Power Windows...Moving Pictures

A modern-day warrior
Mean mean stride
Today's Tom Sawyer
Mean mean pride

Though his mind is not for rent
Don't put him down as arrogant
His reserve, a quiet defence
Riding out the day's events -
The river

What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
-Catch the mist -Catch the myth
-Catch the mystery -Catch the drift

The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his skies are wide

Today's Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the space he invades
He gets by on you
No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent-
But change is

What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
-Catch the witness -Catch the wit
-Catch the spirit -Catch the spit

The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his eyes are wide

Exit the warrior
Today's Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the energy you trade
He gets right on to
The friction of the day

Red Barchetta (6:06)

My uncle has a country place
That no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm,
Before the Motor Law
And on Sundays I elude the Eyes,
And hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire,
Where my white-haired uncle waits

Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the Borderline
Run like the wind,
As excitement shivers up and down my spine
Down in his barn,
My uncle preserved for me an old machine,
For fifty-odd years
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream

I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta
From a better, vanished time
I fire up the willing engine,
Responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel,
I commit my weekly crime..

Wind-
In my hair-
Shifting and drifting-
Mechanical music
Adrenalin surge-

Well-weathered leather,
Hot metal and oil,
The scented country air
Sunlight on chrome,
The blur of the landscape,
Every nerve aware

Suddenly ahead of me,
Across the mountainside,
A gleaming alloy air-car
Shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires,
To run the deadly race,
Go screaming through the valley
As another joins the chase

Drive like the wind,
Straining the limits of machine and man
Laughing out loud
With fear and hope, I've got a desperate plan
At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded at the riverside
Race back to the farm, to dream with my uncle at the fireside

Inspinred by "A Nice Morning Drive", by Richard S. Foster

YYZ (instrumental 4:24)
Limelight (4:19)

Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage

Cast in this unlikely role,
Ill-equipped to act,
With insufficient tact,
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact

Living in the Limelight,
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem

Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation,
Get on with the fascination,
The real relation,
The underlying theme

Living in a fisheye lens,
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie,
I can't pretend a stranger
Is a long-awaited friend

All the world's indeed a stage,
And we are merely players,
Performers and portrayers,
Each another's audience
Outside the gilded cage

The Camera Eye (10:56)

I

Grim-faced and forbidding,
Their faces closed tight,
An angular mass of New Yorkers
Pacing in rhythm,
Race the oncoming night,
They chase through the streets of Manhattan
Head-first humanity,
Pause at a light,
Then flow through the streets of the city

They seem oblivious
To a soft spring rain,
Like an English rain
So light, yet endless
From a leaden sky

The buildings are lost
In their limitless rise
My feet catch the pulse
And the purposeful stride

I feel the sense of possibilities,
I feel the wrench of hard realities
The focus is sharp in the city

II

Wide-angle watcher
On life's ancient tales,
Steeped in the history of London

Green and grey washes
In a wispy white veil
Mist in the streets of Westminster
Wistful and weathered,
The pride still prevails,
Alive in the streets of the city

Are they oblivious
To this quality?
A quality
Of light unique to
Every city's streets

Pavements may teem
With intense energy,
But the city is calm
In this violent sea

Witch Hunt (Part III of Fear) (4:43)

The night is black,
Without a moon
The air is thick and still

The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill

Features distorted in the flickering light,
The faces are twisted and grotesque
Silent and stern in the sweltering night,
The mob moves like demons possesed
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right,
Confident their ways are best

The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will

Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill

They say there are strangers who threaten us,
In our immigrants and infidels
They say there is strangeness, too dangerous
In our theatres and bookstore shelves,
That those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves

Quick to judge,
Quick to anger,
Slow to understand

Ignorance and prejudice
And fear
Walk hand in hand

Vital Signs (4:43)

Unstable condition,
A symptom of life,
In mental and environmental change

Atmospheric disturbance,
The feverish flux
Of human interface and interchange

The impulse is pure;
Sometimes our circuits get shorted
By external interference

Signals get crossed
And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence

A tired mind become a shape-shifter,
Everybody need a mood lifter,
Everybody need reverse polarity
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody got to deviate from the norm

An ounce of perception,
A pound of obscure
Process information at half speed
Pause, rewind, replay,
Warm memory chip,
Random sample, hold the one you need

Leave out the fiction,
The fact is, this friction
Will only be worn by persistence

Leave out conditions,
Courageous convictions
Will drag the dream into existence

A tired mind become a shape-shifter,
Everybody need a soft filter,
Everybody need reverse polarity
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody got to elevate from the norm..

Moving Pictures

I

II

Notes: