Lyrics

These waters are of legend; more a cautionary tale

and your faith will not avail you of reprieve

if you happen to be drawn to walk the shores of Lilith Lake

to behold the thing you never did believe

No mortal man can tell ya who was first to come to see,

but the yarn is known to precede that of christ…

of a creature so seductive…partly goddess partly greed

upon whose visage is one’s final mortal price

It is said when restless waters suddenly turn dark and calm

and the wind will for the moment cease to blow

a phantom bitch emerges without ripple, drop, or sound

awakened by her hunger for your soul

Neither fisheran nor Gallowglass, nor wizard, serf or waif

no matter what their virtue or their vice

who’d seen her once could then resist the pull to feel her grace again

despite the legend that no one survives her twice.

So it was that Hugh MacKenzie… a giant of a man…

and strongest one, by any measure, in the county

at the tavern bragged at length and loud his visit to the lake

where he taunted her and dared to stare her down

And equal to his valor, his chivalry is told…

as her maidenhead was clearly his to take

But his thirst for ale and accolades was stronger than his lust

so he drank and told his tale of Lilith Lake

But then fermented hops and barley brought the specter of her flesh

to more than even Hugh MacKenzie could endure

Full of arrogant audacity and sloppy drunk desire

he swilled his pint and stumbled out the door

And in the late hours of that evening whilst the Tavern did close down

straggling revelers, as if frozen, hushed their din

In sudden stillness and in quiet…they read each others eyes

and shivered from the chill which had arrived without the wind

And Hugh MacKenzie’s never seen by anyone again

and the legend’s full of stories such as his

and the townsfolk… every one…suspect his terrible demise

‘stead of something more akin to carnal bliss

These waters are of legend; more a cautionary tale

and your faith will not avail you of reprieve

if you happen to be drawn to walk the shores of Lilith Lake

to behold the thing ya’d truly best believe.

© 2014 Lowell James Hicks

Time can be a healer of great sorrow

or a poison that contaminates your heart

The difference in these outcomes are proportional in measure

to the amount of love or anger where you start

Time will turn an acorn to an oak tree

or a germ into a plague upon the land

The good and bad mysterious unfold against this time

which if we nourish, we begin to understand

I remember when ten minutes was eternity

while waiting for my father as a child

And now it slips away unnoticed… it disappears unseen

An evening is an instant when two lovers are beguiled

We race the burning daylight in a rush to stay ahead

We check our watch and sacrifice our prime

Contrary to the adage, time really isn’t money

Money is the thief that steals our time

Today we are the stuff of future memories

Every action, every word is foundry cast…

Will we rejoice… will we lament the things we did or didn’t do

as we inform our future with our past?

