Bastard Child
09-02-2010, 07:57 PM
Despite their cruel vicious verdict
That we were nothing but bums
And dropouts and ne’er-do-goods,
We knew ourselves, or sought to,
And found we were left out;
Always looking for the key,
Some distant long-neglected way
Through our fears, our dejection,
Our hopes and failures and ideals,
Both those we had outgrown
And those we’d half-cultivated
Through endless spaced-out hours
In some forgotten weed-filled park
Beneath the law’s mad crooked gaze.
At every crazy hour of the night
When hot reason seeks repose
And relinquishes her dominion
To freaks and bearded prophets,
There stood we in the afterglow
Of our fathers’ and mothers’ wishes,
Rebuilding the world from our dreams
And dreaming of strange, impossible
Things that are not dreamt of
In their philosophy, decrepit and old…
We were pioneers in a graveyard
Of culture, where faith’s long wings
Had dipped too early to recover,
And had fallen to her demise.
The standing of ghastly apparition
We’d inherited from the meek
Ere grave was dug or earth was filled
Served us in our purposes at least,
For our missions of vengeful sabotage
Against an establishment we felt
In no way represented the age
It professed to serve so ardently;
Week on week our party grew
And month on month we saw renewed
Our own determination to outgrow
The rank and stale file of scarecrows
Erected on this new field of battle
That saw brain and education matched.
An odd sense of pride filled our banner
As a new generation raised its head
Above the heavy stench that was
The final contribution of the eighties
Fully versed in arcane weaponry;
Abstract paintings, obscene poetry
And every manner of bold atrocity
Awakened from dreadful slumber
Full of angst and nervous energy,
To take the world with sudden force
And burst forth from a million souls
Into music so serene and beautiful
And lofty and hurt and spiteful,
No single solitary soul could bear it.
But when the tenor of our orchestra
Screamed through the blown speaker
Of a shotgun’s mouth and smeared
His tale across an entire nation’s breast
And bled his last words on a stage
Of personal torment, all sound died
In the ripple of some terrible shock,
That rumbled along each artery
And into every heart still beating,
With the force and speed of thunder
And the blinding flash of agony.
Entire galaxies were washed away
When our century’s brightest son
Gave way to our most somber day…
Disbanded now across the void,
Devoid of any purpose or meaning,
And wandering the great divide
With rucksacks from former days
Faded as any dream, worn, rough
To a touch grown callus and cold:
Old friendships, and enmities even,
Lay buried beneath countless layers
Of complacence and grimy greed
Whose oil fills up the old drums
Of the socio-political machine
With such determined consistence
No dawn swells the black horizon
With even the promise of newness.
That we were nothing but bums
And dropouts and ne’er-do-goods,
We knew ourselves, or sought to,
And found we were left out;
Always looking for the key,
Some distant long-neglected way
Through our fears, our dejection,
Our hopes and failures and ideals,
Both those we had outgrown
And those we’d half-cultivated
Through endless spaced-out hours
In some forgotten weed-filled park
Beneath the law’s mad crooked gaze.
At every crazy hour of the night
When hot reason seeks repose
And relinquishes her dominion
To freaks and bearded prophets,
There stood we in the afterglow
Of our fathers’ and mothers’ wishes,
Rebuilding the world from our dreams
And dreaming of strange, impossible
Things that are not dreamt of
In their philosophy, decrepit and old…
We were pioneers in a graveyard
Of culture, where faith’s long wings
Had dipped too early to recover,
And had fallen to her demise.
The standing of ghastly apparition
We’d inherited from the meek
Ere grave was dug or earth was filled
Served us in our purposes at least,
For our missions of vengeful sabotage
Against an establishment we felt
In no way represented the age
It professed to serve so ardently;
Week on week our party grew
And month on month we saw renewed
Our own determination to outgrow
The rank and stale file of scarecrows
Erected on this new field of battle
That saw brain and education matched.
An odd sense of pride filled our banner
As a new generation raised its head
Above the heavy stench that was
The final contribution of the eighties
Fully versed in arcane weaponry;
Abstract paintings, obscene poetry
And every manner of bold atrocity
Awakened from dreadful slumber
Full of angst and nervous energy,
To take the world with sudden force
And burst forth from a million souls
Into music so serene and beautiful
And lofty and hurt and spiteful,
No single solitary soul could bear it.
But when the tenor of our orchestra
Screamed through the blown speaker
Of a shotgun’s mouth and smeared
His tale across an entire nation’s breast
And bled his last words on a stage
Of personal torment, all sound died
In the ripple of some terrible shock,
That rumbled along each artery
And into every heart still beating,
With the force and speed of thunder
And the blinding flash of agony.
Entire galaxies were washed away
When our century’s brightest son
Gave way to our most somber day…
Disbanded now across the void,
Devoid of any purpose or meaning,
And wandering the great divide
With rucksacks from former days
Faded as any dream, worn, rough
To a touch grown callus and cold:
Old friendships, and enmities even,
Lay buried beneath countless layers
Of complacence and grimy greed
Whose oil fills up the old drums
Of the socio-political machine
With such determined consistence
No dawn swells the black horizon
With even the promise of newness.