Beneath the Sky Above - with audio

audio link

As I sit
Beneath th sky above
Streaming future thoughts
So many debts
So many roads
Not many right
Not many lead home

If home lies within the heart
How do I get the rest of me there
Can I pay the tax on my soul
The fee for my family's lives
Am I locked forever
Beneath the sky above
In an unbreakable circle
Of plebeian servitude
To some other's enjoyment

Is there no meaning left to make
From the creation of heart and hands
When the day is done
Can I only tell
Of how I filled another's storehouse
Of how I never enjoyed
My children in their youth
Because my heart was somewhere else
Looking for a way out of my predicament

No one ever told me
That I had concrete legs
When the race started
Nor did my poor leaden heart
Hear the news
As it tried in vain to fly
A curse on that ungodly thing
That makes one man a slave
To another man's pocket
To that crushing weight
Of life's announcement
That a man may not pass
The place into which he was born

Therefore tear out my heart
Give me one more dull
That dares not hope,
Wish or dream
One that does not
Mind life's cruelties
Nor the stripes
Of death's encroachment
Upon the shores
Of my sleep and awakening

Then shall I no longer
Desire the artist's renaissance
I will jump down
From the rocky climb
To blow bubbles in the mud
With the frogs and turtles
Who do not mind
Their shell and slimy skin

Oh to care not
But to be contented
For it is some kind of evil that
Puts the desire for a flash of brilliance
Within the heart of one who sits
Broken in the shadows of those
Soaring high into the sun.