David Wirsig Sunken City
there's a hole in the barbed wire fence by the bench where we first met
it's big enough to fit a person if you squeeze
if you don't mind a couple scrapes you could escape, you could come with me
but you've got to crawl through on your hands and knees
last night lightning hit the shed, knocked the generators dead
stick close to the walls, keep out of sight
we haven't got too long before the floodlights come back on;
we're going to make a break for it tonight
once you're past, there's no path, just head straight for the coastline
'till the ground beneath your feet gives way
to cracked up concrete pulverized by the ocean's crashing tides
I'd really like to take you there someday
back before your life began, this was interstate 110
connecting city suburbs one by one
until an earthquake from the depths dragged it down with all the rest
leaving all of our accomplishments undone
it's almost eighty miles long, a relic of a world long gone
it's a sign and it serves to remind
that California is crumbling into the ocean
it's just doing it one piece at a time
there's no metropolis out there. just dirt and dusty air
but I swear I see a city inside of you
your face is like a skyline. your hair, a thatch power lines
and your mouth is Mulholland Ave.
and if somehow we survive when the trebuchets subside
I will teach you every hymn this world forgot
and we'll sing propaganda songs of wars we don't remember
God free me from the burden of my thoughts