Golden Blunders

by Jonathan Auer

Golden blunders come in pairs
They're very unaware
What they know is what they've seen
Education wasn't fun
But now that school is done
Higher learning's just begun

You're gonna watch what you say for a long time
You're gonna suffer the guilt forever
You're gonna get in the way at the wrong time
You're gonna mess up things you thought you would never

Disappointment breeds contempt
It make you feel inept
Never thought you'd feel alone at home
'His and hers' forever more
Throw your freedom out of the door
Before you find out what it's for

Four weeks seemed like a long time then
But nine months is longer now
And even if you never speak again
You've already made the wedding vow

Honeymoons will never start
Bonds will blow apart
Just as fast as they were made
Men and women, please beware
Don't pretend you care
Nothing lasts when nothing's there

Brooklyn's on Fire

by Nicole Atkins

Friday nights on the seventh floor
Paperbacks on the corner store
Looking over the ledge
The sidewalk traffic starts to spread
Summer's begun across the bay
And no bit of silence remains

Oh, Brooklyn's on fire
And fills July hearts with desire
Sleep will not come until the morn
'Cause tonight your memories are born

And the band's not begun just yet
Fifty names you're bound to forget
Black and blue on the lakes
Wear badges from happier days
Late in the night, in '84
Walked in through the old out door

I'm caught in the way
Of tears from much happier days
When we were young and unafraid
Of stupid mistakes that we made

Oh, Brooklyn's on fire
And fills July hearts with desire
Sleep will not come until the morn
'Cause tonight your memories are born

Mending Wall

by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

There Is a Reason

by Randall Goodgame

Late at night I wonder why, sometimes I wonder why
Sometimes I'm so tired I don't even try
Seems everything around me fails
But I hold onto the promise
That there is a reason

Late at night the darkness makes it hard to see
The history of the saints who've gone in front of me
Through famine, plague, and disbelief
His hand was still upon them
'Cause there is a reason

He makes all things good
There's a time to live, a time to die
A time for wondering, to wonder why
'Cause there is a reason
There is a reason

I believe that God who sent His only Son
To walk upon this world and give His life for us
With blood and tears on a long dark night
And know that he believed
There is a reason

The lonely nights, the broken hearts
The widow's mite in the rich man's hand
And the continent whose blood becomes a traitor
A child afraid to close his eyes
The prayers that seem unanswered
There is a reason

He makes all things good
There's a time to live, a time to die
A time for wondering, to wonder why
'Cause there is a reason
There is a reason

Brick

by Ben Folds

Six AM, day after Christmas
I throw some clothes on in the dark
The smell of cold, car seat is freezing
The world is sleeping, I am numb

Up the stairs to her apartment
She is balled up on the couch
Her mom and dad went down to Charlotte
They're not home to find us out

And we drive
Now that I have found someone
I'm feeling more alone
Than I ever have before

She's a brick, and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast, and I'm headed nowhere
She's a brick, and I'm drowning slowly

They call her name at 7:30
I pace around the parking lot
And I walk down to buy her flowers
And sell some gifts that I got

Can't you see
It's not me you're dying for?
Now she's feeling more alone
Then she ever has before

As weeks went by
It showed that she was not fine
They told me, 'Son it's time to tell the truth'
And she broke down
And I broke down
'Cause I was tired of lying

Driving back to her apartment
For the moment we're alone
Yeah she's alone, and I'm alone
Now I know it

She's a brick, and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast, and I'm headed nowhere
She's a brick, and I'm drowning slowly