Five

"Sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it
But most repeat the same theme over and over again,
It's as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
And off and important to them.

It's done by everybody
Because each must work out what is before them over and over again
Because that is their personal tiny miracle.
Like now as like before
And before I have been listening to symphony after symphony from this radio
It makes me realize that certain people now long dead
Were able to transgress graveyards and traps and cages and bones and limbs
In tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles

The flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there
And sometimes a soul and the women break vases against the walls
And the men they drink too much
And nobody ever finds the one
But keep looking crawling in and out of beds.
Flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh.

There is a loneliness in this world 
So great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock
People so tired, mutilated, either by love or no love.
People just are not good to each other.
We are afraid.
Our educational system tells us that we can all be big winners
But it hasn't told us about the gutters or the suicides.
Or the terror of one person aching in one place
Alone, untouched, and unspoken to.

People are not good to each other."