Can't Be Won

this is a fight you cannot win
do battle you may
but at the end of the day
life will be taken away

what goes up
often comes down

drag it out
[bang it out]
push it in
pull it out

one final scene
maybe a director’s cut
of unfinished rust
on repeat one
in a fishing hut

ten-thousand feet down
where the blackest blacks
turn blue and brown

and a smiling face
wears a thorny crown

in any case we’ll be
neath’ the waves
under the sea

and darlin’ it’s better
down where it’s wetter
take it from me

it’s about that time
for a ten-dollar crime

cinnamon my synonym
they call me sinnin’ jim

I grab my mop
my head I cock

pull my hand out my pocket
reveal an old silver locket

do this
do that
stop that
stop this

and after forty years of this
my mind's a kinda krispy-fried trail mix

what the heck
pass a bad cheque

throw me to the deck
and kneel on my neck

didn’t plan on...
dying this way
or dying today

but I guess it’s going down anyway

----------

and as you gasped your last
we gasped our first
humanity together
embraced a new kinda weather

you, we will remember
and the end of an [empire/era]
we've now entered…