Fighting Fish

Swimming in a snifter, pretty as a picture

Don't get it twisted, man, her bite is a bitch

You can name, you can keep her

You never can take the fight out a fish

Chompin' at the drill bit, never one to still sit

You can test my metal

With a magnet and some tin snips

Ink test, all I see is canines and some wing tips

Pilot pen in pocket, I'm riding instinct and inkjets

Around here we don't like talk of big dreams

To stand out is a pride, a conceit

To aim high is to make waves, to split seams

But that's not what it seems like to me, cause

I wanna try, I wanna risk

I don't wanna walk, rather swing and miss

I'm not above apologies

But I don't ask permission

Got a lot of imperfections

But I don't count my ambition in 'em

Zeno's arrow never hits the mark

It's always hanging there over its shadow

Safe from battle, waste of archer's time and trouble

Waste of effort, waste of parts

If you don't aim for the center

It's a waste of the art

I didn't come looking for love

I didn't come to pick a fight

I didn't come to wave or take pictures

Pander to some benefactor, ring on every broken finger

Won't extend my wings to be clipped

I know the culture here is to stay humble, but shit

If we all go round bowed heads, button-lipped

If none of us go for the bell, then who is?

My mother says I've loved too many men

But I took and left something in every single bed

The rook can look left, right- just turns his head

But the knight might rise up, investigate the grid

Gender, genre- guess I'm on one, bent both

Just the constructs of the old word gone broke

Women, children, let me tell you

I've been both and it's a myth

We all swim for the life boats

I didn't come looking for love

I didn't come to pick a fight

I come here every night to work

And you can grab an axe, man

Or you can step aside

Zeno's arrow never hits the mark

It's always hanging there over its shadow

Safe from battle, waste of archer's time and trouble

Waste of effort, waste of parts

If you don't aim for the center

It's a waste of the art

Self-taught, self-made, bet, self-styled

Self saw, self came, self took island of converts

Too conquer is old school

We march 'em in converse

Just armed with their own tools

While my knees still flex

While my joints hold steady

Mind sharp, spine straight

Chucks laced, ready

I travel by kite, travel light, at touch down

I swallow the dice, I make my own luck now

Zeno's arrow never hits the mark

It's always hanging there over

Its own shadow in the dark

Its own shadow in the dark