With the tick of the clock, the shadow on the dial,
The punched card in the grocery, the stopwatch and the mile,
Time! Tickin', rollin', whizzin', creepin', stolen, lost and beaten
Into the sweaty wood of shovels and picks, progress and bricks and buildin's,
And time, time, payday and payday, worry and monotony,
Heads of gray, youth worn away, and any day the coffin sound,
People around, then into the ground,
In the hands and the faces and the souls, the eyes,
The memories and the grave, runnin' wild.
And the child, love it, ain't safe 'cause of it.
1971
Insanity
The stars are brighter every mornin'
An' the nights are darker.
The moon is thinner.
Everything's gettin' ready for somethin'.
There's a frog waitin' to jump
But he's too cold.
There's a farmer waitin' to plant
But he's too old.
There's a babe wants to marry when her man comes home,
But a Viet Cong guerilla couldn't leave him alone
And he's waitin' to die in a scarlet red sea
And he's thinkin' about how things could be.
He didn't wait long.
Why does everything go out of sight?
The diver fades into the green
And the falcon flies up 'til he can't be seen
And then, at length, there's nothin' there.
Then things come at ya' from everywhere
But nothin's the same as it was before.
The friend you loved ain't there no more
And the cat falls dead on the kitchen floor,
A buzzard flies by where the falcon flew,
The diver's been down for a week or two
But the moon in thinner
And everything's gettin' ready for somethin'
1971