Imprisoned inside tall red brick built tenements
curtained in by cheap store bought accoutrements
and locking up the world outside within with a needle and a pin and sewing life away.
where we stitch up every day as if only cross stitching could show or say how angry that we are
and far above some half existent but quite persistent feelings that the life we live is what we get for being better than the dogs that line the streets with pockets bulging emptiness
is more or less the happiness that we were told of, when we read books in those classrooms dripping coldness from the cold lights,prefabricated by the councils to educate the poor and in this we have believed for fifty years or more.

But technograbbers took the high road
ripped the legs from under desks by which we sat
and then they spat on former teaching
teachers in the pay of local educational authorities
had no authority to intervene
and preaching texts that they had learnt by heart 'cause all the textbooks burnt far brighter in the fires in tenements
where former pupils with dilated eyes felt the cold much keener,much cleaner than the dogs upon the streets
and behind the curtained windows I weep for a yesterday when as a young child I could play outside and not wonder what the future held.
Held spellbound by the monkey man who turned the handle on his barrel ***** and put a flat cap on the ground which magically
naturally filled with pennies from the folks who had such things.

Sadness and the lack of more or less brings me nothing but the bulging emptiness
and the breaking of another spine
another book a former time
and locking in the world outside
I bide my time
and watch
the black and white
the day within the night
I'll be alright
just me and shotgun joe beside the bed
and nothing else to spoil nothing
that we never had but there are badmen in the badlands
roaming tenemental bands that would cut your throats
if you looked twice or even once at them
Like the dog down in the street I never raise my eyes to meet
anyone or any other
why bother
it's just the way it is.

I have scars inside that no one can see,
and I have scars on the outside I don’t
show for fear, someone will discover me.
Because I hide inside a shell of won’t.

My father used to say sticks and stones will
break your bones but words will never hurt you.
But daddy you were so wrong, words can ****.
Yet still with you I could never argue.

Dad I have changed so much in these past years.
You would not recognize your little girl,
the one who used to laugh and share her fears,
all I want is to let go and uncurl,

from this ball of everlasting haze, then
escape from this sad, harsh world of badmen.

From thirty thousand feet above the desert floor I see it there below.
A city with a legend, the west Texas city of El Paso.

my mind is somewhere down there as I fly above the badlands of new Mexico.
Rose's cantina.

Bullets and badmen.
Don't take your guns to town son.

I'm questioning my sanity again.
I'm a lost soul ready to fly.
I'm joining the groups of madmen.
I'm wandering the world ready to die.
I'm stuck in a group of badmen.
I'm feeling hopeless and I'll cry.
I'm ready to say goodbye.