Midnight In Manhattan

(Our elected representatives are the frontlines of making the decisions

about the war we're waging against terrorist

and about rebuilding New York

And there's nothing like it

We don't want anyone to feel in a week or two or a month

that the enormity of this somehow could be gotten over

We can keep going and we will but...)

Waiting for the snow to fall a cloudy angel wept

And while the world was frenzied, by my fate I overslept

Hold your breath, these acts are frozen and embraced

With the gut-twisting feeling of a black and white mosaic

Today Manhattan burned and summer leaves without a trace

Besides a cloud of smoke and sour smell in outer space

Without a face I hate you

Today I was instructed how to hate but then remembered how to pray too

I kneel enforcing nine commandments

Scratch one and let it sleep on the crescent moon like a hammock

Align the sky with fireflies and crooked-eyed soldiers

The morning dew is fearsome while the Bush is iced over

The cushions lie holding souls of man-made ghosts

Cascades of darkness keep the lamp shades closed

Crickets even whisper for September 11th

I eavesdrop and hope to hear footsteps from heaven

[CHORUS]

When moonlight french-kisses the Manhattan midnight

There's not a face without a tear drop that's in sight

Midnights in Manhattan keep me dreamin

I caught a dream by the tail, I think I'm gonna keep it

This is the first time I've ever hated something through the night

The first time I've ever loved this country in my life

Hibernate for days and leave the nest to touch rain

Stretch across the world and feel my bib of bloodstains

Talkin to the icicles hangin from the clouds

Purple moon dust vapor strangle for the proud

I'm dyslexic reading minds of those computed

Who saw an angel-kissed urban rose and chose to shoot it

Notes for students of the Blitzkrieg, Polish torture

I got a heaert for you that grows inside my olive orchard

I understand a lot of spirits on remote control

Mislead youth grew with charred and broken souls

Damn I'm speechless, dreamin of the somber, sandy beaches

Where I can drift away from suits and ties repairing demons

Where I can fly from corporate crashed and buried kingdoms

And hold my hand to God but do more than barely reach him

[CHORUS]

Blow a kiss to the rain clouds while I rest in bed

If I give blood now I might have less to shed

If I shed blood proud, is my spirit in agreement?

Will I be dying for a reason that I do agree with?

Freedom is a teardrop with legs like a centipede

That walks out of God's eyes when I fight or sit and bleed

I could sit stone-cold and panic in stride

Plant it inside to hide away until the planets collide

Of course, of course, of course, I grab my sleeping pillow

And creep to steal to eat a still life self-reflecting weep and willow

This is not the time for music, it's not the time for movement

It's not the time for pushing all the people I'm unglued with

It's not the time for birth of glory

It's not the time for purgatory

It's not the time for murder stories

It's not the time for keeping peace or cleaning your knives

It's a time to figure out the meaning of life

And that's it

[CHORUS]