{"id":784,"date":"2013-04-19T02:53:57","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T00:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/?page_id=784"},"modified":"2013-05-03T02:09:59","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T00:09:59","slug":"7-the-future-now","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/teksty\/teksty-oryginalne\/teksty-ph-solo\/7-the-future-now\/","title":{"rendered":"7. The Future Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\nPushing Thirty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seems the fashion’s for one-liners these days,
\nthe kind that get up everyone’s nose,
\nso much back-slapping that the vertabrae
\nare fatally exposed….
\nMe, I’m pushing thirty, pulling sixteen,
\nthough much of what’s around me is dead.
\nThey got so shirty when I tried to glean
\nthe meaning from what they’d said:
\n„If you wanna be a viable artist when you’re twenty-five
\nyou’d better be a meat-head by the time you’re twenty-one.”
\nBut now I’m pushing thirty and I’m still alive,
\nso tell me who, tell me who has won?<\/p>\n

See the survivors in the upcoming acts,
\nthey and the moguls make a regular killing –
\nothers take it lying on their backs,
\nyoung blood is always so willing.
\nMe, I’m pushing thirty, that’s the way it is,
\ntoo late to change my mind.
\nThey play it dirty in the record biz
\nand you’ve got to toe the line.
\nIf you wanna be an A & R man when the singing’s done
\nyou’d better make sure that you hedge your bets.
\nMe, I’m pushing thirty and still having fun,
\nI haven’t stopped, haven’t stopped that yet!<\/p>\n

All the writers watch each other for the way to go,
\nfollow each other like lemmings –
\nswear they’re all waiting for Nicky Lowe
\nto turn out like David Hemmings…
\nMe, I’m pushing thirty and the steady zone,
\nperhaps I should retire,
\nbut even if it all deserts me and I’m left alone
\nI still know that I’m fuelled by fire.
\nIn this rubbish world you’ve got to keep that under the lid,
\n'cos they all hope it’ll disappear…
\nbut even though I’m pushing thirty,
\nmaybe on the skids,
\nI still can be, I still can be
\nNadir!<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nThe Second Hand<\/strong><\/p>\n

See the old man acting like a fool,
\nrunning from the ambulance.
\nWhen he was a youngster he broke all the rules –
\nnow he says that was just accident.
\nAlways had the feeling he was going to die young,
\nso now he feels repentant;
\nbut the judge was progressive and the jury was hung,
\nhe got a suspended sentence.
\nSo he ran from the future, he ran from the past,
\nhe ran from the desert of the hour-glass
\nbut the sea of time is a rising flood
\nand he’s swamped by the wave.
\nHis arms go limp by his side,
\nhe only came for the ride,
\nhe thought he’d hold back the tide,
\nCanute.<\/p>\n

One eye on the main chance and one eye on the clock,
\noh, when did his brain go?
\nAnd when does a veteran get to be a crock…
\nno gold at the end of this rainbow!
\nHe always boxed clever with his shadowy hopes
\nbut now he’s in trouble with his back on the ropes
\nand the hands of time are bunched into fists:
\nhe’s out for the count.
\nThe sword has sunk in the lake
\nand now he’s watching dawn break
\nand now he waits for the stake,
\nDrakul.<\/p>\n

This boy’s a fool,
\nthis fool’s a man,
\nall men are ruled
\nby the second hand.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nTrappings<\/strong><\/p>\n

He could have been so great, he could have had it all,
\nhe had it on a plate, but he threw it at the wall.
\nAnd he can’t know why, but he still said „yes”
\nto the easy lie and the poisoned vest…
\nthe trappings of success.<\/p>\n

They offered him the deal (Here’s the contract)
\njust like an autograph (sign on the line)
\nno need to think or feel (advances are abstract)
\nor do anything but laugh (the future defined.)
\nHe’s in possession, yes he’s possessed;
\nthey had no fear, he was so impressed
\nby the trappings of success.<\/p>\n

