We walk miracle miles emphasizing all the while
The dalliance of mischief in agonized smiles
We break out the charm and put out alarms
We'll find another reason to hold off the dawn
We take life one chunk at a time, like paragraphs
Live one minute at a time and we're moving fast
We creep steadily towards a better path
Different routes end up working out in different crafts
The dark cloaks over your shoulders in a killing swath
Tearing down the white picket fences of your epitaph
The last breath we take can be another memory
Recycling constantly in waking reveries
Can we...
Can we disguise the old dreams?
As life falls apart at the seams
With a dollar on the ground you can't reach?
Can we disguise the old dreams?
We can shine brighter than diamonds in a heart of glass
The blood is pumping out at full volume and falling fast
Our history towards astonishing things
Twisting forth and gleaming and quickening me
Life moves forward even with your head in the grass
Snaking, nah, undulating towards you like a seismograph
We move indiscreetly like light moves forward
Bouncing off the surface of a prism we've formed
Life stabs back with a whispering plea
Knocks you back and over, your head is unclean
You twist yourself and lower expectations and dreams
You call yourself a word, the meaning's lost on me
Can we...
Can we live our lives just as we preach?
As life kicks the back of your feet
Tripping over rocks we can't see
Can we disguise the old dreams?
Teach us of the world, times of peace and times of war
Trembling in terror at the newest massacre
Are we the latest martyrs? Are we the latest foils?
Are you the one and only? Are they the last to fall?
Life moves forward and death moves forward
Locked in a dance eternal with no reward
Caught in machinery, you step through the scenery
Littered by blood and mayhem and thievery
Have we discarded the ways we've maintained
The sum of human knowledge, the ethics we've ingrained
Within our selves and children, our hope for the future
Is falling into quagmire and looking for solutions
Can we...
Can we recall our old dreams?
Can our lives measure up to a speech?
Can we testify that we are still free?
Living in a huddled mass of defeat
Can we live by our old dreams?
Have you ever tried swimming in quagmire?
Have you ever fed on the hearts of the young?
When the windows blow out and death creeps in
Will the lions of your mind rescue you from hellfire?
I have walked often in the valley of the sullen
Where victims of desire and the trophies of the fallen
Surround us in the corridor with songs of devotion
Walking towards the cliff where we meet the horizon
Looking at the sun whispering for inspiration
My pupils dilate with a dimly lit sensation
My tongue is raw, the buds are bitter and torn
But if we bow our heads our dreams will die alone.
