137 (US)
Beneath the Lynching Tree
There are only two races that I see exist
Artists and those who don't have a brush in fist
My voice kept dry from a night of liquor
Supping from the chalice of the gods while you and your demons bicker

Boot to the face, call it Italy
Check your shores for the pirates
Like a merchant in old Tripoli
Checking each sail on the high sea

I don't believe a country's flag represents me
When citizens bleed, those are the red stripes that I see

Running amok in the muck of this world
Enеmies hoping the water will drown mе
But I'm a duck and the water has rolled
Off of my feathers, I know it is lousy
For all the people that wish I am drowsy
But I am ready to bleed for the craft
Imma go forward, many go aft
Smile did I as leviathan laughed

I can smell the misery
Death of risibility
And I can sense, within my heart, it's looking for some company
If it takes this much to make a person wear a mask
Then everything else is sure to be a Sisyphean task
If you feel obliged to ask
Absinthe's the content of my soul's flask

Murder a continent for the sake of a colony
Then you turn around and label it as Manifest Destiny
And to top it off and add all of the insult to injury
You have the audacity to call our music profanity

Oh my
See blue
Time to
Run
Though I
Don't have
Drugs or
Gun
If you
Don't want
Blood to
Spill
Please address
Thy bastard son

Peter the Piper did pick all the pepper
But now it does seem he is picking up souls
Feeling like he's on a roll
When you do know the true sum of the toll
Profiled
Till they put your booty in the slammer
Stereotypes
Go much deeper than the Kool-Aid Jammer

Only two races that I see exist
Artists and those who don't have a brush in fist
My voice kept dry from a night of liquor
Supping from the chalice of the gods while you and your demons bicker

I don't really care what you call it
Feeling like we're all the products
Of our terministic screens and mentalities anyway
I care that you solve it
And I know, in truth, at best, you'll likely be a facet, not an asset
You can start with what you say

If I didn't convey
I'm speaking to the hegemony
Sweetly baked into recalcitrance like a soufflé

And to set the record straight
Don't just think how you can sate
Us, so to quell the present hate
So you can enjoy dinner plate
Trust me, I don't want this either
But for you it's just a bother
For us, it is something higher
You do get annoyed at smoke
But never yearn to water fire
And I think that is the reason
Why we're in this bitter mire
Craft empire, then respire

How many sheeple
Kneeled beneath the steeple
Before they had their Sunday picnic
And did crucify my people
Now, I'm a fan of Jesus
But I don't know how these actions
Are justified within that Book
Perhaps do try Galatians

Sooner sing in rivalry than e'er in revelry
And that's the bitter verdict from each sea to shining sea

Running amok in the muck of this world
Enemies hoping the water will drown me
But I'm a duck and the water has rolled
Off of my feathers, I know it is lousy
For all the people that wish I am drowsy
But I am ready to bleed for the craft
Imma go forward, many go aft
Smile did I as leviathan laughed

Through my years I've held my tears
As I've watched the spinning gears
Now I must express the truth
How so many grinned 'neath the lynching tree is what I fear

Fed conformity you gonna defecate complacence
I reproach your uniformity
Don't tell me I need patience
'Less you're talking 'bout this bedlam
Then, indeed, do find me patients
While you're at it, make a beaver dam for all of the nescience