and the Band Played on

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.   II Timothy3:1-5

pain becomes the new laughter,

sorrow the flavor of the day,

hurtful words the drug of choice,

lovers of self, stone cold shells,

hearts of steel, anything goes,

in a make believe world, where

nothing is real, sliding into depths

of decadence and decay;

and the band played on;

we soothe the fear, all the while

hiding the emptiness, making way

for a tomorrow full of distant despair,

time passes by, madness breeds the future,

breathing life into strange new creations,

with no room for mercy or compassion;

and the band played on;

we want reassurance, we want good times,

we want vindication, we want guarantees;

and the band played on;

inside the flesh rots, like butter in the warm

summer sun, continually searching,

continually seeking, new horizons among

the chaos, feeding off the lust,

surviving on the greed, drowning in the filth,

laying waste to all that moves,

misunderstanding the new art,

and at the end of the day, emptiness all

that is left, sometimes survival is

recreation enough;

and the band played on;

we live life in moments, monuments frozen

in time, desperately holding on,

hopelessly watching, slipping like smooth

silk sand through our porous fingertips;

we are flawed, everyone of us, it is not of our doing,

but we are flawed just the same,

imperfections within the rubbish,

scarred bloody stumps of all that

could have been, all that should have been,

fit for nothing but the furnace fire,

without defense, without hope,

pointing fingers and shaking heads,

feeling somehow superior, above the filth,

better than the ‘sinners’, but inside

we are all the same, grubby little insects

seeking redemption, crying out in pain

without making a sound;

tear down the walls, never let them rise again,

replace the darkness with light, let it shine

into the cold black night;

try as hard as we can,

we can never put it out;

something is lost within this

carnivorous cavern, prosperity weakens

in the face of disaster, with destruction

comes renewal, with death begins life;

won’t You help me find the door?

won’t You show me the truth?

won’t You rescue me from the storm?

like a river it flows, sometimes violent,

sometimes gentle, on and on,

no beginning, no end,

like a mighty wind it blows,

from here to there, from where no

one knows, to where even less;

heroes and hormones never die,

they go on and on forever,

in this wilderness where

the sun never sets,

inside hallowed halls of glory,

filled with words of hope,

the midday shadows grow long,

the hunger remains the same,

assuming new shapes, twisting and turning,

resurfacing, again and again,

the morning grows tired of the noise,

still it goes on, flowing like before,

blowing into the night, still it goes on;

no one listens, no one hears.

sleep well my friend, the morning comes

soon enough, the nighttime will fade

into the growing morning light;

and the band played on;

we hide inside these houses,

dreaming of the tomorrows,

imagining the possibilities,

running from the darkness,

mystified by the mystery,

trapped within the illusion,

waiting for the destination;

forever seeing, but never knowing;

forever hearing, but never understanding;

if it were up to me, I would stay in this place,

seeking shelter from the storm,

being swallowed up by the myth,

drowning in the depths, growing cold

from the emptiness, guarding Your truth

like a rare and precious jewel,

but Your grace knows better,

You lead me past the mistakes,

through the traps and snares,

beyond myself;

and somewhere the band no longer plays,

someday the light will come flooding through,

providing vindication for even the

weakest part, shredding the illusions,

destroying the misconceptions;

speaking the truth.

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