"Down the Hatchet" Oh Oh my Oh my brain O my brain has never munched such mush The Republican and Democratic parties disputing minuscule percentiles between their respective barbarities Partisans puking pabulum along with du jour puppets of puppeteers Crime isn't criminal if the right team does it every two, four, or six years Yes, yes, yes--I prefer the body pile over there No, no, no--I prefer the body pile over here Yes, yes, yes--I prefer the body pile over there (No, no, no) No, no, no--I prefer the body pile over here (Yes, yes, yes) Hooooray! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Hooooray! [x 2] O my tongue has never slurped such slush Pixilated nation pours frat-house alcohol Nazi war criminals deserved their punishment America contravenes Nuremberg protocols Our people were just doing their jobs to protect police and warfare states Ask the dead about the difference between torture from the SS or CIA Yes, yes, yes--I prefer the bodies stacked like that No, no, no--I prefer the bodies stacked like this Hooooray! Hooray for Vietnam! Hooooray! Hooray for Afghanistan! Hooooray! Hooray for Iraq! Huzzah for another century of violent foreign policy! I prefer Republican fingers on the buttons Yes, I prefer Republican fingers on the buttons No I prefer Democratic fingers on the buttons Yes, I prefer Democratic fingers on the buttons No I want Republicans with their fingers on the-- No I want Democrats with their fingers on the-- I want Democrats with their fingers on the buttons Oh I want Democrats with their fingers on the buttons No I want Republicans with their fingers on the buttons I do want Republicans with their fingers on the buttons No I prefer Democratic fingers on the buttons No I prefer Republican fingers on the buttons (But I want no Republicans, no Democrats and no red buttons But I prefer no Democrats, no Republicans and no red buttons) Oh my Between bumper-sticker simplifications bats invade the Democratic belfry Behind the knick-knacks of nationalism dictatorship forms Republican pageantry Imagine interaction sans barriers of ballot boxes, boot boys, 'n' billy clubs Think leviathan State anachronistic O my thoughts have never thought such thunks O my thoughts have never thunk such thuds

"Nature Nixes Mumbo Mantras" The world refuses to heal despite the passionate musicians who lament environmental decay in the catchiest of ways as they breed at or beyond the replacement rate Dude, that's such a catchy chorus (Duuude!); it rocks like ironic activists But if you care about this crisis, better allocate some quality time for a good look at, a long talk with, your conventional penis Easy to blame corporations or castigate world governments but your precious little miracles are merely market signals to producers of fossil fuels and industrial chemicals Perhaps pollution doesn't bother you like you say it does Perhaps (Perhaps) sickness doesn't bother you like you claim it does Perhaps (Perhaps) suffering doesn't bother you like you say it does Not drought, not landfills, not crowding Not deforestation, nor poverty Not war, not extinction, or sprawling Not epidemics, nor scarcity Not eminent domain or exponential karaoke Not even millions dying prematurely Parents with kiddos at protests: you rock like ironic musicians But if you care about this crisis, better allocate some quality time for a good look at, a long talk with, your recreant organs Bet you never fathomed we God monsters would get the heavens so damned riled up that they'd rip themselves apart and wrap their hands right around our throats Breeder times breeders x more breeders: you shout those catchy slogans; they rock like ironic musicians Bro--Bro--Bro Bro!--Bro!--Bro! Your hip unworldly lyrics hop heaven like Bible chariots But if you care about this crisis, better allocate some quality time for a good look at, a long talk with, your conventional penis If you really want a better planet, ride the night with rubber right after you ramp yourself up with a review of basic mathematics

