He was an old time cowboy Don't you understand? His eyes were sharp as razor blades His face was leather tanned His toes were pointed inward From a hanging on a horse He was an old philosopher of course He was so thin I swear You could have used him for a whip He had to drink a beer To keep his breeches on his hips I knew I had to ask him About the mysteries of life He spat between his boots And he replied "Faster horses" "Younger women" "Older whiskey" "More money" He smiled and all his teeth were covered with tobacco stains He said, "It don't do men no good to pray for peace and rain" Peace and rain is just a way to say prosperity And buffalo chips is all that means to me" So, I told him I was a poet I was looking for the truth I do not care for horses Whiskey, women or the loot I said I was a writer And my soul was all on fire He looked at me And he said, "You are a liar" "It's faster horses" "Younger women" "Older whiskey" "More money" Well, I was disillusioned If I say the least I grabbed him by the collar And I jerked him to his feet There was something cold And shiny laying by my head So I started to believe The things he's saying Well, my poet days are over And I'm back to being me As I enjoy the peace And comfort of reality If my boy ever asks me What it is that I have learned I think that I will readily affirm "Son, it's faster horses" "Younger women" "Older whiskey" "More money" "Faster horses" "Younger women" "Older whiskey" "More money" "Faster horses" "Younger women" "Older whiskey" "More money" "Faster horses"

Saw you the other day Looking so undermined Acting like it wouldn't happen Making sense of anything that you could find Because it's just about to happen And you'll be there You must have known the storm was coming When the clouds appeared May as well let the rain come down And join the circus of people While you're there Something is changing Bruising and aching And I'm trying To find out What it is When I fix her She's breaking Reason keeps escaping We're protecting And burning like a cyst I know that I can help you I just don't fucking want to And the feeling Is stronger by the day Say that I'm selfish But I know you need this And I'm just so Sick of the chase While you are letting your guard down I will be letting myself go While you keep running your ship aground I will be setting myself alight Too late, you dropped the drawbridge You let the vampires in You caused this shit to happen and now you want out? Too late, you dropped the drawbridge You let the vampires in I hope you know now that it's nobodies fault but yours! While you are letting your guard down I will be letting myself go While you keep running your ship aground I will be setting myself alight

In through the maze through your reflection, We enter from a terminal connection In through the maze of your reflection, We enter from a terminal connection In through the maze through your reflection, We enter from a terminal connection In through the maze of your reflection, We enter from a terminal connection

Down by the river junior year Walking with my girl, And we came upon a place There in the tall grass where a couple Had been making love And left the mark of their embrace. I said to her, "Looks like they had some fun." She said to me, "Let's do the same." And still I taste her kisses And her freckles in the sun When I play the poet game. A young man down in hill country In the year of '22 Went to see his future bride. She lived in a rough old shack That poverty blew through. She invited him inside. She'd been cooking, ashamed and feeling sad, She could only offer him bread and her name - Grandpa said that it was the best gift A fella ever had And he taught me the poet game. I had a friend who drank too much And played too much guitar - And we sure got along. Reel-to-reels rolled across The country near and far With letters poems and songs. But these days he don't talk to me And he won't tell me why. I miss him every time i say his name. I don't know what he's doing Or why our friendship died While we played the poet game. The fall rain was pounding down On an old New Hampshire mill And the river wild and high. I was talking to her while leaves blew down Like a sudden chill - There was wildness in her eyes. We made love like we'd been waiting All of our lives for this - Strangers know no shame - But she had to leave at dawn And with a sticky farewell kiss Left me to play the poet game. I watched my country turn into A coast-to-coast strip mall And I cried out in a song: If we could do all that in thirty years, Then please tell me you all - Why does good change take so long? Why does the color of your skin Or who you choose to love Still lead to such anger and pain? And why do I think it's any help For me to still dream of Playing the poet game? Sirens wail above the fields - Another soul gone down - Another Sun about to rise. I've lost track of my mistakes, Like birds they fly around And darken half of my skies. To all of those I've hurt - I pray you'll forgive me. I to you will freely do the same. So many things I didn't see, With my eyes turned inside, Playing the poet game. I walk out at night to take a leak Underneath the stars - Oh yeah that's the life for me. There's Orion and the Pleiades And I guess that must be Mars - All as clear as we long to be. I've sung what I was given - Some was bad and some was good. I never did know from where it came And if I had it all to do again I am not sure I would Play the poet game.

1.) Four Point Six Archaean horizon The first sunrise On a pristine Gaea Opus perfectum Somewhere there, us sleeping After sleeping through a hundred million centuries We have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet Sparkling with color, bountiful with life Within decades we must close our eyes again Isn't it a noble An enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun To work on understanding the universe And how we have come to wake up in it? 2.) Life The cosmic law of gravity Pulled the newborns around a fire A careless, cold infinity in every vast direction Lonely farer in the Goldilocks zone She has a tale to tell From the stellar nursery into a carbon feast Enter LUCA The tapestry of chemistry There's a writing in the garden Leading us to the Mother of all We are one We are a universe Forbears of what will be Scions of the Devonian sea Aeons pass Writing the tale of us all A day-to-day new opening For the greatest show on Earth Ion channels welcoming the outside world To the stuff of stars Bedding the tree of a biological holy Enter life The tapestry of chemistry There's a writing in the garden Leading us to the Mother of all We are one We are a universe Forbears of what will be Scions of the Devonian sea Aeons pass Writing the tale of us all A day-to-day new opening For the greatest show on Earth We are here to care for the garden The wonder of birth Of every form most beautiful Every form most beautiful We are one We are a universe Forbears of what will be Scions of the Devonian sea Aeons pass Writing the tale of us all A day-to-day new opening For the greatest show on Earth 3.) The Toolmaker After a billion years The show is still here Not a single one of your fathers died young The handy travelers Out of Africa Little Lucy of the Afar Gave birth to fantasy To idolatry To self-destructive weaponry Enter the god of gaps Deep within the past Atavistic dread of the hunted Enter Ionia, the cradle of thought The architecture of understanding The human lust to feel so exceptional To rule the Earth Hunger for shiny rocks For giant mushroom clouds The will to do just as you'd be done by Enter history, the grand finale Enter Ratkind Man, he took his time in the sun Had a dream to understand A single grain of sand He gave birth to poetry But one day'll cease to be Greet the last light of the library Man, he took his time in the sun Had a dream to understand A single grain of sand He gave birth to poetry But one day'll cease to be Greet the last light of the library Man, he took his time in the sun Had a dream to understand A single grain of sand He gave birth to poetry But one day'll cease to be Greet the last light of the library We were here! We were here! We were here! We were here! 4.) The Understanding We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones Most people are never going to die Because they are never going to be born The potential people who could have been here in my place But who will in fact never see the light of day Outnumber the sand grains of Sahara Certainly those unborn ghosts include Greater poets than Keats Scientists greater than Newton We know this Because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA So massively exceeds the set of actual people In the teeth of these stupefying odds It is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here We privileged few Who won the lottery of birth against all odds How dare we whine at our inevitable return To that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred? 5.) Sea-Worn Driftwood There is grandeur in this view of life With its several powers Having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one And that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on According to the fixed law of gravity From so simple a beginning Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been And are being, evolved