The civil war's not over
The sides are re-arranged
Those who once were allies
Now, they are estranged
The uniforms don't matter
It's now the colour of their skin
That's put the country back
To when the trouble did begin

Slavery abolished?
Have you looked outside your door?
Just take some time and ask yourself
Just who you're working for
The civil war's not over
It didn't ever end
Just watch your local nightly news
and see it's continuing my friend

America is burning
The flames are getting higher
The country's feeding on itself
Throw more fuel on the fire
Ferguson and Baltimore
are the start of the new pyre
America is burning
Throw more fuel on the fire

One percent to ninety nine
That's slavery to me
It's not just racial segregation
There's more than that to see
The civil war's not over
It's continued rolling on
It will stay there in the background
It's the country's most successful con

Johnny comes marching home again...hurrah, hurrah
Johnny comes marching home again...hurrah, hurrah
The country will be burning when he comes
From a war where no one really won
As another town burns, for all the world to see

She looks in the mirror
At the age on her face
"I wonder what he thinks
of me this way?"

She considers her weight
and the pores on her skin
She thinks out loud
"I don't deserve him."

She picks apart
the woman he loves
Separating her worth
from all that she does
              
He looks in her eyes
and caresses her face
He sees it glowing with love
and full of grace

 The lines on her face
  he views with pride
  Recounting the victories
  each time they've been tried

The weight that she carries
 is that of a mom
 Nothing's too heavy
 She just marches on

These bodies will perish
 and mirrors offer no truth
True love abides
 beyond the corridors of youth

  No, she doesn't deserve me
  Perhaps God can see
  Conceivably, one day
  I'll be as worthy as she

Behind your bi-folding mirrors
I'm led into the closet.

The closet where you kept
endless time and history.

When you opened that shoebox
and showed my eyes, and let the light
shine bright on, the past crammed tight
into that beautiful cardboard coffin

I took up your red sharpie pen
and wrote generic lyrics along
the lines of an empty tissue box
kept right by your so sickly beside.

Years later when you moved out
and found my words written
while you picked up those memories
from your one and only room,

I cried when you told me
you never even knew.

I died when you showed me,
because we never even grew.

You and I both know
that I'm all for show.

When troubles build up mountain-size
Clouds and fog obscure the peak,
You cannot see the pathway up,
The future’s looking bleak,
When there aren’t enough hours in each day
Or enough days in each week,
You’re in a boat without a paddle
In a swiftly moving creek,
Your friends have faded into black,
Your whole life has sprung a leak,
Fate just punched you in the face
So you turned the other cheek.
When others have inherited
What was promised to the meek;
Faith alone can give you strength
And the solace that you seek.

When the morning sun defeats the fog
And brings the light to day
Illuminates the pathway up
And the clouds are pushed away
When the hourglass is full of sand
Each grain longer than a day
Your friends are in the audience for
The commencement of your play
The curtain rises, they applaud
The black has turned to gray,
You fight toward your own ending
Despite what critics say
If virtue is its own reward
Then all will be okay
For the faithful have their just reward
When comes the Judgement Day.
pwl 5/8/15

As the winds break into small feathered kisses
and idly burden the heart this May day
I lament for all the long withered wishes
once whose petals bloomed on my way.

A begone time love feeling unfailingly true
a touch that left a long hovering trail
on the probing soul fertile they grew
before cruel days wore them frail.

Aspirations soared on sun blazed wings
they had to be have on awakened nights
the innocent's hunts for the most precious things
haloed in passions of untamable sights.

On feathered winds were they drifted and gone
notions of love and visions to build high
but by their fire made me a man
leaving imprints as the years went by.

In Deutschland as the tale is told,
A clockmaker was growing old
After making near a thousand clocks
He was tired of all the ticks and tocks
He was satisfied with what he’d done
But had no desire to teach his son.
His clocks were made with love and skill
But of cuckoo birds he’d had his fill
So stepping back was his decision
And his clocks were built with such precision
That he hoped they’d run all by themselves,
And, as he looked upon his empty shelves,
With sadness and with pride,
He noticed that his only son was standing by his side.

The son looked up and saw a tear,
As his father said, “I won’t interfere,
My clocks will run, or they will not
Ich bin nicht ein Wundergott
Und Ich hoffe sie verstehen
Meine Uhren müssen allein gehen.”
Phil Lindsey   May 7, 2015

A Hundred years is nothing to an oak.
A Thousand to a mountain is a joke.
A Million to a solar system just exceeds its birth.
And we expect to make a difference in roughly eighty years on Earth?
PwL  5/5/15

It would be easier for me to track a dinosaur through time;
To solve the evolution mystery, or make the dictionary rhyme.
To change the course of history would be easier to do
Than for me to spend a single day
Without a thought of you.

It would be easier for me to make the stars all disappear;
To make a blind man see your face, or make a deaf man hear.
To make the world stop fighting would be easier to do
Than for me to spend a day without
A single thought of you.

A single thought of you?
I only wish that it were true,
But I think of you a thousand times a day.
In my heart I hope that you
Are sometimes thinking of me too,
And I never want, won’t ever want, these thoughts to go away.

It would be easier for me to turn a mountain into sand;
To turn a desert into ocean, or an ocean into land.
To make the earth stop turning would be easier to do
Than for me to spend a day without
A single thought of you.

A single thought of you?
I only wish that it were true,
But I think of you a thousand times a day.
In my heart I hope that you
Are always thinking of me too,
And I never want, won’t ever want, these thoughts to go away.

If our lives were only easy, we would both know what to say,
Know when to hold each other closer and know when to push away.
To live with this emotion is no easy thing to do
And I'll never spend another day
Without a thought of you.
And in my heart I hope that you
Are always thinking of me too,
And I never want, won’t ever want, these thoughts to go away.

pwl 2006

So I’ll tell you why I write.
I write because I’m the protagonist of my own stories.
I write because in my stories, I solve the problems that invariably creep up between people and I
In the most heroic ways possible
I write because in my world,
Not every rainbow ends in a *** of gold
But sliding across its multicolour will be the happiest memory in your mind
I write because my stories are clouds that do have real silver linings
I write because 3 am is time for chai, and childhood stories
Impromptu bike rides to greet the sleeping night
But all I can do is write.
I write because I’m angry and frustrated but
you asked me not to turn my anguish onto my body
and leave battle scars for the world to question -
so I write instead.
I write because sometimes,
the tumult in my head comes from
words that are struggling to spill forth from my brain
and stain empty pages with their loud meaning.
I write because
Writing is the only way I have to make sense
of this messy world we live in.

If someone says, “And time stood still,”
Consider him an imbecile.
Time creeps, it flies, it disappears,
It changes seconds into years,
Consumes our life,
Each passing day,
And woe the soul
That’s in its way.

Time marches on, as if to war
Countless battles fought before
Why do we refuse to yield?
Lay down our helmet, sword, and shield
Is it so hard
For us to see
That time will claim
The victory?

Time overpowers the strongest men,
And laughs at those who try in vain,
To conquer time, for they will die
Not knowing when, or how, or why
Yes, we will die
While time endures
Time mourns no life
Not mine, not yours.

Time humbles strong, and kills the weak,
It laughs at those who dare to speak,
As if they understand its goal,
Time will extract its rightful toll.
No money spent
Can slow time down.
Time will have
The rich King’s crown.
Phil Lindsey 4/23/15