Do the Struggle

Had a spring fling in Flinn Springs
Made some surprisingly fast life decisions
Got lost up in those rubble-strewn hills
Yellow flowers in the heating grill

Windmill farm, Tecate Divide
Jacumba to the Devil’s Canyon, roll the windows, stay inside
Rabbit shit on my heel, dry river idles the paddle wheel

Into the Superstition Mountains
Across San Diego County
Had our own gandy-dancers’ jamboree
On the Burlington to Santa Fe
Ocotillo to Rio Salado
To Dateland, AZ

Spent the gay nineties in London
Passing out wolf tickets in abundance
Until we happened upon a shared mania for action
Organized only by an abstract dissatisfaction
We thought just to break the tedium
We’d recreate the rapture, with a sex doll and some helium
Ours to impress and destroy
Defend and annoy
These days, chaos for its own sake is at a premium

And so we hung from the Eiffel Tower
‘Til the police came and cut the power
We were a spectacle, we were cannon fodder
We were overboard, we were underwater
It was our worst day, and our finest hour
As we hung from the Eiffel Tower

The Indian Ocean turned a tufted blue slate
Under the first storm-clouds in three weeks
We ran an email scam with a Zanzibari bezique player
With antipodean charm
Watch your wallet! Sorry, false alarm
Jack of diamonds, queen of spades; if your trick hits it’s disarray
We overstayed our welcome, sprayed “Fuck You” on the runway
When we ran away, & tried to memorize the Marseillaise

For when we hung from the Eiffel Tower
‘Til the police came and cut the power
We were a spectacle, we were cannon fodder
We were overboard, we were underwater
It was our worst day, and our finest hour
As we hung from the Eiffel Tower

They call a speed bump a prone policeman in Russia
We took that literally
There’s no saxophones on Sunday in the South
We thought differently. Hey man, where’s middle C?
Cure your melancholia instantly, get busy with infamy
It worked brilliantly. Please alert our families

They said, “Is this a joke for you, or a serious battle?”
We said “When the monkey throws himself against the door
He doesn’t care if it opens, as long as it rattles
And scares the children, and makes the parents gasp
We come not to demand, but to baffle
And if anyone asks you who or where we are
Just tell the cops we’re following a star.”

Art critics said they were conceptual terrorists
Hanging there with “Do The Struggle” spelled out in lights on their chests
It’s a dance sensation. You swing to the east, then swing to the west
And you blame it all on the bulletproof vests
And you do it all for the dispossessed
It’s an eloquent suggestion, an elegant protest
And it’s a mess

They hung themselves from the Eiffel Tower
‘Til the police came and cut the power
They were a spectacle, they were cannon fodder
They were overboard, they were underwater
It was their worst day, and their finest hour
As they hung from the Eiffel Tower