Midnight In Manhattan

(Our elected representatives are the frontlines of making the decisions
about the war we're waging against terrorist
and about rebuilding New York
And there's nothing like it
We don't want anyone to feel in a week or two or a month
that the enormity of this somehow could be gotten over
We can keep going and we will but...)

Waiting for the snow to fall a cloudy angel wept
And while the world was frenzied, by my fate I overslept
Hold your breath, these acts are frozen and embraced
With the gut-twisting feeling of a black and white mosaic
Today Manhattan burned and summer leaves without a trace
Besides a cloud of smoke and sour smell in outer space
Without a face I hate you
Today I was instructed how to hate but then remembered how to pray too
I kneel enforcing nine commandments
Scratch one and let it sleep on the crescent moon like a hammock
Align the sky with fireflies and crooked-eyed soldiers
The morning dew is fearsome while the Bush is iced over
The cushions lie holding souls of man-made ghosts
Cascades of darkness keep the lamp shades closed
Crickets even whisper for September 11th
I eavesdrop and hope to hear footsteps from heaven

[CHORUS]
When moonlight french-kisses the Manhattan midnight
There's not a face without a tear drop that's in sight
Midnights in Manhattan keep me dreamin
I caught a dream by the tail, I think I'm gonna keep it

This is the first time I've ever hated something through the night
The first time I've ever loved this country in my life
Hibernate for days and leave the nest to touch rain
Stretch across the world and feel my bib of bloodstains
Talkin to the icicles hangin from the clouds
Purple moon dust vapor strangle for the proud
I'm dyslexic reading minds of those computed
Who saw an angel-kissed urban rose and chose to shoot it
Notes for students of the Blitzkrieg, Polish torture
I got a heaert for you that grows inside my olive orchard
I understand a lot of spirits on remote control
Mislead youth grew with charred and broken souls
Damn I'm speechless, dreamin of the somber, sandy beaches
Where I can drift away from suits and ties repairing demons
Where I can fly from corporate crashed and buried kingdoms
And hold my hand to God but do more than barely reach him

[CHORUS]

Blow a kiss to the rain clouds while I rest in bed
If I give blood now I might have less to shed
If I shed blood proud, is my spirit in agreement?
Will I be dying for a reason that I do agree with?
Freedom is a teardrop with legs like a centipede
That walks out of God's eyes when I fight or sit and bleed
I could sit stone-cold and panic in stride
Plant it inside to hide away until the planets collide
Of course, of course, of course, I grab my sleeping pillow
And creep to steal to eat a still life self-reflecting weep and willow
This is not the time for music, it's not the time for movement
It's not the time for pushing all the people I'm unglued with
It's not the time for birth of glory
It's not the time for purgatory
It's not the time for murder stories
It's not the time for keeping peace or cleaning your knives
It's a time to figure out the meaning of life
And that's it

[CHORUS]