The Lyric Poetry of Greg Greenway "Hate is a chain with a prisoner at both ends"

I’ve been in first place, I’ve been in last place.
I’ve been the worst case, I’ve been the whole parade.
I’ve been my own best friend, there have been days when
I couldn’t get out of my own way.
You’ve got to get out of your own way.

When you were a dark room, I was just a dim light,
a stumbling in the night to find a way.
When I finally understood, I saved the only one I could.
I couldn’t get out of my own way.
You’ve got to get out of your own way.

Trouble doesn’t need any help from me.

I laugh like my father did, I love like my mother did.
What you did or you didn’t get, it’s just a tail you chase.
It’s like my grandmother said, don’t blame it on us kid.
You’ve got to get out of your own way.
You’ve got to get out, you’ve got to get out,
you’ve got to get out of your own way.

In the mind of the brilliant sun,
who are you and I beneath this shading palm.
In conversation, in my imagination,
I heard what you might say,

Solamente, solamente la vida.
(It’s only life)
Veinte mil versiones
(20,000 versions
de la mente del sol.
         of the mind of the sun)

When you wrote your, your book of life,
you were living hand to mouth while your patient wife
lied to the landlord, with empty cupboards.
I heard what you might say

Chorus

What is a dance without gravity,
what is love without pain.
We do everything right and it turns out wrong,
we do it again and again.

My 20,000 versions of the sun
have left me with an empty heart,
Gabo, what can be done.
With a slow touch, he said, “don’t think so much,
it gets better when you sing.”

Chorus

Tell my heart, it’s just one day,
just one day in the mind of the sun.

It was the 7th day of March in 1965.
A little big man with his arms at his side,
crossed the Alabama River with the people behind,
saying never say never say never.

For those come and gone, allowed only to dream,
for those breathing in that moment, for those yet to be,
they would give up their bodies for the world to see.
never say never say never.

Everybody’s on the edge.
Across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Beaten for the privilege.

Say it loud, say it again,
it’s so much deeper than the skin.
Say it now, say it again,
it’s so much deeper than the skin.

Hate is a chain with a prisoner at both ends.

It’s an American Heartbreak in the bright light of day,
it’s not business as usual on an Alabama highway,
no headlights in the mirror, no hooded face.
never say never say never.

Everybody’s on the edge.
Across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Beaten for the privilege.

Say it loud, say it again, it’s so much deeper than the skin.
Say it now, say it again, it’s so much deeper than the skin.

Hate is a chain with a prisoner at both ends.

The sun rose, the sun set,
people called it time.
It’s an old story, how precious is this time.
You told me that you needed some
and wanted none of mine.
It’s an old story, told one more time.

And now what am I gonna do
with all this time,
with all this time.

You can’t touch it with your fingers,
but you feel it moving on,
and you know when it’s gone it’s gone.
I know that heart inside you
is as golden as the sun.
It’s an old story, I’m just not the one.

And now what am I gonna do
with all this time,
with all this time.

All of that fire, all of that gold,
spills out on the water
while the land’s dark and cold.
Nighttime surrenders
in violet hues,
‘til it’s just the morning,
missing you.
Barefoot on the carpet,
you’re not at home.
Long road, so many
kindnesses shown.
I’m a poor man to many,
rich to few,
now it’s just the morning,
missing you.

Wake up, breathe in,
all you can say is good morning.
Better make friends with the truth.

When I tell you my story,
it falls out of my mouth
just like I was singing
a Song of the South,
where the cobblestone history,
the deep rutted words,
get paved right over like they
never occurred.
But, the more I keep talking,
the less you say,
still I keep on surrounding
the truth that way,
to do it all justice,
all the rises and falls,
now it’s just the morning,
remembering them all.

Chorus:

All of that fire, all of that gold,
spills out on the water,
while the land’s dark and cold.
I know you’ll come back,
I’ll come back too,
til it’s just the morning,
me and you.

Chorus:
Chorus:

I don’t know you, but for these handed down bones,
names on moss covered stones. I don’t know you.
But you arrived, and what you did to survive
you left a wake so wide. You handed this to me.

I washed my hands down by the river.
I washed my hands of you.
But you keep staring back from the mirror
to remind me again of the skin I’m in.

You couldn’t know me, the possibility
that I might live and breathe to carry on your name.
My ungrateful crime is pointing fingers through time.
Did you just toe the line or build a world of chains.

Chorus

(The ancestors speak)
What’s the matter don’t you like it,
don’t you like being heard.
Don’t you like the first choice,
don’t you like the last word.
Don’t you like that you don’t have to know
what this is about,
be deaf, dumb, and blind
and get the benefit of the doubt,
to walk through this world
in a velvet cocoon
that everybody else can see,
except, of course, you,
because you are everybody
your true is true.
That’s what I handed to you.

So here we are by the grace of some god,
knowing the mirror is flawed. What do we do now?

Chorus
Chorus

On polished floors the hall lights float
between my tired steps, my tired hopes.
An all night driving odyssey,
my travels, your journey.

A muted voice tells me the way
I find a tethered light balloon ready to drift away.
The threads that hold you, bare and frayed.
To bring you back, I call your name.

Letting go one thread at a time,
you in your chair, me in mine.
Who knows where you’re drifting to,
how could I ever let go of you.

I see you now, I see your whole life.
The pigtailed blonde girl
with the family dark beneath her eyes.
Part of love is letting go.

Chorus

I took a picture of a boat on a river
into the sunset, the wake was so wide.
In the silver of sunset the lights start to carry,
I watched as the ripples reached both sides.

And the vault of the sky, the dispassionate city
were changed in the ripples of the water like glass
I thought of my friend, Peter, he was such a good man
his ripples changed everything he passed.

When a good man goes by everything is changed.

Good is a dream we’d like to believe in,
it’s kept in compartments where defenses can rest,
when you see it embodied, you stand that much taller,
and just for one moment it asks for your best.

So look all around you at the ones who have gathered
in the name of a good man, for the light and the lift,
and hold it inside you for the ones who pass by you,
in the name of a good man, give them this gift.

When a good man goes by everything is changed.

We’re all here waiting, don’t come early or late,
we’re on our best behavior, you get a clean slate.
It’s a one time offer, don’t hesitate,
come home, little baby, come home.

We’ve got hands in our pockets, hands on our knees,
we’ve got tired red faces, we’re all rumpled and creased,
it’s always this way, you come whenever you please,
come home, little baby, come home.

Come home little baby, come home.
We’re all here waiting just to call you our own,
whoever you are from the great unknown,
come home, little baby, come home.

You’re the raise, you’re the snow storm,
you’re the ten day leave.
You’re the little black thing she wore on New Year’s Eve.
You’re the one thing Mother Nature’s always
got up her sleeve,
come home, little baby, come home

Chorus

All the world’s troubles we’re accustomed to,
you’d think we’d know better, we haven’t got a clue,
we’re standing here ready to pass them right on to you,
come home, little baby, come home.

Chorus

Lazy morning, day’s warming, watching you lie asleep
feeling you breathe next to me.
Don’t want to go nowhere, say nothing, all of the clocks agree,
there is no time with you and me.

Oh in the tumbling magnificent darkness with you,
I have been saved. Washed in the water,
ordained in the order of you, that’s where we’ve stayed.

Not movin’ since you’ve been peacefully by my side,
turning a night into a day of no goodbyes.