© 2014 Lowell-James Hicks

He lived just about the middle of a stretch of Highway Ten

It was ninety miles to town in either direction

He had a flat-bed auto hauler and a deal with Triple A

to send him out to get the break-downs and the wrecks

Could be a pickup full of cantaloupes and flats of free-range eggs

or a student starting second year pre-med

For the most part it was a simple thing… a flat tire or a hose…

But there were hard ones where somebody wound up dead

Each day another circumstance… somebody else gets towed

By this gentleman and scholar of the never-ending road

I figured him for about sixty… maybe sixty-two

based on the way he talked about his prime

there’s a seasoned kind of wisdom, a suggestion of an edge

gleaned from countless conversations over time

An insurance guy from Austin on vacation with his wife

A butcher with a hundred stolen steaks

A geologist from Chevron taking samples to the lab

A herpetologist chasing non-endemic snakes

Each day another circumstance, another story told

to this gentleman and scholar of the never ending road

After thirty years of doing this he’s learned to catch some sleep

for however many hours when he can

to be ready to go out into the elements of night

when the phone rings with a job at two AM

An actress from Poughkeepsie on her way home from LA…

told the tale of her colossal waste of time

One regional commercial and some offers to do porn…

But San Fernando wasn’t what she had in mind

And so another broken dance, and someone gets consoled

by this gentleman and scholar on this never ending road

He listens to their politics, their science and their gripes

They go on about religion and their kids

Sometimes for twenty minutes, other times for ninety miles

Absorbing all these many things he never did

Technician from the Geek Squad heading for a service call

got distracted, ran completely out of gas

thinking World Of Warcraft strategies, oblivious to all else

Missed his exit nearly sixty miles back

And now another dispatch cracklin’ on the radio

calls this gentleman and scholar out again onto the road

A hundred theories of conspiracy… he’s prob’ly hear ’em all

Monsanto, Bush, and Haliburton sins

How the one percent get richer as the country takes the fall

he begins to see how it pertains to him

And he’ll be the first to curse the shameful reason that

another Middle Eastern country gets our bombs

he’ll tell you Dick and George and Karl and Condoleeza

should have prob’ly been there swingin’ with Saddam

Each day another song and dance, the whole first wold gets snowed

But not this gentleman and scholar of this never ending road

A steaming radiator on a van of auto parts

or a couple from Saskatchewan who say

they stopped to take a picture… now the damned thing just won’t start

so he learned of Central Canada that day

He can speak of French philosophers, debate the human clone

It’s as if it was his kid that cinched the win

But vicarious experience just points to he’s alone

and leaves him homesick for some place he’s never been

Each day another longing, but it hardly ever showed

on this gentleman and scholar of that never ending road

After a couple million miles of going nowhere much at all

it was time to lose the flatbed and the phone

Without a plan or destination, no clue where he’d finally fall,

but a pretty damn good idea where he won’t

He parked it for the last time at a homeless shelter store

near the outskirts of El Paso late one night

He dropped the keys and registration through the mail slot in the door

And headed off into some different kind of life

Each day a brighter sunrise, now, each day a better home

as the sweetness of uncertainty just feeds the need to roam

And that’s the way he wants it now, so that’s the way it goes

for this gentleman

and scholar

on this never ending, open ended road

© 2011 Lowell-James Hicks

In an early childhood memory of an old amusement park

I recall the feeling something wasn’t right

beneath the music and the gaiety a seediness implied

a danger deeper than was promised by the night

and looking back to see somewhat a metaphor for life

as there’s just no turning back once you’re inside

unlike life you had the option to decide if you will go

there was warning at the entrance to the ride:

This is a dark ride… dark… this is a dark ride

Now the music of celestial spheres is fraught with background noise

of people chafing in the yoke of their oppression

of rich kids driving carefree in their sick expensive toys

cacophony of spiritual regression

while trying to navigate the tyranny of greedy corporate rule

among the madness there are sweet spots, shining bright

but the road we go is littered with the legacy of fools

who selfishly mistook the darkness for the light

This is a dark ride… dark… this is a dark ride

so much that need be done by so too few to take the call

Not too many converts around here

we’re either preachin’ to the choir or talking to the wall.

no middle ground, there’s nothin’ in between

So we stumble through this labyrinth of a world that’s clearly mad

fighting borderlines and chauvinistic lords

this insane collective reasoning has toxified the pacifist

to contemplate the wisdom of the sword.

This is a dark ride… dark… this is a dark ride

Within the chaos of the carnival and confusion of the crowd

there are those who might contend that life is bliss

unlike those upon whom misery and hatred is endowed

given choices would have not signed up for this

This is a dark ride

© 2013 Lowell-James Hicks

I must admit it looks as though there’s not much use denyin’

I never should’ve taken to the road the way I did

just accepting it as destiny I’ll prob’ly go down tryin’ to piece together

what I swear I saw more clearly as a kid.

Through the rocky roads and emptiness and love, I’ve seen some money.

Been up against it solid, I’ve been down and I’ve been out.

I had an act together, more or less, went foolish and feel funny about

a hostile town or two behind me I still laugh about.

Bridge:

And I’m not too surprised to see it comin’ ’round again like some conscience-driven clockwork off the wall;

the wasted time and dignity pretending that you just don’t see

the tradeoffs left you nothin’ much at all.

She said, “Get out of here… don’t keep in touch… slow suicide… you drink too much,

and I don’t wanna see you do yourself the way you do.”

Just how many times before I’ve heard that woman close the door behind me presently evades me,

but it sure as hell ain’t new.

So let tomorrow put new distance on the road again.

Hell, it ain’t romantic… it’s a ball.

It saddens me to leave again… it feels so good to go.

Just shake it up and let the pieces fall.

©1978 Lowell-James Hicks

The vagrant wore a bad tattoo of Jesus.

A vestige of his more idealist days

when he might have been a hero,

or just an ordinary man

before the mystique of his world had worn away.

He appeared around here one day not too long ago

by the abandoned church pavilion at the pier.

He was clean, but was tattered, and he appeared to have the means

for the occasion of his cigarettes and beer.

I rarely saw him talking to the locals.

If a stranger’d ask directions he’d stand clear.

For the most part he was distant in his solitude…

a quiet countenance most people tend to fear.

That evening when I saw him standing with the priest I knew

the old pavilion wouldn’t shelter him again.

He turned without discussion, and he slowly walked away

toward what or wherever old vagrants go again.

The padre went to vespers in the chapel.

The vagabond moved on and out of town.

