Terminal Bar Video (MV)

I've been around the world since last I've been here
You all look the same, but so much has changed
This beer tastes so much better than before
For I've been stuck in the ditch, frustrated, angry
Swearing my head off and freezing my soul
On an old engine seems it won't start again
Picked apart by vultures, armchair critics, foes and friends
Who seem to have lost the art of folly
Awoken
In nightmares of will, stranded
By endless news of defeat
While the omnipotent beat of war doesn't cease, I wonder
How can we be the monsters in the shadows?
I've been captured in a rank and file line
Having to salute to avoid getting shot
While cavorting with witches, debutants, and saints
Who've sent my soul and body spinning
Painfully in frightful enchantment
Hurled out of my flesh, I've retreated to depths
Where I've had to face myself alone
In dark caverns of the helpless void
Where convenient rope ladders of mediocrity
Will not do
Where no faint light of hope is enough
To sustain the withering buds of innocence and youth
It was here I had to cross the line
To usher in new life,
Shuddering in fear and awkward, blinding hatred
For soldiers stampeding their own promised heaven
Far from bliss of dew, close to hunger growling
Revulsion how far
From enduring solutions, sanity, or understanding?
Ravaging Earth with terror
Displacing babies, families, and lovers
Born and unborn generations will come
Bludgeoning life, spilling blood for Earth's oil
Expensing forests for concrete
Air and water for raping
Life's force, raging, fracked, feverishly heating
Oceans choking, her drying crust quakes
While small and mighty minds delight
In throwing stones to protect thrones
Squinting from mirrors reflecting
The inner light of our own short sight
There cannot be a war on terror
When the ultimate terror is war
Nor does hatred grow from a void
Innocent, we are born seeking
Love, warm affection, and tender coddling
Before our love becomes feared through slogans on the street
Perceptions ill-conceived
Imagination hammered into paths of least resistance
Convenient retreats of material seclusion
As tears dry from sacrificing years gone by
While the big clock of human destiny
Ticks in sync with our mortal heartbeats
Violently seeking peace, spitefully loving
Struggling to find light and potency
To not hate, or act
In a manner in which the means contradict the aim.
Sedulously growing an independent shuffle
Entwined with the dew of possible passion
Horizons we may never cross but must always keep alive
For futures we will never know, dependent on our hours
I've been more discerning of these alleyways
Challenging, not relinquishing, tough, unrewarded love
Tingling and aching, feverishly aglow
I feel I've been around the world one hundred times
Since last I've been here with you
And calm is my soul
I'm ready now
To embrace my imperfect mortality
Seize this vital season in our history
Without stampeding to the next, ignoring its effects
Smelling plastic roses, fearing a phantom enemy
Will jaded hearts reawaken
From schemes of accepted deceit
And routines of deathful living?
In those caverns of the helpless void
I've seen a grim face
Stand between pride and a smile of grace
In mirrors others help compose but cannot cross
Shall we turn inside ourselves to wring the fear and hatred out
Forgive the past and try again
To glimpse, convey and realize the dawn
And like a cocoon from which tender wings evolve
Let this soulful night fade on