EVERY THING BUT THE DREAM

The end has come; all that is left is stone and bones

Escaping death and pain in a nation built on hate

Rebuilding a new life, not knowing it will be taken away one day.

Pack up your clothing, pack up your photos and memories

Everything you think you will need

Everything but the dreams

Ike and Tina had a better relationship than the Taliban and Afghanistan

No one returning to Nutbush in that land, even if they can

Now controlled by men without any education or any soul

Pack up your pain, pack up your tears, and your fears

Everything, even a lifetime of deceit 

Everything but the dreams

A house and land, the building of a family, is the plan

So much to do so much to see the desire to be free

No one telling you it is a temporary thing

Pack up your religion, pack up your faith as you endlessly pray

Everything that helps you forget your sins

The ever-changing history of the word of God remains a mystery. 

The illusion is the inclusion of everyone going to a place you've never been

Everyone fights to be the president, as Prince rather be the Pope.

Looking for that formula that brings you some hope 

Pack up your peace, pack up your love and your purity 

Everything that the soul will ever need

Everything, and don't forget the new dreams

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2021

LOOKING AT YOU

Looking at you, you looking at me

Loving the summer; so free

With our feet in the waters of the Mediterranean sea

Got it now; you have to look at life, putting all your problems behind

In this mental darkness, you are wrong; got to get up, get out to be strong

Thinking in the sunlight, everything will be all right

Looking at you, you looking at me

Let us play together in the Chanhassen parks

Later, we can purify ourselves in the inspiration of loving art.

Looking at the world in a different way

Look at life differently; you know how to spell cool

Taking a page from Prince's book, *style is loving yourself till everyone else does too

Looking at you, you looking at me.

A loving friend will help you so the pain can mend

You might have a heavy heart; that is where you start; it will never end

Got it now; you have to look up as the sun shines on you

Deaf to the words of babbling fools, there is so much more about you

Take that talent in you and show those who love you what you can do

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2021

*Style by Prince from the album Emancipation 1996

Pasley Park Studio

 

CRACKERS AND SOUP

Got all the reasons to lie got no reason, to tell the truth

All this talking without any proof this is what they do

Placing all the blame with no shame, this new hate is what they maid

Crackers are boring without the soup so dry with the same old lie

Trading your blessing for a bowl of lentil soup

Now you and your brother pray in different ways

The children in their bare feet playing on the Gaza streets 

Never to know freedom under the iron dome no one is home now alone

It is hard to be so different when those who hate you say you have no soul

Crackers are boring without the soup, so dry with the same old lie.

Get your last breath as politicians vote for your death

Don't want to believe the lier but still, you believe the lie

Gentrification is a hipster way to say community segregation 

If every life mattered, we would be one nation

But everyone wants to be a famous hatter

Crackers are boring without the soup, so dry with the same old lie.

The skies are blue for now; if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound

If those woods have not burned down

Sensitivity of the past isn't what Notridomis could even predict.

Many conversations in this life we should be having

Equal rights, social justice and don't forget Daphni

 

Crackers are boring without the soup, so dry with the same old lie.

Crumble up these crackers and let them soak up the flavor of another culture

So delicious so fulfilling just like those bean pies

The content of your character is lost when looking for other peoples miss-steps

Life is so random and love is an emotion, not an act 

So be kind to others when thinking of that

Crackers are boring without the soup, so dry with the same old lie.

Negative attention only bring negative oppression 

Education is commonsense, and learning from the past is the only fix 

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley

  

LOVE MASK

The experiences we had together in our minds are forever

True relationships of the mind will never lie

We got something that others take a lifetime to find

A love mask doesn't have to cover your heart.

Knowing you and you know me is where it all starts

Intellectual thoughts I have of you that is my one and only move

Feeding the seed of love with a conversation, these words are the fruit

I don't need to be by your side when you are with me in my mind

Is there any more I need to do to prove my feeling for you

A love mask doesn't have to cover your heart.

Knowing you and you know me is where it all starts

Intellectual feelings so reveling what more is there to prove

The expectation you put on me isn't then the ones I see

Just want my mind and body to feel free

No need for labels; I just want to sit at the table and just be me.

A love mask doesn't have to cover your heart.

Knowing you and you know me is where it all starts

I choose my loneliness, but I am never lonely with you

©Copyright Thomas J. Dooley 2021

MAATR DIVAS (मातृ दिवस)

Conditions come with unconditional love

Woven in the colors of maatr's sari

Draped around her, she is a queen

Maatr divas, there is nothing she would not give us

The life, the love unending, not knowing where it comes from

Respected and cursed in the same breath

But the love she gives is the way she forgives

Cooking with so much love, performing massala magic

Spicy to the tongue filling and satisfying 

She is the first to give and the last to receive

Maatr divas, there is so much she gives us.

Controlling and spoiling waking you every morning

There is so much to her day you're not knowing

Return the love with your eyes and with your words

She brings truth to the words of the Gita.

She brings breath to the flute knowledge is the tune.

Feel it deep inside of you

Maatr divas, there is so much to celebrate

The traditions the honor of love given

Taking in the moment in caring arms, hold it

A season that should be every day.

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2021

Notes: 

 

ANOTHER NORMAL

Normal is a mental fallacy of comfort; it is blindness to the confusion of every day.

We pull out a camera to prove the good we are, a good samaritan unaware of real pain.

Normal should be respect and kindness for others.

