[Clash]
©2004 Alix Olson.

I was a baby born under paradoxical thunder
to some clapping, sullen muse of the merriment of struggle
and I owe my amusement to my mother and my father
who could never reconcile the strength they owed to one another.
But I will never resent that anger, resist is just how I was raised
and I won't document that beauty without the
clash from which it came.
You see, my parents never aimed me towards demure existence,
they said a little declawed glass lion on a shelf is powerless
in this dismal menagerie of sleepy world witness.
So, I'm surveying all of these nervous ballot-fervent carbon copies,
tapping down the party line, yanking their levers to feel counted,
we're all citizen mad-hatters, four years strapped around our necks,
strangled in the strong-hold of what we expect to protect us.
Following our little white rabbit down his presidential hole,
we're on proud american patrol,
as the globe shrinks to his size.
And we're exiting this poll booth, now, self-satisifed patriots, grinning cheshire cats
as this empirial wonderland is spinning off its evil axis.
And I am pissed off.
The sky's on watch
as I am losing all of my grounding.
She's parading her hips, round, jean-clad in acid wash clouds
as the trees pursue the mountains.
And the horizon is peering back at me, saying
"look at me sister, I am practically even, I am two hefty parts of this fine earth greeting.
And that is how I would urge you to persist," she says,
"sampling sweetness in your rage, shaking your hate by laughing through this,
I mean, you are half practically human, half heading towards the dust,
we're all recycling new spirit from the stuff that came before us.
Even me, sister, she says, I am middle sky, I am middle earth."
And I'm thinking "no, that's just not how my birth was chosen.
I got both legs spread on this see-saw, challenging balance to breathe its way between them."
But suddenly, I'm mistaking a commercial plane for a star.
And the moon is abruptly small under my thumb when I squint, and I'm thinking
"holy fuck. What if things are relative?"
And I'm buggin' out, man, at this new spiritual shift, I mean, I have spent my life making fun of this shit.
But all of a sudden I understand. You know that moment when you understand?
You realize maybe you're the asshole.
But you're the passionate asshole.
So, I am routing my frustration through this rubix cube of a country,
because the only answer I'm accepting is the virtue of its people
You can take evolution from the textbooks,
You can't take it from us
Babies born under paradoxical thunder,
to some clapping, sullen muse of the merriment of humanitarian struggle
And I owe my amusement to my mother and my father
who could never reconcile the strength they owed to one another.
But, I will never resent that anger, resist is just how I was raised.
And I won't document any beauty
without the clash from which it came.