Legalized Infanticide

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A stranger comes to my bedside, stands over me while I sleep,
comes into my room from the outside, from the darkest shadow creeps.
Who would have thought that he'd come here, into the sanctity of my home?
I never even knew the fear. Never knew I wasn't alone.
Darkness veils this barren land devoid of all hope and love
as he stretches out a bloodstained hand concealed behind a heavy black glove.

And it's murder! As he reaches for my throat,
then runs off with footsteps soft, concealed behind an ominous black coat.

(Act II)
The woman comes to a surgeon hoping for some peace of mind,
and yet shrinking away from the bludgeon that she has come to find.
The surgeon's in it for money to assassinate a defenseless foe
with a weapon of expert cunning. And through this, the apathy grows.
Darkness veils this fertile land devoid of all hope and love
as he stretches out a bloodstained hand concealed behind a white glove.

And it's murder in new words! As he reaches for the womb,
the words come from his own mother:
"I'd love to bring you into this world, but there just isn't enough room."

Is this genocide? Is it all a lie to take away his life?
But we turn a blind eye to the homicide, we're accomplices to this crime.
Oh, it's such a shame. He never even had a name,
never knew the joy of this life, never opened up his little eyes.

Darkness veils this barren land devoid of all hope and love,
and he stretches out a bloodstained hand concealed behind a lawful white glove.

And it's murder in new words as he reaches for the womb.
The words come from his own mother:
"I'd love to bring you into this world, but there just isn't enough room"

Is this genocide? Is it all a lie to take away his life?
But we turn a blind eye to this homicide, accomplices to this crime.
Oh, it's such a shame. He never even had a name,
never knew the joy of this life, never opened up his eyes.
We all cry for the mother and the pain that she must feel within...

...but no one cries for him.




This is an older song I wrote, probably about three years ago, I remember it was one of the first songs I ever wrote in a minor key and during a time when I hardly yet comprehended what that phrase meant.

We should all be viewing this issue with close and critical scrutiny especially in light of the Kermit Gosnell case, where not only what I call infanticide was perpetrated, but also what every right-thinking person calls infanticide. I hope we can all agree that once the baby is living outside of the womb it is a baby.

I know that abortion is thought of as a women's rights issue, but I don't care about that when life is at stake. The first and most fundamental right is the right to live. How can we have come here? Does the pain a person has suffered really justify them for hurting, let alone killing, another person? When it comes to abortion I only ask one question. Is it murder or is it not murder? You cannot have it both ways. If it is murder then it is always murder. If it is not murder then it is never murder. People who want to call it two different ways in two different circumstances make me crazy with grief. That we should kill someone for having an evil father, or even just because he or she is an inconvenience to us. Oh, God, help us.

The first verse of this song is a kind of a symbolic parable. Each one of us young adults could well have been aborted at the whim of our mothers, and that is a sobering thought. And when we stand by and let it happen, we are no better than accomplices. We may as well lay our coats at the feet of Saul the Pharisee.

I use the word genocide in this song as a play on the word. Of course, abortion, at least today, has nothing to do with what we call genocide, but I used it to convey the idea that a person is killing his or her own genes.

How do we know what we've destroyed when we end a life before it's even begun? We've all been charmed by children who are seeing things for the first time and excited and happy to live in such a large and vibrant world. What have we done by denying the joy of this life to our unloved children?


Ben Folds wrote a song years ago called "Brick" and it wasn't supposed to say anything moralistic, it was only meant to incite pity and express the emotional pain he and his girlfriend went through when they aborted their child. It is musically a good song, but there is nothing more contemptible to me than someone who after having committed a murder wants you to refrain from calling them out on it but at the same time wants you to feel pity for their guilt-feelings.

... but no one cries for him.

Only Waiting

This is another song that is several years old, and though for a time it was one of my favorites it hardly ever saw light of day. I believe I played it live only once in a small coffee shop where only a few people came to watch. But in those days every show was a great opportunity. I recorded it and shelved it and forgot all about it until recently I had to dig through storage to salvage whatever was still worthy of time and effort.
This song was definitely in a sense the Don Quixote in my heart coming out. I'd spent my life in books (still do, perhaps more than I ought to) and finally finding myself more independent (so this must have been shortly after I'd graduated from high school) I discovered that I was standing in a wide world where I'd never even bothered to look past the walls of the buildings where I slept and learned and ate. In my small way I began to fantasize about how wonderful it would be to pick up and move away, to truly live. At this period my best option was just walking down to the park and marveling at the Columbia River, but like Don Quixote making giants out of windmills I carved my own story-line out of the wild desert landscape.
But every Don Quixote must have his Sancho Panza. What really turns a good adventure bright is a faithful companion. No doubt in the writing of this song I envisioned someone entirely unlike Sancho, most likely a girl of course. But never mind. The point is that while an adventure of one's own is thrilling, to be able to share something like that with someone special seems to really be what life is made of.