Diversity and inclusion in life to understand wrong from right

Normal is a concept that consistently changes for the social and political whores

Always wanting more grasping attention with every thoughtless post.

Normal should be knowledge and the understanding of what we can or can not see

Feelings overwhelming facts that feeling like a mental attack.

Normal is a comforting tradition lost is the original message consumed in greed.

Thinking what is true and free as many struggles to breath

Normal should be learning from the past to find the future. 

Explaining away the mistakes that are made, to feel comfortable in their hate

Normal is the comfort of living in a nation like it is home.

A feeling everyone should know.

©Copyright Thomas Dooley 2021

 

 

RELIGION WILL NEVER

Thoughts that are not my own

An inheritance for the soul

This made me feel all alone.

What religion will never know

Is the truth of the soul

How to become whole

A belief that segregated me

Religion never set me free.

Living beneath everybody

What religion will never see

Kindness is not the intent but only condemn

A community ego fills the ATM.

A spiritual movement stalled by the ego

Where are Thurman, King, and Gandhi today

Hear the weeping sister at the wall as she would pray

What religion will never hear

The voice of inner pain and fear

Without true light, the path isn't clear.

Declaring a path with no direction

Never arriving at the destination.

Living in a cage in a free nation

©Copyright Thomas Dooley 2021

NOTES:

THE HILL WE CLIMB (Inspired by the poem of Amanda Gorman)

Out from under the shadow of a never-ending ego 

The light of respect in the distance can be seen

The voice of optimism is no longer a dream

Hear the echoing sounds on the streets

Passionate words of justice and peace

The hill we climb over all obstacles and lies.

The journey is long, but on the other side, we will see the dawn.

A nation is broken into pieces with unresolved emotions.

We strive to fulfill the immigrant's dream.

To see their children grow up to be free and one day lead.

Through a child's voice, ancient ancestors sing.

Songs of amazing grace as every voice will ring.

The hill we climb to a destination of new life.

A celebration of all our difference, we will find

We grow out of remembrance when tragedy makes no sense. 

The pain we feel in this moment, the cure is in the journey up this hill.

As we strive for that glimmer of hope, we discover what we have always known.

With a passion for peace, this division we will defeat to one day see

America is a comforting home; it is my home; it is your home that everyone should know. 

The hill we climb to find the promised land on the other side.

What was once the words of a dream is now the reality.

In Malcolm, we found an example of passion through all means.

In Marten, we found the dream of peace.

In John, we found the good trouble that will lead.

In Harriet, we found an appreciation of what it is like to be free.

Together we have found the determination we need.

The hill we climb above a land one day will shine.

Bring light to all diverse faces as we become one nation.

The fire of passion today is quenched by the satisfying waters of tomorrow. 

With courage unafraid, we will defeat all this sorrow.

We must believe in this; we must believe us; we must find the trust.

Together we must have the courage to be it.

©Copyright Thomas Dooley 2021

NOTES: 

 

THE CARNAGE OF TIME

Looking to the future, looking to the past

Putting out the flames of ignorance 

Is the tragedy that we have

The carnage of time

The loss of over four-hundred thousand lives

A community disenfranchised

Now the uneducated run and hide.

Looking to our neighbors, looking to our communities

Moving towards unity, are we truly free

With hope, we live with integrity.

The carnage of time

Walking through a field of destruction 

Littered with rubble left behind

As the uneducated look on with pride

Looking to our mentors, looking to our leaders

A future with positive change is nowhere.

Words spoke with strength dismissing all the fear

©Copyright Thomas Dooley 2021 

MORNING CONVERSATIONS

I sit down in my own peace

Focused on a light that only I can see

Because it is what is inside of me

Morning conversations as the sunrise

With peace, love, and purity is what I find.

On my own path, walk past all life's lies.

I sit down in my own love.

Focused on its inclusion, looking past all illusions

A dream for everyone to be free

Morning conversations as the sunrise

With peace, love, and purity in my mind

From you, there is nothing I hide

I sit down in my own purity.

Focused on what makes me truly me

That is an eternal soul.

Morning conversations as the sunrise

With peace, love, and purity becomes only light.

On the alter tokens of moments and photos of loved ones who pass

I sit down in my own silence.

Focused on divine one from above

Forgetting titles and external fights

©Copyright Thomas Dooley 2021

PASS ON ME

Got to have a dream beyond what I can see

Wondering what is my destiny

Life is so upsidedown got to know now

Pass on me everything I need

Peace and freedom are confusing to the uneducated mind.

Just want to live the privileged lie.

Got have a vision beyond what others believe.

Building the foundation of what makes me

Life is the music listen and turn it up loud.

Pass on me the secrets of being free

Purity and love are much more than a social activity.

Trying to understand wrong from right.

The recorded appreciation for inspiring the ego

This is not what feeds the soul.

Go inside, find that meditated sound. 

©Copyright Thomas Dooley 2021

CONSIDER THE SOUL

We wish to forget this unnecessary pain

A lifetime feels like less than a day

Looking forward to the future and all the unknown

With so much confusion, consider the soul.

A spark, a light that never grows old

The symbolic words that we hold

The large oak is rooted in the earth.

Is the symbol of optimism that we need to learn

Sacred words that go unheard

With so much, illusions consider the soul.

What is our direction when no one knows which way to go?

 Find the little point of light you will always find a home.

 ©Copyright Thomas Dooley 2021