El Dorado

By Elton Wildermuth, 1993

Should I do my duty? Should I rise and shine?
Should I go to work, provide for me and mine?
Can I bear to face this ugly race of time clocks and computers,
where day by day I feel I'm being swallowed?
Daylight shreds my eyelids and the clock complains;
dragging out of bed to morning aches and pains,
I would gladly drop this bumper crop of eight o'clock commuters,
and never look around to see who followed,

But I'm caught between the furnace and the forge,
torn by horns far sharper than the moon.
I will cavil, I'll unravel;
I will travel to the grand abyss
and dangle from the precipice,
then wonder how I came to this --
to sell my dreams por un mero mercado,
when legend speaks of streets of gold
and mythic wonders bought and sold
that call aventurados bold
to seek for la ciudad de El Dorado.

I could play the hero; I could play the fool;
I could play the villain, arrogant and cruel.
Give me half a chance, and circumstance would beckon me to power,
and lead me on to beauty or damnation!
Dreams of El Dorado slowly fade away,
buried by the avalanche of passing days
when reality sits hard on me and presses me like flowers
inside the book of dues and obligations,

And I'm caught between (&c)

Do what you want! (Do what you're told!)
Do what you want! (Do what you're told!)
Do what you want! (Do what you're told!)
Do what you want!

Still I'm caught between (&c)