90's nostos (youknowyoudidit)
"I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark." - Raymond Carver
We listened to Tribe
pimped the Corrado
Bungled the juice
sipped high unto tomorrow
Pretty girls aplenty,
still don’t know how we got them
Smiled through chaos,
in darkness we light some
Had no rules, no lines to follow;
only our hopes and dreams,
our mistakes and sorrow
We watched Pegasus fly
into the sundrenched
summer-sketched-sky
Fell lifeless into Indian Springs
Rocky Ledge—lost some things
Fireflies, crickets, wood cracklin’
Her lips were so sweet;
our dreams seemed so real,
tiptoeing on summers’ edge
just trying to get lost,
lost in something we could feel
Her hair was red,
skin soft-and-pale,
we listened to Pavement
as night came and went
In a Saab cemetery,
we found a fixer-upper
On the highway to madness
we set full throttle sail
All I remember
is the sun and dust,
sweat and sin
roots pushing
the shale
towards the Pin Oaks,
reaching to the sky
never asking once,
why the innocent wilt
right before they die
We listened to Biggie,
watched the war
Hid from remorse,
ducked behind the smoke
and the gold plated door.
We sought the answer,
we dropped the truth:
saw trees breathe,
friends fall,
love come,
love go,
watched strangers die,
and heard the echoes
of our forefathers cry
We put our ears to ground
only to hear
the earth mother whisper:
“Shhh my children, I know you are here”
The earth became
our rocking chair,
the atmosphere
shed our forefathers fear,
we lit a tree
and all become clear
Life isn’t easy,
life ain’t fair
So pour a little out
for what we used to be,
a little out for history.
Twist a little one
for you and me,
for nostos
and the unbounded journey
of all and sundry
seeking to be free,
seeking to be more than
what they were told they could be
pour a little out
as the sun sets on
youandme
