as so with that, I thought I'd take a final walk
the tide of public opinion had started to abate
the neighbours, bless them, had turned out to be all talk
I could see their frightened faces
peering at me through the gate

I was looking for an end of this, for some kind of closure
time moved so rapidly, I had no hope of keeping track of it
I thought of my friends who had died of exposure
and I remembered other ones who had died from the lack of it

and in my best shoes I started falling forward down the street
I stopped at a church and jostled through the crowd
and love followed just behind me, panting at my feet
as the steeple tore the stomach from a lonely little cloud

inside I sat, seeking the presence of a god
I searched through the pictures in a leather-bound book
I found a wooly lamb dozing in an issue of blood
and a gilled jesus shivering on a fisherman's hook

back on the street I saw a great big smiling sun
it was a good day and an evil day and all was bright and new
and it seemed to me that most destruction was being done
by those who could not choose between the two

amateurs, dilettantes, hacks, cowboys, clones
the streets groan with little caesars, napoleons and cunts
with their building blocks and their tiny plastic phones
counting on their fingers, with crumbs down their fronts

I passed by your garden, saw you with your flowers
the magnolias, camelias and azaleas so sweet
and I stood there invisible in the panicking crowds
you looked so beautiful in the rising heat

I smell smoke, see little fires bursting on the lawns
people carry on regardless, listening to their hands
great cracks appear in the pavement, the earth yawns
bored and disgusted, to do us down

these streets are frozen now, I come and go
full of a longing for something I do not know
my father sits slumped in the deepening snow
as I search, in and out, above, about and below