Five Years

Pushing through the market square.
So many mothers sighing.
News had just come over.
We had five years left to cry in.
News guy wept and told us.
Earth was really dying.
Cried so much his face was wet.
Then I knew he was not lying.

I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies.
Saw boys, toys, electric irons and TVs.
My brain hurt like a warehouse.
It had no room to spare.
I had to cram so many things to store.
Everything in there.

And all the fat-skinny people.
And all the tall-short people.
And all the nobody people.
And all the somebody people.
I never thought I'd need so many people.

A girl my age went off her head.
Hit some tiny children.
If the black hadn't a-pulled her off.
I think she would have killed them.

A soldier with a broken arm.
Fixed his stare to the wheels of a Cadillac.
A cop knelt and kiss the feet of a priest.
And a queer threw up at the sight of that.

I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour.
Drinking milk shakes cold and long.
Smiling and waving and looking so fine.
Don't think you knew you were in this song.

And it was cold and it rained.
So I felt like an actor.
And I thought of Ma.
and I wanted to get back there.

Your face, your race, the way that you talk.
I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk.

We got five years, stuck on my eyes.
We got five years, what a surprise.
We got five years, my brain hurts a lot.
We got five years, that's all we've got.