Overnight,
one hundred and seventeen million dollars
was stuffed into my head.
Whoever did that
rammed it in there with an Aston Martin,
left it running in my ear canal.

I walked around
for several hours before sunrise
imagining how I’d burn the place down.
I broke two cheap dishes and
kicked the furniture until I bled.

There is no room
now for thoughts about paying bills
or simple dinners, lovemaking or the way
a cat feels early in the morning.
All I’ve got left is five dollars
burning a hole in my ratty pocket
and a roaring in my head that won’t quit.

usually, you’ll get no argument when you say that
it’s critical to choose good
over evil. but if it were easy to apply that,
there’d be no need to argue about it endlessly
after the choice.

you’d just act, you animal,
limbic and limber in whatever movement followed,
be it attack or embrace. you’d sit back afterward
and lick the wounds from the battle
and forget it ever happened.

instead you trouble yourself with proverbs
that became cliches right after cain
tried to explain why he reached out that first time to abel,
trying to convince yourself that love is hate and
hate is love.

so admit it. evil needs an ass-kicking.
you don’t so much desire non-violence for all
as you wish that different people were dying. kill the
homophobes, the racists, the bigots and haters, exploiters
and rapists — admit it, admit it, your version of love
would allow this and you’d only hate yourself a little for it,
and only at first.

that’s all there is to it: we say the good is easy to choose
and pretend we can’t understand why evil is so present
in this world, but the truth is that we act first
and let good and evil sort themselves out later
when we’ve had a chance to rest
and wipe the blood from our mouths.

we learned this when god chose a blood sacrifice
over the gentle fruit,
then put his thumb on cain when he did the same.
what was good, what was evil?
that ought to be an easy one.
he’s god, after all.

Every window’s open while I clean house
There’s a lot to do and it feels great to be doing it
The radio agrees with me
It’s a good day for some Bob Marley

Don’t worry
‘Bout a thing
Cause every little thing’s
Gonna be all right

Gotta love that island music
Gotta love that reggae beat
And that universal message

One love
One heart
Let’s get together and
feel all right

Christ, I love that song too
I learned it back in college
I learned it from a bong-loading friend of mine
I learned a lot from songs back then

It’s some kind of Marley Festival today
Because it sounds like they’re playing everything —

Cause I feel like bombing a church
now that you know
the preacher was lyin’

I must have missed that one
With that violence that’s more than just implied
Doesn’t sound like the Marley I know
This isn’t on the Legend album, is it?

If you are the big tree, let me tell you that
We are the small axe, sharp and ready
Ready to cut you down

I never heard that one either
That’s not on the Legend album
Where the hell are they finding this stuff
This isn’t really Bob, is it?

Them belly full but we hungry
A hungry mob is an angry mob

oh, come on…

Forget all your troubles and dance

That’s more like it!

You know, I am thinking of a friend of mine
Who took one of those adventure trips
He went kayaking on the Mekong River
and around a bend he came upon a shrine to Bob

He said there were white stones embedded on the bank
and they spelled out his name below his poster on a post
He said the ground was swept clean all around the stones
and the jungle was cut back so anyone could see

He thought it was there for the tourists
I can get behind that
I used to have his poster in my room
I might still have it somewhere

Build your penitentiary, we build your schools
Brainwash education to make us the fools
Hate is your reward for our love
Telling us of your God above

Again, I don’t know this song
I don’t recognize that suspicion
This isn’t what I thought I’d be hearing
when I started jamming in the living room
with a dustpan in my hand

It’s time to turn the dial
If I’m ever gonna get this house clean
How anyone could ever clean house
to music like this
I’m sure I’ll never know

strain your eyes
hard enough
and you will learn what is perfect

dampen them with fatigue
and it will be easy to make
diamonds from the night’s coal

the facets will glint through tears
and halos will form around
headlights

the world becomes more precious
as you become
more tired of it

the moments that will stand out in the dark
will stand out precisely because
you have come so far

and still have far to go