You’ll see him down the clubs or at the premiere
\n(it’s just another movie, it’s just another act)
\nstumming in a pub, everywhere that’s anywhere…
\n(he’s a man of the people, just as long as the people
\ndon’t talk back)<\/p>\n

on the Rio shore or the Rome express
\nwith a Chinese whore or a Greek princess…
\nthese are the trappings of success.<\/p>\n

But he’s got no home and he’s got no friends
\nand the human mass repel him.
\nNow he’s on his own and can’t comprehend
\ndid he sell out or was he celled in?<\/p>\n

(He’s a prisoner in a gilded cage.
\nHe’s a prisoner…he’s all the rage.)<\/p>\n

He’s waiting for his plane and his first-class seat;
\nthey’ve blown out his brains with sticky kiddies’ sweets;
\nthe limo, the coke, the celebrity guest-list,
\nthe toady jokes and the gutter press…
\nthe trappings of success,
\nthese are the trappings of success.<\/p>\n

The trappings of success,
\nthe trap of fame;
\n(in) the trap…big game.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nThe Mousetrap (Caught in)<\/strong><\/p>\n

After all is said and done, not very much will have been either way:
\nI’m a chronicler of action, I’m an actor in the play.
\nI know the lines I have to speak,
\nI know that I won’t ever quit, corpse, or dry,
\nbut the performance gets so pointless
\nand the days just drift on by.
\nEvery time that I go to turn the pages of the calendar
\nin the third act of this twenty-ninth year of the show
\nI’m aware of the latest leading lady and get mad at her…
\nit’s perfunctory, but why she’ll never know.<\/p>\n

When I began I had my hopes,
\nbelieved that I could be a leading light of the stage,
\nbut now I’ve stunned myself to silence,
\nexhausted all my inner rage,
\nextinguished all my joy and violence,
\ntrapped all my feelings in a cage.
\nEvery time that I go to turn the pages of the calendar
\nI can see that I’m not really going anywhere;
\nall these years I have skirted round experience like a scavenger.
\nCan I really feel? I wonder if I dare?
\nAt the end of the run, will there be anyone who cares?
\nAnd behind the actor’s pose, heaven knows
\nif there’s anyone left in there.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nEnergy Vampires<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hunched in the corner of the dressing-room,
\ntrying to get back to the real…
\nUh-oh, here they come, ready for their meal:<\/p>\n

Energy Vampires, crawling out of the wall,
\nthey want to steal my vitality,
\nthey want to drink it all.<\/p>\n

This guy says that he wrote all my songs,
\nthis girl says she’s had my baby –
\nme, I don’t know them from Adam and Eve,
\nsometimes I really believe I’m going crazy.<\/p>\n

„Excuse me while I suck your blood,
\nexcuse me when I phone you,
\nI’ve got every one of your records, man,
\ndoesn’t that mean I own you?”
\nOh, sure, I long ago decided to make myself an exponent
\nof public possession in the private obsession zone.<\/p>\n

But now I’m serious, let’s be serious, I’m not selling you my soul,
\ntry to put it in the records but I’ve got to keep my life my own.
\nOne thing I’ve not got a lot of is time
\nand it’s slipping away…<\/p>\n

I’ve got a life to live too.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nIf I could\u00a0<\/strong> \"Przek\u0142ad\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You must be crazy to stay here,
\nand I’ll be crazy when you go;
\nthough there’s so much I want to tell you
\nall the words come out too slow.
\nI’ve been locked in my problems,
\nyou seemed prepared to wait…
\nnow that I know I’m going to lose you
\nall the words come out too late.
\nThere’s no promise I can give you that you wouldn’t know was fake;
\nthough I just want to be with you, there’s no show that I can make.
\nAnd in the morning, when I wake and find you dressing
\nI can tell that it’s on your mind to go for good;
\nI know that all this time I’ve kept you guessing,
\nbut I’d tell you if I could.<\/p>\n

