drink and the falsely servile help,

Rather than the work that goes into the creation of a meal on our own

Could be an oversized faux palace tended by a legion of anonymous illegales

Or possibly crawling on your knees to repair something that’s gotten broken

How about racing your son on loud smoky snowmobiles thru a blurred forest

Instead of snowshoeing in silence, searching for peace in that good silence

You could download a hundred songs and strike out with the iPod

Or strum a few chords and scribble out a couple verses of your own

Relax on the couch with beer and calorie-laden snacks for the big game

Alternatively, using the Internet, go into depth on some non-trivial issue

Is it struggling to find ways to keep spending more than you earn

Maybe embracing both hard work as well as building up a bit of savings

Hanging out barefoot in shorts and tees in a monstrous house all during winter

Turning down a more efficient heating system and dressing for the seasons

Saving time at the drive-thru and chowing down fast while still on your way

Eating stuff that didn’t come out of cans, that you cooked up on your own

Is it get-rich-quick schemes involving currencies, commodities and derivatives

Maybe ploddingly saving via conservative investments, year after year

Could it be first class flights to expensive resorts and fancy restaurants

Or going cheaply, traveling widely, eating locally and wearing little jewelry

There’s belief directed by holy books, prophets and literalist, revealed truths

Then there’s simple faith in the human struggle against the inevitable void

Maybe it’s always waiting for something that quickly disappears into the blur

Or is it striving to take pleasure in the task and not just its momentary completion

Having others just do as much for you as quickly as you can sign the bill

Or attaining a bit of technical mastery over your house, its contents and the cars