"Soma Romance" Line up... Line up... [x 3] Line up, line up! Line up love lyrics and whine just right (Line up love lyrics...) Line up those lyrics and it's success overnight (...and whine just right) Line up love lyrics and whine just right (Line up love lyrics...) Line up those lyrics for your successful primetime (...and whine just right) More platinum scamming for the masses Nothing ventured, nothing clever Same syrup sick and sicker Nothing loving, nothing liking in the forging of forever through addiction and jealousy Egos tripping, masters planning Oh yes, baby, you belong to me Don't deconstruct that too carefully Line up love lyrics and whine just right (Line up, line up!) Line up those lyrics to set the night alight (Line up, line up!) Line up love lyrics and whine just right (Line up, line up!) Line up those lyrics for stupefied copulation tonight Radio rodeo looping ventricles Nothing thoughtful, nothing helpful Slapdash claptrap surrounds synapses Nothing hallowed, nothing healthful in the lashing of lifetimes to antiquated tethers Aping states, aping religions Baby, constrict your universe to fit me Pretend you were never interplanetary You, you, you are mine You, you, you are mine, mine, mine You, you, you are mine You, you, you are mine, mine, mine, mine You, you, you are mine You, you, you are mine, mine, mine You, you, you are mine Farewell to our freedom, Fräulein Line up, line up [x 3] Line up, line up! Line up love lyrics and whine just right (Line up love lyrics...) [Line up, line up!] Line up those lyrics and it's success overnight (...and croon just right) Line up love lyrics and whine just right (Line up love lyrics...) [Line up, line up!] Line up those lyrics for dazzling date nights (...and croon just right) Line up love lyrics and croon just right (Line up love lyrics...) [Line up, line up!] Line up those lyrics and it's success overnight (...and whine just right) Line up love lyrics and croon just right (Line up love lyrics...) [Line up, line up!] Line up those lyrics for contractual lifetimes (...and whine just right) Open this Valentine box Your notions find dynamite

"Artistic Apology" Some of us artists are sorry, so very sorry Some of us artists are truly sorry, so truly sorry Some of us artists are sorry, so very sorry (Sorry) Some of us artists are truly sorry, so truly sorry (Sorry, sorry, sorry) We need to apologize for being so powerful, for being so inspirational, or for being so fatuous So sorry! We've inspired an epidemic of farmers tipping their pitchforks to rock them like Jimi Hendrix and windmill like Pete Townsend It's caused a catastrophe: an ongoing drastic increase in agricultural workplace injuries to phalanges, arms, and privies But the heartland lies bleeding There's been a massive reduction in the production of First Aid kits Former assemblers bang street buckets And no one bandages bodies that have no hospitals anyway given nurses grew tired and inspired from us calling them rats, bees, & slaves Sorry, so sorry You work the one gig We work the other gig Sorry, so sorry for distorting that distinction distantly beyond this Sorry, so sorry for distorting other things 'til you're transformed or pissed Too many folks have changed because of our reckless invective Now millions do nothing more except publishing on the internet Please return to your 9-to-5's given death from the dearth of food and medicine, housing & transportation, textiles, appliances, production, and innovation Our callousness & pretentiousness can't start motors, raise grain stalks, stitch a sneaker, boil a beaker, synthesize compounds, truck goods around Sorry, so sorry You work the day shift We work the night shift Sorry, so sorry for distorting that distinction distantly beyond this Sometimes our shifts are concurrent, both making dimes in our difference Sometimes we all work graveyards in skins that don't ever seem to fit We each suffer cemetery summers without days for respite or exit Sorry, so sorry for acting like a village overloaded with idiots We owe you a lot more credit Many of you have the decency to retire at 65 or before once your careers are over You don't con your colleagues, your neighbors, family or friends into buying tickets for some Middle Management Reunion Tour No smashing the smash hits like "Total Insurance" or "Honest Accounting" to bob like broken ocean buoys at another concert of poached eggs No former rockers hardly rocking as they abandon their dignity in cocoons of cognitive dissonance and the commons of public decency Sorry, so sorry You work your shifts We work our shifts Sorry, so sorry for distorting that distinction distantly beyond this Sorry, so sorry for butchering that binary like numbskulls and nitwits We implore you to return to how you generated discretionary income so you can finance our delusion and delivery of didactic dictums We also encourage you to notice how groups will extend choruses (Hey Judge) until Gandhi would grant you permission (Excuse me) to raise your hand and smack them (Hurry the hell up, Harry!) Blah [x blah] (To raise your hand and smack them!)

