The Mandolin.

once I saw a mandolin
in some old rusted back-street bin
it was cracked and broken
but somehow it made me cry

sometimes I feel like painted steel
sometimes I guess I’ll never heal
men and women come and go
they only leave their names

so many sleep among the tombs
so many die in rented rooms
so many want their final fix
in the moonlit hours

some people don’t believe in sin
some people run on cups of gin
others make their little idols
out of credit cards

the gambler playing in the wind,
the man in chains, gagged and bound,
sees not the wise man’s tree, and
doesn’t get so much to say.

I say you have to hit the ground
to see the truth that Schindler found
some people like to live their lives
in fragments on their own.

your daughter isn’t coming back
unless it’s in a body sack
we all live under mounds of crack
chatting over tea.

I’ve seen old men with children, and
children holding old men’s hands
I cannot find a woman who’s not
pierced with bloody knives.

through a blizzard all men dream
the world is not a winding stream
the world is not an ordered house
it doesn’t pay to tell

the truth is not an open door
for many life’s a raddled whore
who charges through the nose for more
than she can deliver

you pilots of the rusted ship
your bank vaults are with oil adrip
don’t worry: no-one listens as
you take the Nobel prize.

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Tags:

crack, life, mandolin, nobel peace prize, obama and politics