The sky was set ablaze ‘midst the color and the clouds

and another gorgeous sun was going down.

Another gorgeous son was going down.

I guess I’ll never understand the human nature

of those who know what I can only contemplate:

the hidden difference in the street beneath the shadow of a sinner

and the dirt beneath the shadow of a saint.

© 1989 Lowell-James Hicks

Who is this old man in the mirror looking back at me

with seemingly more sadness than surprise

in silence nearing disbelief I gaze into that face

and search among the wandered for the wise.

As if a day of reckoning… as if I am arraigned

by this stranger who has suddenly appeared

who bears but slight resemblance to the boy that I once knew

who in an instant wears the passing of the years

Oh, the ladies, they were good to me… and how I drank my fill

bringing bittersweet new meaning to my heart

but as I gambled greener pastures against lessons learned and lost

it seemed at times as if someone had stacked the cards

All these foolish acquisitions and unreasonable positions

in an endless reach for something not quite there

in retrospect it’s like I dialed back my expectations

in proportion to my distance from this mirror

In a world of three dimensions played against the stark reflections

of the images for which I don’t repent

now the old man in the mirror serves to bring home so much clearer

the difference in my actions and intent

This failed Darwinian strategy and all these human travesties

run rampant while my conscience played no part

He was there to keep me grounded, yet I stand here so dumbfounded

this would-be mentor let me stray away so far

Who’s this old man in the mirror looking back at me with seemingly more sadness than surprise?

In silence and in disbelief we trace each other’s face… in search among the wandered for the wise

© 2013 Lowell-James Hicks

It’s me who’s got the shaky reputation,

and I’m the one whose baggage weighs a ton.

For all intents and purposes, it’s you who should be wary…

so why’s it me that feels the need to run away from you?

Your friends say it’s a mystery that you want me,

and mine say it’s a miracle you do.

If it was up to them to say, there might be some discussion…

but what’s the point in ponderin’ what’s clearly up to you?

Bridge:

What’s it matter… what’s the difference if it’s miracle or mystery?

A distinction most folks never understood.

I’m just enough in touch with what I need to know to tell you:

There ain’t no such dilemma ever felt so good.

So let ’em say what they might say about us…

You’re “innocent and sweet”, and I’m “a cad”.

Folks might be surprised to find that

I’m the one who’s helpless…

and you’re the one who’s treatin’ me so deliciously bad.

Bridge

© 2011 Lowell-James Hicks

Does Hyperion’s tumble show chaos,

or an order in that icy stone?

is there meaning in asking the question?

will some master plan ever be known?

the swell of commercial voice echoes

telling what to assume we deserve,

if arrogance grows in all beings

we’re light years ahead of the curve

as we sort through the choices of what to believe

no sensible answers in sight

just bet on the chance that we run out of wrongs….

eventually ending up right

through bitterly serious comedies

tragic political plays,

with so many flags foretelling the fail

like those Burma Shave signs in the hay

but even tho we see it coming,

it’s much as though our eyes are blind

like our spirit has never been broken

about a hundred times

so we turn up our collar, lean into the wind,

put our hands in our pockets and march.

and hope the debris from the mess up ahead

doesn’t hit us and tear us apart.

we’ve hijacked our very survival

not listening to that which we hear

smile mute and pay your fucking taxes

too tired to fight off the fear

while corporate predator despots

draw a bead on us working class fools

as sniper technology renders the kill down to

pretty much low hanging fruit

We’re pretty much low hanging fruit

yeah, pretty much low hanging fruit

© 2014 Lowell-James Hicks

We’re not the first culture to falter…

but we could be the last to implode…

we just might be unique in the sense we pretend

from some innocent bystander mode.

as much of a weapon as any machine

is our marketed, sanitized view

if we’d drop the denial, we’d have to believe

unforgivable things that we do.

We watch from a comfortable distance

as our owners invade other lands

and posture ourselves as indignant

when accused of the blood on our hands

There’s no sense investing in all of these wars

to not wind up controlling the spoils

Our corporate guerrillas won’t drop from the sky

in a country not sitting on oil.

For lawmakers selling Monsanto new highs

for allowable poisons in food

there’s a spin doctor scripting some platitude puke

for taking the bad with the good

But you’re not gonna see it on talk shows…

won’t get it from ten o’clock news

Burger King, Walmart, Wells Fargo and Coke

sure as hell cannot sponsor the truth

a reasonable person who hears the name “Trump”

might be equally pissed and amused

A comedy source or tragic mistake,

depending on what lens you use

Although there is really but one lens

through which sick machinations can fall

as the likes of the Koch Brothers, Chaney, and Rove

who should never have happened at all.

