Identified as a trouble maker by the authorities since childhood, and resolved to live up to the description, Charles Carreon soon discovered that mischief is most effectively fomented through speech. Having mastered the art of flinging verbal pipe-bombs and molotov cocktails at an early age, he refined his skills by writing legal briefs and journalistic exposes, while developing a poetic style that meandered from the lyrical to the political. Journey with him into the dark caves of the human experience, illuminated by the torch of an outraged sense of injustice.
(Heavy metal anthem-style) He's a man Who gestures to heaven Standing straight and tall The fire rains down, Down from heaven, Turning earth into hell. He's a man Who rolls two sevens And makes a hash of the land He's got so many dollars And a five-sided building All right there in his hand. He's a man Mean as his father made him Proud as his mother is, A whole mess of psycho behavior In a Western suit He's a man And he'll send his men to Hell He's a man Did you hear the tales they tell Did you hear the tolling bell? Were those portents in the sky? Are you not afraid to die? The only unasked question: Why? He's a man We should try to understand He's got power in his hand He must rule the savage land.
Heaven’s perfect, so why should eye care? They say that we’re all gonna end up there. White light and blue sky, up on Cloud 9, But down here there’s no time to be divine.
The earth is turning in the Milky Way, I reckon that it’s gonna stay that way, My momma bore me, my daddy taught me, The earth will rest me in its heart someday.
Yeah heaven’s perfect, so why should eye care? Don’t figure I could pay the rent up there. White light and blue sky, up on Cloud 9 My neighbor says that it’s a real good time.
The highway’s filled with rollin’ automobiles That whisk us through domesticated fields, We rarely stop to see what’s on the way, It always looks the same, anyway.
Yeah heaven’s perfect, and I might care, If it was somethin’ like the County Fair When some old blues band plays a funky tune The beer is cold and it’s the middle of June.
They put another WalMart out this way, They said it couldn’t wait another day, They gave ‘em tax breaks, they gave us jobs, Thank god that Michael Moore is such a slob.
Heaven’s perfect, as everyone knows, The place where all good people go, In glorious garments, that they’ve put on, Arrive like soldiers on the shores of dawn.
Yeah heaven’s perfect, but I’m just not there, A thousand promises won’t drag me there, Yeah I’ll just stay here see what I can do On my perfect Friday afternoon.
Heaven’s perfect, so why should eye care? They say that we’re all gonna end up there. White light and blue sky, up on Cloud 9, But down here there’s no time to be divine.
The earth is turning in the Milky Way, I reckon that it’s gonna stay that way, My momma bore me, my daddy taught me, The earth will rest me in its heart someday.
Make ink from bloodstone, spurious one, Write long, lavish manuscripts upon the linen of your heart, Empowering yourself with mythic words, Requiring witness of your own two eyes, Seated in the garden of the sun, Among the trees of gold, Where jeweled birds twitter, And spirals of light wander lazily forth from the maze at the heart of the sun, Setting golden flakes upon the feathers and the trees, Flakes that balance delicately till they dissolve Into the very air.
Call your eyes to witness, then, The deed that has been done, Upon the linen parchment, Words of arterial brightness, Written in the garden of the sun.
Now I sit outside again, the Void lights twinkling, While the faithful worship inside, I'm thinking of the distances, the space Between the stars. With bowed head I cannot see the splendor of the Night, With lips so busy with prayer, I cannot listen to the chilly reminder of the darkness, the brisk night wind That whips along my cheek. No rebellion contra orthodoxy feeds my alienation, Only need for silence and meditation. May I onward endlessly pursue the unerring Trajectory of the True.
Homage to the Lama Stepping like a mountain goat along the rocky defile, Garbed in clouds and staring Into the naked face of Kuntuzangpo Until the single eye of the sun Inhabits the throne at the center of the Mind, One is one with all the teachers And reverences them with each thought and breath.
When the knife can penetrate the stone, When breath melts glacial ice, When the libertine’s love quenches the fire of hate Turning an execution to a celebration of wisdom, Then the proofs of the learned are confounded, The outrage of the nobles is silenced, And the king’s knee bends with every other.
Intrepidly declaring that which disturbs the pious, Shattering brittle icons with a mere notion, Spurning lucre and the company of the powerful, Buying resentment with pure intention, Such a guru needs no apologists Or lengthy homages, No coterie of sycophants to praise his lineage, No train of well-wishers and hangers-on.
At home anywhere, even among pimps and whores, Friendly with the despised, Despised by the powerful who are made irrelevant, Such a lama is worthy of Saraha’s mantle. Such a lama do I praise.