"The Sleep of Life or Death" Waking up, one down, to a daybreak with a destination of dynamite The mountains can be murderers when you wanna shine like anthracite Nature and humankind holding knives, nurturing each other as accomplices The explosions in the closing distance are dreams that can't be accomplishments Lift me up, lift me up Lift me up; lift me, lift me Please release me from this bed by god or by goddess, by medicine or machine I want to do what I see my heroes doing here on the computer and TV screens I need a recovery to rescue my life before everything stops flickering I promise not to kill time like the idle rich or the wild teenager If opportunity windows open, I will never let them shatter It won't be like those two years of landmines laid beneath sunshine Not one declaration to departure to start itself decades ahead of time Lift me up, lift me up Lift me up; lift me, lift me Please release me from this bed by god or by goddess, by medicine or machine I want to do what I see my neighbors doing My eyes shuttering behind window screens I need regeneration to restore this body that's hastening its mortality There's a sleep that leads to death and another one that leads to life Doctors and nurses bedeviled by the births so cursed despite prayers and experiments glimmering in bright hospital lights There's a sleep that leads to death and another one that leads to life A frame and a brain which thrash while peace ignores the partition between first breath and the first quiet night There's a sleep that leads to death and another one that leads to life and there's a never-ending nightmare searching for scenes where the police are reading handcuffed deities their rights Lift me up, lift me up Please release me from this bed by god or by goddess, by medicine or machine before my back finishes bending, before my lungs finish collapsing, before my heart finishes breaking

"Civilizing Force" Yes, sir, and Yes, ma'am, I raise my hand and I do swear to bounce my brain between spheres And I will console myself with conflict should I descend into despair Yes, sir, and Yes, ma'am, I understand that what's impermissible for private citizens remains permissible for public government Lying was lying, robbing was robbing and murder was murder until divine politicians arrived (Hallelujah!) to supplant a normalcy of ethics with the nuances of politics Imagine mayhem, imagine molestation, imagine mugging without election seasons Imagine mayhem, imagine molestation, imagine mugging without insider connections Imagine mayhem, imagine molestation, imagine mugging without octopi agencies Imagine Imagine! Ah Ah! Yes, sir, and Yes, ma'am, I raise my hand (Yes!) and I do swear to bounce my brain between spheres And I (Yes!) will soften my sense with slogans should I descend into despair Yes, sir, and Yes, ma'am, I understand that what's impermissible for private citizens remains permissible for public government Just flaunt your laws and it's fine to swipe people's property Just flash your badge and mum's the tongue about the beatings Just don your duds and it's hand to head for the bombings You can count on me, you can count on us. You can count on me, you can count on us! Yes, sir, and Yes, ma'am, we raise our hands and we do swear to bounce our brains between spheres And we will console ourselves with conflict should we descend into despair Yes, sir, and Yes, ma'am, I understand that Yes, sir; oh, Sire, I understand that God bless you if your destruction's politically authorized God damn you if government doesn't bless you to brutalize God bless you, God damn you, God bless you

