HOW MANY

The times are changing the times are getting crazy

The vision of many are getting hazy

Believing the random thought of one's imagination

How many lies do we believe before we see the truth?

While many yell and screen looking like a fool

Karen, this does not have to be you.

Fallowing another man's lie 

But you pray to God every night

How are those things alike

How many times have you played Rushen Roulette with your life

It is better to feel sick for a day

Then it is to lay a week at death's doorstep

The chicken nuggets you eat are programmed to track you

While on the cell phone, you watch housewives acting like fools

As you use pronouns to offend so why do you pretend

How many have to die because of the selfishness you hide

You have no community pride living a patriot lie

Threat to kill because of your ignorance as you act all innocent 

The right to choose offends you now you want to change the rules.

©Cpoyright Thomas J Dooley

 

CAN I CALL YOU HUMAN

Let me call you by your name

Why do pronouns have to get in the way

Can I call you a friend?

Without you being offended

Can I look at you as human?

Instead of looking at you all confused

Trying to see the real you

Let me call you by your name.

We all have a human experience in different ways.

An acronym shouldn't make the rules of my friendship with you

Claiming a few decades of discrimination does not compare centuries of racial pain 

Can I see you as human?

As you segregate yourself in social places and parades 

Selective of the attention you want isn't the way

Let me call you by your name.

We might not think in different ways

If you don't like what I have to say 

We can both go our separate ways

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2021

MY SPACE

Within and without in a place to understand what is it all about

Who am I when under all the lies from your lips and from mine

Secluded to the hill, I climb to the top to find what is inside

My space outside is the distance of life; infinite distance is inside.

This maze of the mind, this maze of life held in the hands of time

Never knowing what is beyond the turns, I will find

The guru says many words of truth and many words of lies.

What we think we are and what we think we have become, we hide

Throughout the world, we search for what has always been inside

My space outside is the distance of life; infinite distance is inside.

In my baggage, I collect many things that I have gathered over time. 

Collecting things will not make me free I have to understand the truth of me.

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2021

 

  

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