Frederick Moore’s recent work
How can I know?
Look at those murmurations.
How does each bird just know when and where to turn to?
How does it come?
How comes that forward feeling?
How can we know just when a feeling’s worth feeling?
Spring has sprung,
Strings are strung,
Bats are swung and swinging.
Midnight sun,
Bees get stung,
Our mother-tongue is singing
Look at the band.
They’re not even tuning.
The lead guitar counts off and suddenly they’re moving.
He’s got the lowdown blues that he spits with a smile,
He’s got a five-string Strat that he plays with a slide,
He got a wam-wam bar he caresses with style,
It goes “wa-wa-wa.”
He’s got his thing. He’s got his thing on.
He’s got his thing. He’s got his thing on.
Rolio Da-Da.
How does it come?
How comes that forward feeling?
We’re not like birds, we’re more like cats who lean together.
Spring has sprung,
Strings are strung,
Old grow young,
And still the old Songs still get sung.
Sing them loud with no soap, mi-re rolio da-da
We’ve got our thing. We’ve got our thing on.
We’ve got our thing. We’ve got our thing on.
Rolio DaDa!
How can we know?
Look at those murmurations.
How does each bird just know when and where to turn to.
Long before we were even born our fathers fought a war.
They did some ugly things but they left us with a burned but healing world.
They prayed their prayers with open throats
And vowed their vows with outstretched hands.
Though often blind and self-deceived, they tried to heed the call.
They’d make it to a mountaintop and then there’d come a fall.
They built a safe high fortress on which their own kind could stand.
They claimed they’d found the Unicorn whose light beamed from our land.
They sought and found their own sages,
Preening like arrogant angels.
As we stepped up and they stepped down, the bargain flipped around.
The treasure that our parents left, sucked up into the clouds.
We pray our prayers to lying gods,
And vow our vows with filthy hands.
(Here’s the thing)
We’ve seen the children in cages
Crying like sacrificed angels
Terrified five-year-old faces.
We’re not the good guys anymore.