Bad Dreams

Bad Dreams

The cats are in the flower bed,
a red hawk rides the sky;
I guess I should be happy
just to be alive....
but we have poisoned everything
and oblivious to it all,
the cell phone zombies babble
through the shopping malls,
while condors fall from Indian skies,
whales beach and die in sand...
bad dreams are good
in the great plan.

You cannot be trusted.
Did you even know you're lying?
It's dangerous to kid yourself.
You go deaf and dumb and blind.

You take such entitlement.
You give bad attitude.
You have no grace,
no empathy,
no gratitude.

You have no sense of consequence;
oh my head is in my hands...
bad dreams are good
in the great plan.

Before that altering apple,
we were one with everything,
no sense of self and other,
no self-consciousness.
But now we have to grapple
with our man-made world backfiring
keeping one eye on
my brother's deadly selfishness.

And everyone's a victim!
Nobody's hands are clean.
There's so very little left
of wild Eden Earth
so near the jaws of our machines.
We live in these electric scabs,
these lesions once were lakes.

No one knows how to shoulder the blame
or learn from past mistakes...
So who will come to save the day?
Mighty Mouse?
Superman?
Bad dreams are good in the great plan.

Joni Mitchell 2007