Ode to Lady Jane

Lady Jane pours out all her hourglass dreams
As her lover begins to untie his lobotomy's seams
They act out classical tragedies by the electric candlelight
And lay their selves to rest under white sheets of light
The ten-foot-long long balancing beam evens out in the end
And the knots in his throat are simple enough to mend
In the other room they're celebrating Picasso
As the headmaster returns with his fluorescent lasso
They test people like hypotheses about the speed limit
Holding them over the fire and roasting them on a spit
And poor Lily begins to feel queasy at their sheer ecstasy
The other girls they just run along and squeal in their glee
The planets collide one on another under a slanted eye
And molten cosmic mass flows between the hills that die
He says "I can't love you when you're in love with oppression"
Their glances are on the societal level like a divided nation
Through weaving tunnels overlapped by pine trees
And under the floating of autumn's errant leaves
The urban road curls like a centipede's legged line
As headlights peer past the glaring speed limit sign
She blows out the candles with a whistle
Her breath blaring in the night like a missile
It lingers in the air like mustard gas from the war in May
And you ask yourself, isn't that where we are anyway?
The situation has changed, but not the people or places
Anywhere you go, there's sure to be stranger faces
Anywhere you go, you can see the invisible shoes walking along
With the invisible men and women of the times who talk along
The radio abyss smooths and soothes the airwaves
With its thin hairy fur standing up on end in raves
Meowing of its misery, it begins to quiet with us
And curls up to sleep, now much less dangerous
We dodge the tricks, we crawl through the crevices
Trying to pin us on the wall by our own devices
Like each other cockroach man who was trapped
Once they found out the halls were always mapped
No matter how they deny it, the melody persists
Against the truth of what was and what is
It seeps through the permeated fabrics on the carpet
And bleeds away in thinning shades of scarlet
The figures of wax leave now, their departure overdue
With each used magic lamp, they realize there's nothing they can do
Dissolving into the quiet, dropping into the sewer's drain
Sliding away, being spirited off by the night's cool rain
Lady Jane looks on, after giving each a bow
She'd like to do the same right about now
But she has no escape from this impermeable earth
And young still is the night's glowing hearth
"The show must go on!" comes the cry from the other room
Yeah it's easy to say so when you aren't dealing with your own doom
The night flickers away as they each do what they know they must
And with the morning leave with nothing but regret and new mistrust
But in the end, it's alright, because the trail of ants is gone
They've packed up ship and all have moved on
They don't bother with questions of what is "True"
They're leaving now, and we think you should too