Well it's hot weather In the middle of spring We got together Now we got to sing Hot mamas in the cool spring night Hot lamas to hold them tight
Now psychic interaction It's got to happen And when old souls meet Reality gets flattened Raise the energy way up high It will come down to earth In the middle of the night
Yeah, it's hot weather, As hot as can be I'm burning up With a sweet disease, I'm on fire in the middle of a lake Don't know how much more of this enlightenment I can take
Well everyone takes risks And everyone gets dissed And when they do Everyone gets pissed But my automatic action Is to hold my fire So get your ass away from me and suck on the wire
It's a hot season Without reason A diseased operation That flourishes on treason A file-destroying worm With an eye on self-protection Instantaneous replication And no hope of resurrection
It's a mean hour In a hideous day Why you wanna see yourself that way? Why you wanna rip a hole in the sky? A place to get out when you have to die.
I was born down in Texas Silver spoon in my nose I tasted sweet senoritas Hey you know how it goes
Then I went into politics Man, I sure got it right Made lots of money Made even more friends It was a fool's delight
At last I came to the castle With the doors open wide And I concluded without much ado, Heaven's safe, but the profit's in Hell
Then I opened my Bible And it showed me the way There was voting on the Senate Floor I thought I heard them say
Welcome to the Hotel Babylonia Such an ancient place (such an ancient place) There'll be no disgrace Plenty of guns in the Hotel Babylonia You can find terrorists here Any time of year
Alberto is so helpful He has explained so clear How it is that I'm invincible How the story ends
How they give me the power How we do what we will One voted to stay my knife The others voted to kill
So I dialed up the Congress "We need money and time" They said take everything you need We're drinking Jack Abramoff's wine And I hear Achmed Chalabi calling From far away There's so much money here that we can make Come and we can play
We're living it up at the Hotel Babylonia Such an ancient place (such an ancient place) There'll be no disgrace Plenty of guns in the Hotel Babylonia You can find terrorists here Any time of year
Baghdad's one big blister Filled with murder and crime And I've spent everything the world will earn Until the end of time
And in the prison courtyard We strung up old Saddam But he died like an iron man and on YOU TUBE he lives on
Now I try to remember How I got to this place I'm naked as a jaybird Facing some disgrace
"Relax," says Maliki We are glad to deceive You'll be here another twenty years Don't even try to leave
We're living it up at the Hotel Babylonia Such an ancient place (such an ancient place) There'll be no disgrace Plenty of guns in the Hotel Babylonia You can find terrorists here Any time of year
How Shiraz Spent One of Her Nine Lives, by Charles Carreon
(with apologies to Don Marquis)
New York Times 11/11/04 wrote: On another occasion, the snipers tensed when they heard movement in the direction of a smoldering building. A cat sauntered out, unconcerned with anything but making its rounds in the neighborhood.
'Can I shoot it, sir?' a sniper asked an officer.
'Absolutely not,' came the reply.
Once was a cat named Shiraz Lived in the city of Fallujah, She had nine lives and here's how she used one. She got up one day and stretched and the people were warring as usual, Blasting away with AKs, RPGs and those nasty 500 pounders That pummel the earth and upset your digestion, But Shiraz went out, anyway, Because she wanted to catch the sun and While she was catching it she fell into scopesight of a sniper of course Shiraz knew about snipers because she was a cat and a cat is a sniper, in her own way, if she knows what's good for her and in a city like Fallujah a girl grows up quick especially if she's a cat So Shiraz sez "what the fuck! Or Iraqi cat for that, I'm going out to take a shit Stretch in the sun even if some scumbag human sniper ventilates me, I've got nine lives and I'm gonna spend one, I'm wishing there's a newsman out there watching my sweet Iraqi ass" and there was.
Well it’s two-thousand seven Feelin’ pretty far from heaven Unable to rise Above the debate Degenerating into Senseless Hate
Lily-livered preachers And Southern Belles Shack up together in Baghdad hotels They schlep salvation in their private hells Built by Halliburton Cause the sacred sells
Now listen God Almighty Got some questions for you Why do the KKK love ya And the Jews do to? Is banking always sacred? Isn’t oil, too? Are you in it for the money? Are you cut in, too?
I read an expose on you It told me what you’re trying to do It told me who you’ve bought And who you’ve sold The deals you cut in the Age of Gold
And I ain’t hatin’ Satan, He didn’t do anything wrong He was put up to it Set up Taken down Like Saddam.
Why do you bless the virtuous hypocrite Give ‘em wealth and all the rest of it Leave little children dying Mothers crying Planet burning Species dying
And I ain’t hatin’ Satan, He didn’t do anything wrong He was put up to it Set up Taken down Like Saddam.
If you can’t control your creations, If justice doesn’t exist, Then wherefore are you God Almighty What type of game is this?
And I ain’t hatin’ Satan, He didn’t do anything wrong He was put up to it Set up Taken down Like Saddam.