Everybody looks so ill at ease
So distrustful so displeased
Running down the table

I see a borderline
Like a barbed wire fence
Strung tight, strung tense

Prickling with pretense
A borderline


Why are you smirking at your friend?
Is this to be the night when
All well-wishing ends?

All credibility revoked?
Thin skin, thick jokes!
Can we blame it on the smoke

This borderline?

Every bristling shaft of pride

Church or nation
Team or tribe
Every notion we subscribe to

Is just a borderline
Good or bad, we think we know
As if thinking makes things so!

All convictions grow along a borderline

Smug in your jaded expertise

You scathe the wonder world
And you praise barbarity
In this illusionary place-

This scared hard-edged rat race
All liberty is laced with
Borderlines


Every income, every age
Every fashion-plated rage

Every measure, every gauge
Creates a borderline
Every stone thrown through glass

Every mean-streets-kick $$#
Every swan caught on the grass
Will draw a borderline


You snipe so steady
You snub so snide-

So ripe and ready
To diminish and deride!
You're so quick to condescend

My opinionated friend
All you deface, all you defend
Is just a borderline

Just a borderline ...
Another borderline ...
Just a borderline