Senile Party

(or, "Your Old Stomping Ground") There’s a secretary that I know whose husband recently died But life somehow continues as before She has to keep replicating the myth that everything’s all right – A savant of the copy machines A mannequin in a megastore There’s a child that I know who goes to school with bruises Just a shell of a thing bearing signs of a nightly artillery attack When did we start sending our kids to the frontlines, And when in the name of Christ are we calling them back? You just pretend Things aren’t crazy The bandleader’s not deaf And the King is not a clown So you defend The last vestiges of confidence And stick your flag in the last square Of your old stomping ground There’s a family that I know they only speak in whispers Afraid to raise their voices for fear of an alcoholic’s rage I wonder how they’ll fare twenty years from now: Will they ever rise up from their manacles or their transparent cage? And there’s a young man that I know Has his whole life ahead of him Still stuck on the diving board over a pool of unemployment Just wait a while, just wade awhile Cling to your inflated promises While you’re stuck in this limbo, might as well Drown in your enjoyments You just pretend It’s getting late now And the party’s letting out The stragglers and the drunkards head for another port of call. Yet suspect the hosts, the powers that be, in their senility, misplaced our keys So we derelicts wander directionless Like half-ghosts bumping into walls But we just pretend…