There's magic in these moments so keep your eyes wide open.
You will never have a second chance to be a witness to this second.
This town where I was born and raised fades into lights among the hills and the highways,
the rills and the byways.

So won't you take this chance? Won't you take the fall?
Won't you give up everything you've always been terrified to death of losing?
Because our bags are packed, our tickets paid, and everything has been arranged.
Now I am only waiting for you to say, "Take me away."

There's mystery all around us.
I think that God has found us.*
If I thought it was our victory that would invalidate the mystery.
No, I was searching in the darkest depths for something I was trying to get
but something took a hold of me in a flash of brilliant lightning.

Someone's in the rain...

Won't you take the chance won't you give up everything?
You've been terrified.
Our bags are packed tickets paid and everything has been arranged.
Now I am only waiting for you to say "Take me away."


*I should point out that this is a statement that I've heard a lot of different people say something similar too. I believe we have all stolen it from C.S. Lewis, at least I know I did. The point is that we often think that it's entirely up to us to find God out by looking in the right places. Hogwash. C.S. Lewis has said that perhaps what matters is not that we find God but that God find us.


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Carry Me Away

"Are God's consolations not enough for you, words spoken gently to you? Why has your heart carried you away and why do your eyes flash so that you vent your rage against God and pour out such words from your  mouth?" -Eliphaz

The strength is on me, but I've fallen too far.  My wits have never been sharper and yet all these clear and concise lines of human wisdom swim around in my head, each distorting the other. I can see nothing to be fully true or false. This would all be so much simpler if I could just convince myself to be an agnostic.
Meanwhile I've pulled everything in this world apart to see how it all works, even my own befuddled mind. This insatiable search for the exhaustive answer leaves the world cold and dark. Even the clouds are giving away to these bright evening stars. They shine like gods, and they are far away like any god must be. It's not to be wondered at that so many different nations have taken to worshiping them at different points of history. But do they hear my song? Do you hear my desperate song? They don't reply, gods never do.
So why am I still praying to them? I've prayed to pagan gods and searched the stars for signs but none of it is fulfilling, and none of it has made a difference. There was a time when I thought that the right philosophy would solve every puzzle. Then there was a time when I was convinced that scientific exploration would answer every question. Yes, I've been at it late into the night to find something satisfying. I've studied life and death and planted seeds in time.
Still everything feels wrong. Do you hear my desperate song?

Carry me away on your blind faith before I get carried away with my studies. Or is it too late?
Even these overlapping patterns have turned chaotic. Everything is circulating.
Now is it all just useless love and hating? Is life a sham? Is purpose a ghost? Is it in all triviality that we learn to despise Adolf Hitler and champion Abraham Lincoln?
Carry me away with your illogical love before I get carried away by my despair.
I've found so many facts and so many perspectives, but nothing here can stop the aching.
I don't even know if I exist.
But if this heart is true, then it must be breaking.

Mythology, scientific understanding; neither seems objectively better than the other. Can all this chemistry explain away the fight we all face? Does Darwinism give an explanation for self-examination? Or is mythology the only hope for light? Must we die on our blind beliefs about what gave us life and knowledge? I've seen Prometheus make fools of scientists. But in the end he's no good. He does his dance with the animals beneath him and then disappears into the smoke of soberness. And our self-righteous descendants will be left to wonder how we could have been so foolish to believe such nonsense.

Do you hear my song? Does anyone hear my song? If a man prays and God does not exist to hear it, does his soul make a sound?

I don't even know if I exist. But one thing I do know.
If this heart is true, then it must be breaking.

Take Your Time

Spare me just one moment, won't you sing me a song?
I just need to hear your voice. I haven't heard you sing in so very long.

Stay, just a chorus? Or a verse, if you're there.

Maybe something I'd recognize or a long-forgotten air.

You said you just didn't have the time.

So here, take some of mine.

