Simultaneous

So, the first time I saw him was at the annual city festival
 At the end of the plaza, on, uh
 Punker Hill", also known as
 The Island of Misfits
 Um, It's like a mound of black leather and army
 Surplus jackets and boots and spiky
 Egg-white hairdos and mohawks and second generation
 Exploited and Minor Threat and Sex Pistols patches and stuff
 Basically a haven for the misunderstood
 Punk-y, rock-y, goth-y, "woe is me" types
 And, uh, there he was, right in the middle of it all
 Um, oversized yellow form-rubber cowboy
 Hat; pink plastic Toys-R-Us pistols and holster
 Off-white dashiki, uh, shirt
 And tattered bell bottom jeans
 Leather feet, Raleigh cigarette finger stains
 And he was an island within an
 Island, and I just, kinda had to know more
 So, I, uhh, I sat with him for hours just
 Trying to get a bearing on his beautiful insanity
 Every third inquiry was met with, you know
 An eloquent but unusual response
 And, you know, the subsequent exchange
 It kinda warranted continuing the
 Conversation, because he was, he was interesting
 Uh, 'course the other
 The other reason my efforts where dismissed
 While he took in the constant flow of the festival crowd
 All around us
 A raging river of multi cultural river of music
 Art, food, families, uh, all of this with his Walkman at full volume
 I think it was Foreigner, playing through the headphones
 And I asked maybe, you know
 Hey maybe you could turn that down, so we can talk?", and he replied "
 Can you hear me"? and I said
 Yes", he said "
 Well, then it's fine"
 He never really pretended, not once
 To be able to organize all of this chaos that was going on around us
 Uh, he just unapologetically chose which pieces to focus on
 Well, you know
 After a few hours we seemed to have found our stride
 Found our rhythm, kinda settled into it
 And we're having these intermittent conversations
 Uh, flipping back and forth between the chaos and the focus
 And then, just kinda out of no where
 He seemed to become a little unsettled and disturbed
 And I asked him what was wrong and he just blurted out
 Peanut parents in syrup"
 And then he looked at me like I wondered what that means
 And then he said
 You have any, do you have any batteries?"
 So Basically his, his walkman was running out of power
 And he just needed batteries
 So before I could ever turn and ask one of our fellow
 Punkers for some double-A's, he grabbed my face with both hands
 And then for the first time in the entire conversation
 He, gave me his complete focus and attention
 Completely present, and calmly said
 We will never know world peace
 Until three people can simultaneously
 Look each other straight in the eye."
 Should the oceans rise
 Should the sky come falling down
 Should the islands tremble beneath a sea of better nature blossoms
 ♪
 Should the sun rain fire
 Should Hell on Earth freeze over
 And our enemies wait hungry
 See our better nature feed them
 Should the sun rain fire
 Should Hell on Earth freeze over
 And our enemies wait hungry
 See our better nature feed and calm them
 ♪
 Find a way (through, around, or over)
 Find a way (through, around, or over)
 Find a way (through, around, or over)
 Find a way (through, around, or over)
 ♪
 Find a way (through, around, or over)
 (Around, or over, around, or over, around, or over)
 Find a way (through, around, or over)
 (Around, or over, around, or over, around)
 Find a way (through, around, or over)