Ken Hall

Precipitated by an actual event.  I really met this gentleman crying, spent some time with him and finally delivered him to a VA Hospital for treatment for his depression.  How many more casualties of war are there like him? How many lives unfulfilled?  How many children never born of fathers that never healed?
 

Met a old man on the street today. He smelled a bit like wine
He asked me for a dollar and if I had the time
to sit a spell and chat a while and listen to his tale
of another life, another time, his journey into hell.
 
When you counted all the bodies did you count Ken Hall,
Old man now on skid row with his back against the wall?
Crying over soldiers he killed so long ago,
Crying over men he didn't even know...
 
Said his name was Hall and he soon began to cry
As he told me of his war scars I had to question why
The headlines cried so loudly, sixty thousand killed
But they didn't count the casualties whose blood was never spilled.
 
When you counted all the bodies did you count Ken Hall,
Old man now on skid row with his back against the wall?
Crying over people he killed so long ago,
Crying over men he didn't even know...
 
Said he knew a girl one time; they may have had a kid
But that was 'fore the war and all the things he did
And he said he'd lived his life and died a thousand times
Never knew a moments peace reliving all his crimes
 
When you counted all the bodies did you count Ken Hall,
Old man now on skid row with his back against the wall?
Crying over children he killed so long ago,
Dying over kids he didn't even know...
 

The Kult
 
Remember what the pontiff of poison says - "thou shalt love thyself."
Put your dreams of life, my friend, back up on the shelf!
"Surrender all" and watch it fall.  There's nothing you can see.
Is that the way that life is, friend - "the way it's meant to be?"
 
And the pontiff's girl, I love them all you know, she came down here from hell
Rubbin' elbows with the dead and all the others who fell
Off the star that shot across that cold dark October night
Teaching all the secret code and tryin' to get it right!
 
But I don't hear her bullshit you know - I got secrets of my own
And I'm sure that she will find herself at home alone
With perhaps Captain Courageous after the pontiff is gone
(The Captain is kool - she's been to school but she hasn't learned a thing)
 
Yes - the Captain stopped by with ole Albert you know (and his PHD)
Then they left us to our own device and flew up in the tree...
And just to think there's thousands more crawling on the ground
Calling to each other all the secrets they never found

Right in front of the main clock tower - yeah - they said it's in their hearts
But none of 'em know the way to peace - only to loneliness!
 
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