"Sex Machine Eulogies" Dear friends and dear family: we have gathered here today to celebrate the beauty of Rooney & Jolley, two of humanity's finest human beings, who were taken from us all by a terrible limousine accident As a bisexual who saw them both in the tux, the dress, and the buff, I know I will speak for everyone as I recall what made them truly great Rooney made the babes cry like Niagara, sent them flying without taking Viagra More pork in his barrel than ConAgra So orgasmic it mattered little to me that he never remembered my name even as my body recalled his stamina Jolley had organic Hollywood breasts, those teeth as white, as bright, as Crest Two hips that kicked like George Best Bucked in bedrooms like Denver Broncos More black tea in her tank than Texaco Hon had a tongue that could summon tornados Sit down, sit down, sit down & reflect on the sex machine eulogies Send folks off into Heaven the way that we measured them in mortality Rooney, Jolley Jolley, Rooney Rooney, Jolley The King and Queen of perfecting sexy Rooney, Jolley Jolley, Rooney Rooney, Jolley The King & Queen of God's Eternity If only Rooney would resurrect, so we could worship his ass If only Jolley would wake up, so we could adore her rack O our dear Barbecue Backside, (Why?!) O our dear Aphrodite Melons, (Why?!) we can't focus without you (Why?!) Sit down, sit down, sit down and reflect on the sex machine eulogies Send folks off into Heaven the way (the way, the way, the way), that we measured them in mortality Let's celebrate this commemoration of these two divine creations by honoring all the living who stay foxy until their cremations Rooney epitomized the total individual Hairline paid out daily residuals Enough to house domesticated animals His winks hardened any nearby nipples Whenever he passed a wishing well, he never tinkled, or stole the nickels Hardly wrapped his assets with Wranglers or lifted his shirt to flash that six pack Standard envy before hotties attacked Jolley exemplified such a special person Her glance made every loin burn Topped VH1's Top 100 Head Turns Infidel to all underwear religions Ensured that men knew they were near a miracle of soy-milk skin Manis and pedis like Christmas lights She pilfered from select purses only Always told a party hostess goodnight Sit down, sit down, sit down and reflect on the sex machine eulogies Send folks off into Heaven the way that we measured them in mortality Clutch their memory to your breast, the memory of their lasting beauty Rooney! Jolley! Rooney Jolley

"Tupperware Twang" Yee-haw! Sort of! Not really! Here at the Tupperware Twang factory: Waylon and Williams pics hang crooked Mary & Carrie tributes sit by the basement They're kept for appearances, not inspiration Tight butts, media bodies, and paste faces, we didn't bring you here for originality You're here to further perfect a market that makes us all worthless yet wealthy Time for you to stand like deer in headlight lineups, to get yerself a gait without gumption or giddyup Tupperware Twang, Tupperware Twang Here's a gun and there's a gun But not a one ever goes Bang! Don't worry about your testes or ovaries They'll be kept with your guts at the factory Just open wide after the assembly line With fixing all finished it's time for feeding Our songwriters have saccharine by the sack Don't Wynonna if your voices aren't perfect Our studios can manipulate them like music that leaps onto faces as layers of confect If songs sound like gumball machines keep puking, console yerselves with cameos of banjo or fiddling Tupperware Twang, Tupperware Twang Here's a gun and there's a gun But not a one ever goes Bang! (not a one, not a one); (ever goes Bang!) Tupperware Twang, Tupperware Twang No need to start making art when you're fashioning gold chains Don't none of you go imagining your own topics, music, or lyrics Just imagine dwindling countryside that remembers your former spirits And don't none of you go get chirping like some Dixie Chicks who hear about American freedom and actually try to actualize it Real stars and real Americans know real freedom comes from kissing ass When politicians drop their drawers, your lips better salute such flags True patriots know this nation was founded by those who bowed before a worldwide empire until their brains and hearts fell out Tupperware Twang, Tupperware Twang Here's a gun and there's a gun But not a one ever goes Bang! Not a one will ever go Bang! But those same guns always pop out little white flags Factory mice in machinery traps, may all your dreams be free of any cat dressed in black who rises from a record stack and shoots your compact disc just to watch it snap in half!

