Retro-Blog 1982 (age 19): Youthful Hyperbole

GUILTY

So another starving orphan
     is captured in a moving photograph
So another tragic loss
     is transformed into a tidy turn of phrase
So another act of cruel passion
     has made the climax of the play
So one more war
     has inspired a protest song

So if you think that art has innocence
     look again
Blood stains the canvas
     and flows from the pen
And our voices
     are serving up the gory headline
     with a rhyme

And all ears are tuned
     to the turning of the tables
And all eyes are focused
     on the faces in the frames

And the page is turned
     for the telling of the fables
And the lines are drawn
     for the naming of the names

[Editorial Note 2015 (age 52): This is the kind of thing one can only write when young and just figuring out obvious things about how the world works.  There is only so long someone can remain shocked and self righteous about everything, so we become jaded adults who hardly notice the glaring wickedness of the world we have made for ourselves.  This ends with another appearance of that pair of  split lines I had previously mentioned some reluctance at including here due to possible future plans for them.  Now they have grown an appendage of two more split lines.  All four, or eight depending on how you look at it, ended up as part of the "Modern Man" lyric, which again, I may yet record.]