yes, yes, yes, us people are just poems   we're 90% metaphor    with a leanness of meaning   approaching hyper distillation      and once upon a time    we were moonshine      rushing down the throat of a giraffe   yes, rushing down the long hallway despite what the PA announcement said   yes, rushing down the long stairs    with the whiskey of eternity fermented and distilled to eighteen minutes      burning on our tongues   down our throats    down the hall    down the stairs   in a building so tall    that it will always be there      yes it's part of a pair there   on the bow of noah's ark   the most prestigious couple    just kicking back parked   against a perfectly blue sky    on a morning beatific   in its indian summer breeze    on the day that america   fell to its knees      after strutting around for a century    without saying thank you or please      and the shock was subsonic    and the smoke was deafening    between the setup and the punch line   because we were all on time   for work that day      we all boarded that plane for to fly   and then when the fires were raging    we all climbed up on the windowsill    and then we all held hands    and jumped into the sky      every borough looked up when it heard the first blast    and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed    and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar   looked more like war than anything i've seen so far      yes it looked more like war than anything i've seen so far      so fierce and ingenious,   a poetic specter so far gone    that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling    over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on      and i'll tell you what, while we're at it,    you can keep the pentagon,    you can keep the propaganda   and each and every tv    that's been trying to convince me    to participate in some prep school punk's plan    to perpetuate retribution      perpetuate retribution      even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution    is still hanging in the air   and there's ash on our shoes   and there's ash in our hair      and there's a fine silt on every mantle   from hell's kitchen to brooklyn   and the streets are full of stories sudden twists and near misses   and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters    with tales of narrowly averted disasters   and the whiskey is flowing like never before   as all over the country folks just shake their heads, and pour      so...       here's a toast to all the folks who live in palestine, and iraq, and el salvador.   here's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation with GI joe still coming back for more   here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors who daily provide women with a choice   who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city just to listen to a young woman's voice   here's a toast to all the folks on death row right now awaiting hot oil or guillotine   who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads to   find peace in the form of a dream      'cause take away our playstations    and we are a third world nation   under the thumb    of some blue blood royal son   who bought the oval office in that phony election   while we're at it, let me state unequivocally,    he is not president of me, he is not president of me      'cause i, i am a poem heeding hyper distillation   i've got no room for a lie so verbose    i'm looking out over my whole human family    and i'm raising my glass in a toast      here's to our last drink of fossil fuels,   let us vow to get off of this sauce   shoo away the swarms of commuter planes    and find that train ticket we lost      'cause once upon a time the line followed the river   and peeked into all the backyards    where the laundry was waving out on the line   and the graffiti was teasing us from brick walls and bridges   we were rolling over ridges    through valleys under stars   i dream of touring like duke ellington in my own railroad car      i dream of waiting on the big wooden benches    in the grand station aglow with grace   and then standing out on the platform and feeling the air on my face      give back the night its distant whistle      give back the night its distant whistle   give the darkness back its soul   give the big oil companies the finger finally   and relearn how to rock and roll      yes, the lessons are all around us   and the truth is waiting there   so it's time to pick through the rubble    clean the streets   and clear the air      tell our government to pull its big dick out of the sand of someone else's desert   and put it back in its pants   and quit the hypocritical chants of 'freedom forever'      'cause when one lone phone rang in two thousand and one   at ten after nine on nine one one, which is the number we all called   when that lone phone rang right off the wall right off our desk       and down the long hall down the long stairs    in the building so tall   that the whole world stopped   just to watch it fall      and while we're at it   remember the first time around   the bomb   the ryder truck   the parking garage   the princess that didn't even feel pity   remember joking around in our apartment on avenue d?   "can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design   following a fantastical reversal of the new york skyline?"   it was a joke   of course it was a joke at the time   it was just a few years ago   so let the record show    that the fbi was all over that case   the plot was obvious and in everybody's face   and scoping the scene religiously    was the cia or is it kgb?   committing countless crimes against humanity   with this kind of eventuality    as its excuse for abuse   after expensive abuse    and they didn't have a clue   look another window to see through   way up here on the 104th floor   look another key another door   10% literal and 90% metaphor   5000 some poems disguised as people   on an almost too perfect day   they must be more than just poems   in some asshole's passion play   so now it's your job   and it's my job   to make it that way   to make sure they didn't die in vain   shhh listen baby hear the train?