'Is it Possible to Engineer Desire? '
(commercial for a Lexus car)


It's like playing games with fire. Desire is little understood
The energy on which its heart relies for food
Is liable to melt down from its own toxicity

Yes, with desire there's much that can go wrong
It can turn out pitifully weak, a hundred times too strong
Or reckless in its hunger for pain and publicity

It's a complex secret formula, so just be sure
To avoid the myriad mistakes that were made before
Like when they tried to build the perfect man

Maybe you could do it in the factories in China
They'll make anything out there and they often make it finer.
If you lack the means to buy it, they'll ensure you can

A few skilled engineers are working deep under the ground
To build a pure state of desire, from substances burned
By love's blue flame, contemptuous of surfaces that rust

But all the corporate alchemists can conjure up, it's clear
Is envy first and foremost, lust for curved metallic gear
Functional at best, corroding most of us.