We’ve lifted Beyond-Belief Stupid

to stations of powerful fame

and bargained with murderous dictators

for our own imperialist gain

and don’t even think that it’s all in the past…

or, for the worst of it, ‘once will suffice’…

that a Palin or Saddam won’t surface again.

Seriously? Jesus H Christ…

when this source of material lands in your lap

there’s no need to embellish the truth

look at voting restrictions designed so the poor

will give up before reaching the booth

or how blue-collar christian electorate…

the stuff of a plutocrat’s dreams…

insist that the sun slowly orbits the Earth…

and bend over for neocon schemes

back in the day we considered the depth

of which pundit we chose to anoint

now, failed actresses slipping a glimpse of their crotch

into ways to belabor the point

or some parody slug in seditious tirade

making blathering noise when he talks

It used to be Buckley’s grandiloquent tripe;

now it’s mannequin morons at Fox.

Pretty sure that if you could ask Lenny…

or Bill Hicks, or Carlin, or Mort

Where did they get most of their content?

Was their satire a simple report?

With stand-up so biting and poignant…

How could it deliver so well?

They’d probably tell you “You can’t make this up…

really… this shit writes itself”

© 2014 Lowell James Hicks

I’m afraid he’d see my burning as I look at you

if I allowed myself to drift into your eyes…

as I pretend it’s just a friendly conversation

I pretend I’m not desire in disguise.

I never had intended to get next to you

from just an inadvertent friendship at the start

I never could have guessed I’d be here so conflicted

as I try to wash your image from my heart

and I can barely breathe when you stand close to me

and it was so hard not to touch you when you cried

and I find yet another, deeper, level of alone

where tears are all that tell you you’re alive

when I imagine the feel the fragrance and the taste of your sweet skin

and it somehow seems familiar… I don’t know how that can be

And I know I shouldn’t fault him for the hold he has on you

if it’s anything like the hold you have on me

And I’m torn between the obvious solution

to just disappear forever from your fold

or to stay, intoxicated in temptation

chancing you won’t sense these things I haven’t told you.

I lay awake and contemplate my honor

and all the times I didn’t cave and turn around

and how this thing for you is pulling me to places I can’t go

it’s just so hard to keep from fallin’ down

© 2012 Lowell-James Hicks

The campers come to trash this Colorado

The hunters ambush elk who flee the cold

Bald mountains, now a metaphor for how we do the world

Sacred nature either thrown away or sold

And it’s an irony that we should leave along these rivers

indelible footprints on the land.

The feedlots and the cages and the stolen gasoline

driving headlong into nothing left to burn,

fuel this fictitious economy’s unstoppable machine

drilling deep beyond the point of no return

and it’s an irony

The checkout clerk won’t know it doesn’t matter

if it’s paper or a plastic bag we choose.

In the pretense of a green mind we shop the trendy stores

where the package weighs more than the natural food.

The corporate ghoul McDonald sucks the children through his doors

and the poor dumb bastard parents sign the log.

In the sickest of the ironies the fast food profits soar

while their hyped-up kids’ foundations wag the dog.

And it’s an irony.

She stands before her nation’s flag and anthem.

It’s just another billion dollar game.

She doesn’t know the words hold such hypocrisy of meaning

but almost any seventh grader knows her name.

And it’s an irony that we should pay homage to such heroes

We boast of truth and honor and the freedoms that we wrought

and say that liberty and justice are the way

while the thievery and genocide that brought us to this place

are a hidden truth continuing today

it’s such an irony

© 2001 Lowell-James Hicks

She’s all about knowin’ what’s on my mind

All about showin’ up just in time

All about talkin’ that stuff to me

that don’t fit mixed company

All about fittin’ with me just right

Keeping it hot most all ‘o the night

and all the time knowin’ that I can’t help

but be the fool I am.

Bridge: When she opens up like one sweet, soft melon

on a hot dark August vine…

she’s givin’ up what she’s got for me

and I’m damn sure givin’ her mine.

she’s workin’ me

and it works for me just fine

she’s workin’ me

A summertime breeze blowin’ in through the screen

A wintertime snow fallin’ soft and clean

An afternoon sun or a mornin’ rain

It don’t matter what kind of day

She’s looking at me with beckoning eyes

cooking up a sensual paradise

takin’ her time, plottin’ the crime of

some downright sinful play

Bridge

© 2001 Lowell-James Hicks

The landing gear hydraulics failed, and everybody died

and insurance paid out millions in the claims

which company directors found some cheaper to provide

than to schedule regular maintenance on their planes.

