sipping warm gatorade
in front of a decrepit grocery store
 cigarette butts
    and bottle caps
dripping with yesterday's vigor
     and today's
nonchalance

it was like
  the first time
i heard them

the first notes
 d r i f t e d   from the window
    of a battered amc
    sliding up the curb
and       cleverly
    took hold of my collar
 and moved me
like
    a marionette

  these first notes
provided sweet   pollution
 for raw young hearts
like  my  own
grabbing us by
  the throat
   in 3/4 timing
heads bobbing
(oh yeah oh yeah
         oh  y e a h)

  there was
a new call to arms
   you know it well

"1, 2, 3, 4!"

armies had risen
  in the wake
of that call

we gathered
  in dirty nightclubs
   on our skateboards
under the shadow
      of the brooklyn bridge
we outlined strategies
  in the backs of
used record stores
   began to plant
the seeds of disc chord
  in the ears
of the sleeping
yeah
  we wanted the airwaves
we were
 too tough
to die

we waited
  patiently
for the past to die

time passed
 and our gods
passed with them
  just in time
before they became
what we hated

what they were fated
        to become

  we're now older
but i don't think wiser
  except for the talent
to see through bullshit
  when we hear it

hey joey
  i'm not sure 
what you meant
by all of it
  but i'm pretty sure
you meant well enough

  in the meantime
i watch the kids outside
  as they recruit new blood
and plot
 and wait

and i feel a little
wiser