Ribmeat Of The Family Tree

The Soundtrack to Kid A

8-20-05

Where were you when
(pick life-altering,
culture changing event) happened?
Was your brother in a blender;
your life lived on autopilot?
The questions asked
usually contain the answers.
Floating midnight. Drowning dusk.
Television samples
one percent of population.
Population echoes culture.
Culture becomes television
that you did not invent.
One more experience
may provoke an experiment
in failure.
Failure to be the last on earth
but the first to be the farthest
from nowhere everywhere
is success by faltering
all laws of ethics and averages;
in the end winning nothing more
than what you have.
You may not see it
'til thirty years' time.
No one's making you,
you don't see.
Everybody is.
Where were you at
(random family gathering/
miscellaneous streetcrawling/
false shedding of skin)
that you don't remember details
out of wits' ends?
Be accountable
or be accounted for
by statistic keepers.
Your [being watched]
is for your safety.
It is easier to do as told
before you're told
and smarter ways
not only become more economical,
or practical, but
periodically more self-satisfying.
Was I just in a movie
or a car crash?
Did I say too long of a good night?
Be that to me the
wrong star I wished upon,
milking me over
for bad dream lived after bad dream,
or the curse yet unlifted,
I shall still
find you out
and someday
align your sky properly.
Your questions after they've been posed
contain your answers.
Once you hear yourself speak,
you will already know.