"Searching for Salinger Searchers" I will never forget the night that J.D. Salinger pasted his face to my bedroom window and demanded to know all my thoughts about every work of his I'd ever read He told me that I owed him as a fan because I'd powerfully shared publicly my affection for the precision of his dialog and the innovation of his short stories I tried to explain to the maniac that I said all there was to say in that one declaration But he said that he knew there was more and he wouldn't stop until I helped him feed the ravenous wolf packs that I unleashed inside him with the kindness of my insights And he kept showing up So I kept calling the cops Salinger's outside my house again Salinger's outside my office again He thinks he's Spider-Man again, crawling all over my timeshare condo Why can't authors embrace our privacy the way they instigate these imbroglios? I decided to build a barrier around my home but Salinger remained relentless with me He'd follow me to Burger King and ask how I could possibly enjoy the Whopper when I claimed I hated society As he continued to steal my French fries, I asked him where he got his information He told me that biographers and filmmakers wanted to feature a fan for the planet and they'd been dishing my dirt to him I responded that they'd never spoken to me or to anyone from my inner circle, adding that he better leave BK soon and slapped his hand off my milkshake But he kept showing up So I kept calling the cops Salinger's outside KFC again Salinger's outside Arby's again He's dressed as Ronald McDonald again, thinking disguises can hide his intentions You should see him run in those red shoes when security arrives for clown intervention ''Well lucky me'' or so I thought after I died, thinking that he couldn't bug me now But he stalked my plot on night one, bellowing for my bones to rise again I could see flower foundations collapsing as he stomped them because I left him He announced he was there with colleagues who enjoy graveyard invasions like he does Closing my eyes tighter than death's usual drape, I hoped their obsession wouldn't go this far but dirt began to fly and I couldn't get away Clicking cameras and video recorders descended alongside Salinger who reached out for me, shook my body, and yelled ''Hello!'' Salinger says he'll get answers from my family He says that he'll get them from my friends He says he'll approach my former neighbors I can hear wolves howling between our bodies and I wonder if two skeletons must disintegrate before J.D. and I will finally rest in peace

"Staging the Backlash" Distinguished members of our decorated society, your attention to center stage if you would please The Order of Nostalgic Waxers has called this meeting to discuss the mystery of modern global terrorism Whatever happened to halcyon days when our ancestors would invade on their ships as big as tidal waves while polite natives just stood ashore without spears and without swords to welcome another uninvited war? They'd just surrender their property, praise the remains of their bodies and stuff their children with stories about offering gratitude, building shrines to Europeans whipping them in goldmines for economics right from the Divine Why can't today's targets be more civilized? They won't let residences get revitalized Instead they go and strap bombs to their bodies just because we strapped bombs to their countries Have they lost their heads like they lost the right god? Pray tell this absence of circumstance and pom-poms That's no way to treat other human beings Today's ingrates just don't appreciate the importance of these brutal dictates propped up by a perfect foreign state that manipulates markets everywhere to ensure that welfare billionaires won't suffer as multimillionaires Then they set up these insurgencies when we must unleash our military 'cause democracy requires atrocities No respect for the rich traditions of murder, plunder, and violation to fatten God's newest favorite nation Instead they go and strap bombs to their bodies just because we strapped bombs to their countries Have they lost their heads like they lost the right god? Don't they know our domain includes home and abroad? That's no way to treat other human beings The future teems with guaranteed enemies These people lack perspective on drone attacks in the East They see white ghosts of death in our dark drones of peace When missiles preserve their faces, they won't turn the other cheek Only hundreds of charred civilians but they're mourning past a week Modern foreigners must fathom that freedom cannot be free Like Yahweh demanded lambs, it requires sacrificial bodies If they attained the power to become the world's police, we would let them invade here and treat them like Divinity Throw roses to their gunboats Hold their slogans in our brains House their faces in our hearts Shout praises to their airplanes Then we'd merely bow down as if the bombs bursting in air were simply the heavenly hosts just answering all our prayers But because American behavior will be the first eternal empire, people should honor ancestors the way that we honor ours; they should live their lives the way that we live ours; they should bless black skies after we're done shooting stars And to the ones who do survive, or expand beneath cyclops eye: Flick your switches as you protest rebels who became kings and tsars The American Century always promised an American Millennia to protect us from having to exchange our skin for the permanence of your scars