Because this could be the last chance to say it right,

so hold on tight and take your time. Take your time.

Sun rises like yeast on the hillside, slanting rays through the trees

and the song it awakens on my lips brings back such memories.

We were both so young, catching moths in the grass.

We've been through some hard times but the memories, they're finally coming back.

You said you just didn't have the time.

So here, take some of mine.

Because this could be the last chance to say it right,

so hold on tight and take your time.

This could be the last chance to say goodnight,

so hold on tight and take your time. Take your time.

This is a song I wrote a few years ago, and time has endeared this song to me rather than having desensitized me to it. There is nothing extremely special in the message. It says what it means essentially. This is a good companion song to "The Simple Things" because it has such a similar message, studded with some memories from my childhood: the slanting rays of sunlight through pine trees and catching moths in the grass on a warm summer night. It's always with reluctance that I look back to those times because I am afraid my memory is poor and I looking back I really can't see a child who was anything like what I have become. But these few images steal in, and it conjures up a momentary feeling in me that is not so nostalgic as much as it is curious. That probably doesn't make any sense.

I do remember once before I wrote this song, I used to drive myself and my brother to high school and it was on his large gray binder that I saw a phrase carved with a black pen. "Take My Time." I imagine it served as a reminder for him to not act hastily with anything, but I believe it was from this that I worked out the phrase, "You said you just didn't have the time. So here, take some of mine." Many of the songs I write begin that way, with a general idea, then a single clever line. There you've got the subject of the picture and all you need is to fill in a landscape behind it.

Loneliness is a Blessing

This is a song I wrote in high school. It's a story that I've never personally experienced, but that I have witnessed, and it would be hard to live in the modern world without witnessing it. This song is a story about casual and dishonest love, but it breaks in on the mind of the protagonist at a moment of brutal honesty.

Loneliness is such a blessing. To get lost in a crowd, to put down your stifling mask, it is freeing but it is cold. In all my past life I've only been afraid of being alone, and outwardly in shallow conversations I will still conform to that idea because it's something that people understand. But I can feel my heart digressing from what I'm screaming out loud. They could not understand, how could they? I don't even really understand it, that this great evil, Loneliness, could somehow be a blessing.
But at least the tension of a dying passion is ended. At least there is some kind of rest from exhaustion in loneliness. At least this agony is something that I can relate to. This is pain, but a familiar pain. I've come home, even if home is a prison cell.

Your welcoming arms! Were they just a dream? That's how they seem to me.
At the start there was at least some illusion of joy and hope. But she knew that I never really believed it. And she didn't mind.

So I resigned my hopes and fears, as she had done long ago, and I gave what was left of my heart to her, though she was just a mere friend. There was never any nonsense, no confusion. She took it only on the strict mutual understanding that I'd never get lost in love again. She took it on the condition that the heart must never beat.
From there the story is old. As friends we slowly grew apart, and we never did grow to love each other, we never were foolish enough to believe that we were lovers at heart. Our contract was lined out very clearly in her demands, she wanted nothing but the chemistry. Chemistry, what a cold resolve! But everything else was foolishness. There was no soul, there was only chemistry.
And hard times came upon me.
But when I asked her to take my hand, she looked at me coldly. She saw my heart begin to beat and bleed, and she gave me to understand that that broken heart was mine and mine alone. The contract was broken. The broken heart always had been mine and mine alone.

Loneliness is such a blessing. How could it be? How could I be relieved to be here on the outside on my own?
But loneliness is such a blessing.



A short (or maybe not) afterword. This song was for me mainly a song of bitterness. I looked around on people my own age in shallow and very temporary relationships, making the most of what they called life, but I was always an outcast. From the cold on the outside I consoled myself with the vengeful thought that I would be better off than them in the long run because loneliness ultimately was a blessing. Like the man in my song, they too would eventually find themselves in the cold without a friend because they'd never taken the time to love with anything apart from chemistry. It was wrong of me to look down on them as I did, but I don't know how else I could have survived. I retained the will to go on partly because I knew that their love, which I even felt a yearning to be part of, was fake, but my loneliness was real.
But as is often the case, I had hardly worked all this out in my mind, or any of it really for that matter, in the moment of writing the song. And I still treasure this song, despite the bitter spirit that I wrote it in, because it does still carry truth. Today the song inspires both bitterness and compassion in me for those who live a life with a mere chemistry-based love.
But the best part is that the story is not over. Several months later another song was to come.

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