If I now said that I loved you
\nhow would that seem in your eyes?
\nOh, may my voice fall into silence
\nif my words turn out to be lies.
\nI never meant to hurt you,
\neven though that’s what I do –
\neven though you might not believe this
\nall my words were meant for you.
\nThere’s no promise I can give you that you wouldn’t know was fake;
\nthough I just want to be with you, there’s no show that I can make.
\nAnd in the evening, when we sit and watch the TV
\nI know that this silence just won’t do me any good
\nand I want to beg you, beg you, beg you to believe me…
\nI’d tell you if I could,
\nI’d tell you if I could.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nThe Future Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here we are, static in the latter half
\nof the twentieth century
\nbut it might as well be the Middle Ages,
\nthere’ll have to be some changes
\nbut how they’ll come about foxes me.
\nI want the future now,
\nI want to hold it in my hands;
\nall men equal and unbowed,
\nI want the promised land.<\/p>\n

but that doesn’t seem to get any closer,
\nand Moses has had his day…
\nthe tablets of law are an advertising poster,
\ncivilisation here to stay
\nand this is progress?
\nYou must be joking!
\nMe, I’m looking for any kind of hope.
\nI want the future now,
\nI want to see it on the screen,
\nI want to break the bounds
\nthat make our lives so mean.<\/p>\n

Oh, blind, blinded, blinding hatred
\nof race, sex, religion, colour, country and creed,
\nthese scream from the pages of everything I read.
\nYou just bring me oppression and torture,
\napartheid, corruption and plague;
\nyou just bring me the rape of the planet
\nand joke world rights at the Hague.
\nOh, someday the Millennium!
\nBut how far is someday away?
\nI want the future now
\nI’m young, and it’s my right.
\nI want a reason to be proud.
\nI want to see the light.
\nI want the future now,
\nI want to see it on the screen,
\nI want to break the bounds:
\nmake life worth more than dreams.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nStill in the Dark<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, brighter than a thousand suns,
\nthe march towards the stars
\non the wheel, on the car,
\noff the plane, off the planet
\nand on in the search.
\nYes, we pray in the dark in the Sciences’ church.<\/p>\n

Upon the tree of knowledge
\nthe fruit is bitter-sweet;
\nto the man in the street
\nall its myriad benefits Science confers
\nbut we’re still in the dark, much as we always were.<\/p>\n

Run your mind down the Sciences;
\nnone of them lay claim to show more than a part
\nbut still we shout out what we know
\nthe silence is enough to break the mortal heart.<\/p>\n

So bow down in adoration to the wonder that is man;
\nwe have learned all we can,
\nwe explore every frontier that straddles our way
\nbut we’re still in the dark, though we now call it day.<\/p>\n

No, there is no answer,
\nthere is no eternal proof,
\nthere is no timeless truth;
\nthough we learn to encompass yet more with the eye
\nwe are still in the dark when it comes to the why.<\/p>\n

We are still in the dark,
\nbedded down
\nand so we still lie.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nMediaevil<\/strong><\/p>\n

God lives in the cathedral,
\nor so the archbishop states,
\nall fealty to the Church,
\nall power to the state!<\/p>\n

Gold keys to the cathedral,
\nthey go with the bishop’s cowl;
\nhe lives a spiritual life of material wealth.
\nAre things so very different now?<\/p>\n

Oh yeah
\noh now:
\nsave your prayers for the future.
\nSay your prayers for the future.<\/p>\n

Oh, God’s gone from the cathedral,
\na different power now holds sway,
\nwe can pack them up in the history books
\nbut the Middle Ages won’t go away.
\nAnd the answer to our prayers is a Valium by the bedside,
\nnow we follow the pundits on TV,
\nnow we put our faith in Science and progress
\nand only have sex upon our knees.<\/p>\n

And those who are strange are still locked in asylums
\nand a sterile Pope proscribes the Pill
\nand those who are rich are still getting richer
\nand those who are poor still foot the bill.
\nAnd God lives in underground silos,
\nhanging on for Judgement day;
\nif we don’t open our eyes pretty soon
\nthen the Dark Ages’ll be here to stay.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nA Motor-bike in Afrika<\/strong><\/p>\n

