MODERN ROMANCE



My feeble fingers trace the crack running through the hot green fuse
Of this flower which none can rend, our love which fills this room whose
Crack runs deep and wide and cold and black, all the way down to the bittersweet end
Of our melded bodies, ripe with booze. Floating in this room, we send
Salvation forth to softly attack any creature wearing shoes.
Light rays bend around our shack and penetrate this love we lend.

My feeble eardrums trace the click of your tongue as it polishes off each phrase.
Built upon a foundation of sand, our language possesses the strength to seize
The power and glory of my stick, as we lie upon this auctioned land
We thought we owned and realize that those who own each hand and gland
Of us, each ditch and prick, have set us dancing to a sadder jazz
That’s left a crack through each lovelick on lip and hip and sand and mind.

You listen to my engine knock and ask me why I choose to lose.
I tune my brain to the tunes of Bach, ill-tempered bastards, bent on fending
Off old age, and so they choose instead to tread the darkness, Zenned
And drunk on bigoted blindness. Talk about drug problems! Look wh woos
Complacency! Let us unlock another universe, Dear Friend.

My feeble fingers trace the wick and light the flame and watch it freeze.
Beaten, robbed, raped, tortured, skinned, I lie in sun in plastic chaise
And ponder in the sky a slick of toxic waste. Our parents sinned
And put our teeth on edge to ease their cowardice and so we’re pinned
Beneath a bulldozer. And the hick at the controls is a bum who plays
Crap with our bones and leaves a crick from neck to toe, as we face the wind.

My feeble fingers trace the lack of newness in what we call “the news”.
What I feel for you is blended into my heart’s opposing views.
Floating in this room, we wrack Reality so as to amend
10,000 years of unsung blues.
We dance a world-weary day and spend our was on crap to please the pack.
I lick your cut; you lick my bruise, as hand-in-hand we try to hack
Meaning where these light rays bend.


Words and Music by Galen Green c 1986