Memento Mori - Patti Smith

The fan whirling like the blades of a copter

Lifting into the skies above a foreign land

Fire and iron soaked with the bodies of so many friends

Johnny waved.

He was on his way home

He waved good-bye to his comrades in arms

And all the twisted things he had seen

He waved good-bye

And the blades hit something

Maybe just fate but the blades hit

The copter went up in flames

And Johnny never went marching home

They took his name and they carved it on a slab of marble

With several thousand other names

All the fallen idols

The apples of their mother’s eye

Just another name

Meanwhile back on the burning shore

Johnny’s comrades stood speechless

They looked with misbelieving eyes

Cause there were bits of metal and the embers

The embers of his eyes fanned out in the air

Black dust flames.

Oh Johnny

Someday they’ll make a movie about you

And in the making of that movie, some mad apocalypse

It will become even stranger than the simple act

Just a boy going up.

Up.

Up.

In flames the smoke

Just another life

Just another breath

And who’ll remember

Oh eternity now

As eternal as a sheet of marble

Eternal as a slab

On a green hill

And your name

And all your fallen brothers

And all the ones not cut

All the ones remembered

Only in the hearts

A mother a father a brother

A sister a lover son daughter

Young man shall not fade shall not fade

Your ancestors salute you greet you

And the gods of your ancestors salute you

Having been formed by the mind of your ancestors

The gods of your ancestors salute you

Having been formed by your ancestors

The gods of your ancestors salute you

They draw you in

They draw you through

They draw they draw you

Through that golden door

Come on boy

We remember you

We conceived you

We conceived of your breath

We conceived of the whole human race

And we conceived it to be a beautiful thing

Like a tulip bending in the wind

Sometimes it comes back to us

In the form of the hand filled with dust

Comes back in the form of a smitten child

Our raped daughters

The broken bones

Souls cleaved of hearts

They come back to us

Our hands are filled

With their rotting tissues

But we turn not our backs

We press our lips

Into their cancer

Into the dust

Into the remains of each one

And that love is there

And will greet you

Come on in boy

It’s eternal love

Well here go ahead

Run through that plane

Oh man running through your mind

You took a cat

You took a life

You took it by the tail

And you swirled it around your head

And you thrashed it

You smashed the life out of it

Then you knew that would be your own

But you wanted to feel the dying

Because you knew

You would feel your own

But you’re remembered

You’re remembered

You’re remembered good

We remember

Everything