A motor-bike in Africa,
\nhe’s riding the white line,
\noblivious of snakes stretched out
\nacross the way like trip-wire,
\nshouting
\n„The road is mine!”<\/p>\n

Tracing the line of the skeleton coast,
\nghost riders from the Sud-West:
\nthe original angels of death they seem,
\nsix motor-bikes abreast.<\/p>\n

Riding through the oppressive night,
\nnow only the hardest remain.
\nLook at the scars of the tyre-tracks,
\nlook to the bodies behind their backs,
\nlook at the bastards bray
\nin Africa today.<\/p>\n

The bodies of Biko and Soweto poor,
\nthe Christian message of Dutch Reform,
\nthe sound of the monster, the motor-bike roar,
\nthe hate in the eyes of the uniformed Boer,
\nthe head and the bucket, the boot and the floor…
\nracial torture and racial war
\nin Africa today.<\/p>\n

Come in Rhodesia, South Africa, your time is up…
\nno protection on a motor-bike;
\nsooner or later the normal traffic’s gonna get you.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nThe Cut<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything out of order
\neverything too well produced
\nfrom the conjuror’s hat –
\nlet’s turn on the juice
\nto grind the cutting plane, the blade that gives an edge,
\nto scale the mountain; to fail upon the mountain ledge.<\/p>\n

Half-way up is half-way peaking
\nthe stroboscope locks the lathe;
\nI look around for a switch in phase…
\nthe disco boom stands firm, the eight-track’s in, the rage
\nlicks the present, quickly flips the future page.<\/p>\n

Check the deck: no marked cards,
\nno sequentialled straight or flush…
\nthe dice won’t still the blood-line rush.
\nRun the star-flood night, the cut-throat blade is stropped;
\nrace your shadow…race in case your shadow stops.<\/p>\n

Everything so out of order
\nno bias on the playback head;
\npapers for the border – all the tape is read,
\nthe future burns my tongue, the noise-gates all are shut,
\nbreathe the vacuum, believe there’s reason in the cut.<\/p>\n

Incipient white noise,
\nthe stylus barely tracks,
\nthe air controllers feed the stereo sonic smack.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nPalinurus (Castaway)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, I’m looking for a white note
\nto consolidate the key,
\nlike the pilot of a night boat
\nin a strange, uncharted sea: Palinurus,
\nas unsure as he can be of his direction…
\nhell, this section’s all Greek to me.<\/p>\n

There’s so much I had to mention
\nbut it seems to slip my mind;
\nstill, I swear that my intentions
\nnever left my hopes behind
\nlike the captain who’s been trapped
\nin the blind eye of the whirlwind…
\nso he turns in search of the divine.<\/p>\n

I’ve got no answers either,
\nI’ve got some stories on lucky days…
\nthe sea-lanes are crowded with people like us:
\nCastaways.<\/p>\n

From soprano through to basso
\nmy voice so strains to tell,
\nbut I’m lost in the Sargasso
\nof ideas that didn’t gel by a fraction,
\nso the action is dispelled.
\nMe, I’ve got dull reactions, protraction of doubt as well,
\nso it’s no more abide with me,
\nover the side with me…
\nwell, I know that damn well…<\/p>\n

Oh, this hump-back of emotion,
\nit all seems to go so fast:
\none moment prince of the ocean
\nand the next upon the raft.<\/p>\n

\"Przewi\u0144<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pushing Thirty Seems the fashion’s for one-liners these days, the kind that get up everyone’s nose, so much back-slapping that the vertabrae are fatally exposed…. Me, I’m pushing thirty, pulling sixteen, though much of what’s around me is dead. They … Czytaj dalej →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":659,"parent":519,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"sidebar-page.php","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-784","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1390,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/784\/revisions\/1390"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}