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No Reason To Be

(This is not exactly a poem, but a song
by Bob Dylan. But it does make for a
pretty great poem as well)







It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)



Darkness at the break of noon, shadows even the silver spoon.
The handmade blade, the child's balloon, eclipses both the sun and moon.
To understand you know too soon, there is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn. Suicide remarks are torn
from the fool's gold mouth piece. The hollow horn
plays wasted words, proves to warn that he not busy being born is busy dying.

Temptations's page flies out the door. You follow, find yourself at war.
Watch waterfalls of pity roar. You feel the moan but, unlike before,
you discover that's just be one more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear a foriegn sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma. I'm only sighing.

As some worn victory, some downfall. Private reasons great or small
can be see in the eyes of those who call
that make all that should be killed to crawl.
While others say don't hate nothin' at all except hatred.

Disillusion words like bullets bark, as human gods aim for their mark,
that make everything from toy guns that spark to flesh colored Christ's that glow in the dark.
It's easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates, teachers teach that knowledge waits
can lead to hundred dollar plates. And goodness hides behind its gates.
But even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

And though the rules of the road have been lodged,
it's only people's games that you got to dodge.
And it's alright, Ma. I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you into thinking you're the one
that can do what's never been done, that can win what's never been won.
Meantime life outside goes on all around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear. You suddenly find you got nothing to fear.
Alone you stand with nobody near, when a trembling distant voice, unclear,
startles your sleeping ears to hear that somebody thinks they really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit, yet you know there is no answer fit
to satisfy and show you not to quit, to keep it in your mind and not forget
that it is not he or she or them or it that you belong to.

For, though the masters make the rules for the wise man and the fools,
I got nothing more to live up to.

For them that must obey authority that they do not respect in any degree
who despise their jobs, their destingy, speak jealously of them that are free.
Do what they do just to be nothing more than something they invest in.

While some on principles baptize to strict party platform ties,
social clubs and drag disguise, outside as they can freely criticize.
Tell nothing 'cept you to idolize and say, "God bless him."

While one who sings with his tongue on fire, gargles in the rat race choir,
bent out of shape from society's pliers, cares not to come up any higher
but, rather, get you down in the hole that he's in.

But I mean no harm, nor put fault
on anyone that lives in a vault.
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs, limited and sex they dare
to push fake morals and sultan's stare. While money doesn't talk, it swears.
Obscenity, who really cares? Propaganda all is phoney.

While them that defend what they cannot see with a killer's pride, security
that blows their minds most bitterly. For them that think death's honesty
won't fall upon them naturally. Life sometimes must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards. False goals, I scoff at pettiness which play so rough.
Walk upside down inside handcuffs. Kick my legs to crash it off. Say, "Okay, I've had enough.
What else can you show me?"

And if my thought dreams could be seen
they'd probably put my head in a guillotine.
But it's alright, Ma. It's a life and life only.





By Bob Dylan

(okay okay. It's not the best read as a poem, but it sure is a great song. Check it out sometime.)