Has it always been this way?
We tell ourselves the tyranny’s crumbling—
this global crisis will be the last. And the
last and the last and the last again—but
it’s always been this way in the end.
Jesus said he was coming back, the aliens tell
us they’ve got our backs, a thousand so-called
angels declare to a thousand would-be
prophets all desirous of being the last
in the endless chain—that help is on its
way any day, though no man may know
the hour’s true name and in the end
nothing’s changed—it’s always been this
way.
There’s a woman crying at the subway station
and a man saying words unheard in a
soothing voice. Who knows why she’s
crying like a hundred thousand women
every day and a hundred thousand
saddened poets who say somewhere is an
ocean made of tears.
And time flows on like water flows like all our
sorrows, and a college girl right now is
standing near—so pretty, slightly worried,
everyone’s a little hurried at getting on or
off the train and baby everyone wants
change–but is it merely a re-arrange? And
baby look around, look up and down—
yeah, it’s always been this way.
Consciousness is a little box that all religions
promise to unlock, and scholars like to
claim that our time is the most sane. But
to a monk in Himalaya’s shroud of snow
where he does not shiver from the cold in
his humble orange robe, we are quite
insane in our pathological games, and
history really only consists of the same
and same and same, only change the place
and dates and names —we never change
the crime. And who’s to say who can see
and who is truly blind? The rules negate
the game and generations persist in
playing, thinking “We will be the one to
break the chain.” Sure does seem in times
like these that it’s always been this way.
Baby I’m not counseling despair; let me run
my fingers through your hair and touch
your lips—oh, but I was shy when I saw
you in the record store line—I saw your
beautiful tattoos, the Moroccan designs on
your slender wrist, your red hair like a
Berber bride’s, your fair face from the
Celtic side, and the way you smiled, and
you watched me as I went outside and I
thought maybe she’ll follow? But the
moment got let by and the streetlight
changed but that was all and wistful
sighs…tell me; will it always be this way?