It was a policy decision by the CPAs and the Board

upon whose karma falls the fate of those who died

it’s just a calculated cost of doing business

and it’s a fairly common practice so it slides

Small fire at the refinery a couple months ago

price of gas went through the roof and never came down

Exxron said “production stopped”, to explain away the rise

but their own records show they never shut it down.

So of the fabricated story of the shortness of supply

It’s clearly our own fault we bought the lie

It’s an opportunist ripoff of consumers

and it’s a fairly common practice so it flies

An old guy at the pharmacy stands mumbling to himself

about obscene percentage markup on his pills

thinks he’s fortunate the tax payers are pickin’ up the tab

While Medicare Part D gets double billed

There’s no price cap on the product, no transparency of deals

between Congress and the makers of the drugs

because the lobbies and the lawmakers are comfortably in bed

in the tradition and the style of common thugs

The government is counting on the fact that we’re asleep

and we’re mostly all too happy to comply

while the fat cats line their pockets and the homeless walk the streets

and the rest of us are barely getting by

While the powers meant to serve us, at least ostensibly,

Create distracting talking points for our contention

the truth of how we’re getting hosed is not that hard to see

so if you’re not pissed off you’re prob’ly not payin’ attention.

If you’re not pissed of you’re just not payin’ attention.

© 2012 Lowell-James Hicks

Where there was sin, there was salvation; where faith, there was god.

Independent of our need to understand.

In the face of contradictions so impossible to hide

my precocious childhood questions went unanswered

Sacrificial blood that dried on Montezuma’s hands

or the murderous crusades of Charlemagne

as rooted in mythology and theocratic greed

as the insanity of martyrdom in planes

And as each time we see injustice by the hand of mortal man

or horrific suffering through an “act of god”

the mysteries of our childhood fall away beneath the truth

they are not mysteries, they were never true at all.

The menorah and the minaret, the crucifix and wheel

of the competing superstitions that divide us

seem lofty and impertinent when placed against the real

if the prophets were not fools, were they liars?

Yet we pray in gilded temples and cathedrals and the halls

built on tithings from the fear of our damnation

while charlatan evangelist’s apocryphal inventions

drive our hopes on worthless prayer and incantation

So when the wind gathers the dust that once was us and blows away

over waters and dead cities that lay fallow

the legacy of who we were will simply fade away

among the void; among the empty and the hollow

© 2012 Lowell-James Hicks

Half white, wound tight, walkin’ on eggs

such a silly and emotional boy

to be a journeyman apprentice to a perilous life

of indiscretion with the dangerous toys

An atheistic, apolitical approach to a point

of tearing everything apparent apart

to recapitulate the tenet, taking care to discard

the unbecoming to a hedonist heart

If an ability to barter was a general rule

and idiots became aware of the dues

a common man is automatically expected to pay

we’d all be tradin’ bourbon and blues

That I can see it in an instant of a fallible guise

officially affected fallow facade

isn’t any more a mystery meant to be a surprise

to anyone without a moveable god

So a carefully selected demographic intent

upon an issue inconceivably cold

awaits available aversion from a virulent world

without a soul that could be traded or sold

While half right wound tight dissident heads

without a sensible direction or dream

allow a dying disillusions ill-affordable song…

atonal

in a whispering scream.

© 1986 Lowell-James Hicks

She’s what the good ol’ boys would call a “looker”

She’s half again as crazy as she seems

She’s her own testimony to the truth of many beasts behind her

So much a gentle baby when she dreams

She was young and I was foolish for a party

at a time when we were both alone at heart

So we fell upon each other

seeking lover

seeking friend

making all the token motions from the start

We would lay there in the twilight and talk circles of the world

and try to justify the truth among the lies

Believe in me believe in you but don’t belabor leaving

as we finish our unspoken compromise

It played out as it so often does; infatuated love

The smell of hay the colors and the rain

And then its gone, it’s simply gone for one before the other

as the blissful now descends to subtle games.

She would lie to me for nothing but to cut so deep and clean

into the strange communication of disguise

and watch me vindicate the sorrow in the light of having seen

the slightest touch of snake oil salesman in her eyes

The emptiness of morning now

as I arise alone

implies a vagueness of surprise it took so long

to take the free world left inside me

down to whispered melody

where once was an obsession with the song.

Last I heard about her she was up in Lexington

singin’ in corporate country style saloons

where cheap hooks and a steel guitar attest it’s not beyond her

takin’ her pick of the best fools in the room

She’s what the good ol’ boys would call a “looker”.

She’s half again as crazy as she seems

But I’m the one who’s crazy when I think to go and find her

as if she’s just the stuff of gentle dreams

© 1998 Lowell-James Hicks