Faces And Names

There was something in the air that day

Like gunpowder or sulfur

And soon a wild migration came from upstairs like a

storm

I was at a costume party and although nobody noticed

me

I mingled there stark naked All my emperor's clothes

were torn

And suddenly the sprinkler system ran the makeup down

her dress

And I must confess I had forgotten who I went to meet

there

Something was not right right there

And there I saw you five years later like someone I'd

never seen before

And my life flashed before me and exploded into

flames

Now I just sit back and laugh cause the only thing

that's changed

Are the faces and the names

So I thought I'd say hello but that building it was

burning

And you turned and ran away just like the vision I

remember

Right then I got run over by a local politician

Who had said that segregation would be good for

education

So there I was stark naked with a racist policitian in

about three feet of water in a building that was

burning

We looked to find an exit then he said he owned the

building

I was breathing in the suffocation blowing out the

air

And my life flashed before me and exploded into

flames

Now I just sit back and laugh cause the only thing

that's changed

Are the faces and the names

And had knocked myself unconcious at the time I felt

like drowning

When I came to I was rolling through emergency room

doors

They left me in the waiting room with work related

head-wound victims

Wondering what happened and still bleeding on the

floor

And sitting there my grade-school teacher stared at me

and said what happened son you could have been someone

could have been so much more

And I thought about that party and my fine

fair-weathered friends

And that burning building and those folks I'd never

see again

And my life flashed before me and exploded into

flames

Now I just sit back and laugh cause the only thing

that's changed

Are the faces and the names