Did they get you to trade

Your heroes for ghosts?

Hot ashes for trees?

Hot air for a cool breeze?

Cold comfort for change?

Did you exchange

A walk-on part in the war

For a lead role in a cage?

NIN Hurt - " I hurt myself today To see if I still feel, I Focus on the pain The only thing that’s real…"

Can’t really choose a favorite, but it would have to be something from Leonard Cohen -

Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack, a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.

Streetlight Manifesto - Here’s to Life

Hemingway never seemed to mind
The banalities of a normal life
And I find
It get’s harder every time

So he aimed the shotgun into the blue
Placed his face in between the two and sighed:
“Here’s to life”

My ‘favorites’ change daily, so here’s today’s: That’s the Way That the World Goes Round -John Prine

I know a guy that’s got a lot to lose. He’s a pretty nice fellow but he’s kind of confused. He’s got muscles in his head that ain’t never been used. Thinks he own half of this town.

Starts drinking heavy, gets a big red nose. Beats his old lady with a rubber hose, Then he takes her out to dinner and buys her new clothes. That’s the way that the world goes 'round.

That’s the way that the world goes 'round. You’re up one day and the next you’re down. It’s half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown. That’s the way that the world goes 'round.

I was sitting in the bathtub counting my toes, When the radiator broke, water all froze. I got stuck in the ice without my clothes, Naked as the eyes of a clown. I was crying ice cubes hoping I’d croak, When the sun come through the window, the ice all broke. I stood up and laughed thought it was a joke That’s the way that the world goes 'round.

From BNL,

I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve

I have a history of taking off my shirt

Now I understand

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they’ll listen now

For they could not love you

But still your love was true

And when no hope was left in sight

On that starry, starry night

You took your life, as lovers often do

But I could have told you, Vincent

This world was never meant for one

As beautiful as you

• Vincent by Don McLean

There is a road, no simple highway

Between the dawn and the dark of night

And if you go, no one may follow

That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water

When there is no pebble tossed

Nor wind to blow

You who choose to lead must follow

But if you fall you fall alone

If you should stand then who’s to guide you?

If I knew the way I would take you home

Fossilized Apostle and I comb it with a rake. Soul Coughing

My dreams are not unlike yours

They long for the safety

And break like a glass chandelier

But there’s laughter and oh, there is love

Just past the edge of our fears

And there’s chaos when push comes to shove

But it’s music to my ears

Rise Against - People Live Here

Jimmy Webb’s song “Wichita Lineman” made famous by Glen Campbell, ….“And I need you more than want you, And I want you for all time”.

not sure if this is very ‘poetic’ but here’s my favorite

Hated by life itself

In the end, we’ll die anyway

You will, I will, one day all of us will rot away like fallen leaves

But regardless, we live on frantically–

Shouldering our lives, frantically, we live–

Killing, struggling, laughing, shouldering it all

Living, living, living, living-- just live

(song is hated by life itself, original is in japanese so this is a translation)

He looked beneath his shirt today

There was a wound in his flesh so deep and wide

From the wound a lovely flower grew

From somewhere deep inside

He turned around to face his mother

To show her the wound in his breast that burned like a brand

But the sword that cut him open

Was the sword in his mother’s hand

The Lazarus Heart - Sting

Oh one more:

An Amazon girl lives in Dumfries

Hey-oh, chicken on a raft

She only has kids in twos and threes

Hey-oh, chicken on a raft

Her sister lives in Maryhill

Hey-oh, chicken on a raft

She says she won’t but I think she will

Hey-oh, chicken on a raft

I can’t say how poetic it is since I suck at that type of stuff, but:

Somewhere out there beneath the pail moonlight

Someone’s thinking of me and loving me tonight

• Linda Ronstadt (or whoever voiced Fievel because I absolutely love the version used in the movie)