How Electricity Really Works :: Mike Ladd
The buildings are made of lightning
Benjamin Franklin in eternal shock
Kite with key in hand after all these years
He's the ghost atop these towers
Jumping from peak to peak
Like Jack Fost or Sandman
Very light in the distance
Haggard & shell-shocked up close
His skin sags like muddy bags of rocks from the mine
His clothes tattered and singed
He glows from radiation
It has been so many years
Oblivious to praise in his honour
His chateau in history is vacant
Bored by paintings of make-believe negroes at ambivalent feet
He discarded letters and chess
For fire from clouds
Delving in the games of gods
Basking in new decadence
Beyond women in Paris and the death of Indians
Something supernatural
The harnessing of energy
Electricity Man
Thunderstroke junkie
Fiend for sky cracking
Circuits suffer illuminating home by home
At the speed
Philly, New York, beyond
Bringing to life toys in boys' bedrooms
Tinkerbell from hell
Rumpelstiltskin with weaponry
His knickers still smoking
In wasted glee he keeps us well lit
Live from syphillis caught from power
His eyes swirl like peppermints gone wrong
This deist defrocker of Jesus
Now frocked in Eurasia robes
A sucker for issue
Ogler of Ogun
Jockying for position with these gods
Stuck in second with Santa Claus
Demigod aspirations kept him alive all these years
General Electric is a loan shark
Its hounds in sunglasses
Racing Pontiacs to catch Ben
Jumping light to light in their line of fire
Old Glow they call him
Con Ed can't find him not even by satellite
They take our money with the ambivalence of vacuums
And we pay hoping for a glimmer
We drop checks in mail slots like teeth beneath pillows
Dance a little smile
And praise the crackhead running our appliance
Old Glow got us humming
Rubbing rather comfort clinging together
Ravaged by ecstatic
Searching for the kite
Grabbing at the key
How Electricity Really Works :: Mike Ladd
The buildings are made of lightning
Benjamin Franklin in eternal shock
Kite with key in hand after all these years
He's the ghost atop these towers
Jumping from peak to peak
Like Jack Fost or Sandman
Very light in the distance
Haggard & shell-shocked up close
His skin sags like muddy bags of rocks from the mine
His clothes tattered and singed
He glows from radiation
It has been so many years
Oblivious to praise in his honour
His chateau in history is vacant
Bored by paintings of make-believe negroes at ambivalent feet
He discarded letters and chess
For fire from clouds
Delving in the games of gods
Basking in new decadence
Beyond women in Paris and the death of Indians
Something supernatural
The harnessing of energy
Electricity Man
Thunderstroke junkie
Fiend for sky cracking
Circuits suffer illuminating home by home
At the speed
Philly, New York, beyond
Bringing to life toys in boys' bedrooms
Tinkerbell from hell
Rumpelstiltskin with weaponry
His knickers still smoking
In wasted glee he keeps us well lit
Live from syphillis caught from power
His eyes swirl like peppermints gone wrong
This deist defrocker of Jesus
Now frocked in Eurasia robes
A sucker for issue
Ogler of Ogun
Jockying for position with these gods
Stuck in second with Santa Claus
Demigod aspirations kept him alive all these years
General Electric is a loan shark
Its hounds in sunglasses
Racing Pontiacs to catch Ben
Jumping light to light in their line of fire
Old Glow they call him
Con Ed can't find him not even by satellite
They take our money with the ambivalence of vacuums
And we pay hoping for a glimmer
We drop checks in mail slots like teeth beneath pillows
Dance a little smile
And praise the crackhead running our appliance
Old Glow got us humming
Rubbing rather comfort clinging together
Ravaged by ecstatic
Searching for the kite
Grabbing at the key