Phil

A major study at a leading University indicates
The difference between a poet and a psychotic is minimal at best.
I just fell off of that fence and I don’t know which side I’ve landed on.
I find myself believing that everything and everyone that isn’t you or me or God
Is owned by one huge corporation – a company named Phil.
That Phil is, in fact, in the process of acquiring God
And will be making God available (for a small user’s convenience fee)
By means of a patch consisting of one part nicotine,
One part classic cola product and one part prescription Ecstacy.
That sounds like poetry, but I just can’t be sure anymore.

Chorus:
Oh God. Oh me, oh me.
The best things in life used to be free.
Used to be free. Oh God.

A lesser study at a local Junior College has found that
Paranoia no longer actually exists, because if you can imagine it,
It’s probably happening to you or someone you love right now.
So I imagine that Phil produces and distributes both poison and food,
Controls both the truth and the lies and disseminates one more than the other
Through the mass media, which Phil also happens to own,
Until everything begins to seem relative.
But that’s okay because Phil also owns the theory of relativity,
Or at least owns Albert Einstein’s brain
And all of its subsidiary thoughts and theories.
You know, I’ve been feeling a lot less cynical since I stopped being paranoid.

repeat chorus

When I was eleven years old I was the editorial editor
Of my sixth grade newspaper, and in that capacity
I called for the resignation of Richard Nixon.
While I cannot take all of the credit, I’d like to think that in some
Butterfly flapping its way into a hurricane kinda way,
I played some small but significant role in toppling the Nixon administration.
Hey – I was just doing my job.
And now, thirty years later, people not nearly so warm and cuddly as Nixon
Seek and assume the presidency and do so, not to possess an abundance of power,
But rather to meet those who do. It’s an opportunity to meet the friends of Phil.
To defeat the enemies of Phil. If I’d known then that I would miss him so now,
I would have let Nixon remain president for life.

repeat chorus

I don’t wanna be a stick in the mud.
I don’t wanna go back and live in the twentieth century.
Today I can take my phone everywhere,
Sate my daily saturated fat needs for a buck ninety-nine,
Make a designer baby without the mess of intercourse,
And then log on to the internet and find a safe and anonymous outlet for my
No longer procreational sexuality.
I mean, what’s not to love?
And yet I find comfort in old friends – almost got off the island that time
Didn’t you little buddy?
And I find strange and further comfort knowing that somewhere, right now,
In the research and development sector of Phil’s bowels,
There’s a seriously devoted professional at work on a shiny new pill
That just might help me wake up on the poetic side of the fence.

repeat chorus

Appears On:

---

Hey, Listen!

Listen to “Phil” at the Marques Bovre Music Hub.