A song I wrote 16 years ago:
Mortal Grin
The night is speaking in strange tongues,
and the heat hangs like a dead lung.
Surreal thoughts leaking out of my brain,
going up in smoke through this tepid rain.
I wander vague, disconcerting streets,
full of apparitions clothed in meat.
Staring into these confident faces,
I'm stupefied for explanations.
What should I think about this suavity
and body language so cavalier,
when I feel like an underground man
with a Dostoevskian fever?
I hear the murmur of latent cadavers,
waltzing just outside the graveyard fence.
No misstep, no pause in their palaver.
Where can I get one of those big, wide mortal grins?
My thoughts are running like a wild dog,
as I contemplate this complacent throng.
Hey you, yes you, with that bowler on your head,
what spell are you working on the mighty dread?
I stand perplexed, my mouth is agape,
mystified by reality's shape,
while all around me are gesturing blithely.
They know something I'm un-divining.
Should I purchase some opium,
join this conspiracy crowd?
They say there's strength in numbers, numbers,
but they're dropping like flies while the night's unbowed.
What should I think about this suavity
and body language so cavalier,
when I feel like an underground man
with a Dostoevskian fever?
I hear laughter coming from a midnight ball,
where the smiling masks are made out of skin.
Jesters tumble happily in absurd thrall
to the yawning god of sleep and mortal grins.
I hear the rumble of distant thunder,
that deep and unsettling symbolic din.
I wish I could put this fear asunder.
I want my very own big, wide mortal grin.
Words & Music by Tim Buck, 2008
