Stories of the Street

The stories of the street are mine
The Spanish voices laugh
The Cadillacs go creeping now
Through the night and the poison gas
And I lean from my window sill
In this old hotel I chose
Yes, one hand on my suicide
One hand on the rose

I know you've heard it's over now
And war must surely come
The cities they all broke in half
And the middlemen are gone
But let me ask you one more time
O children of the dusk
All these hunters who are shrieking now
Oh, do they speak for us?
And where do all these highways go
Now that we are free?
Why are the armies marching still
That were coming home to me?

O lady with your legs so fine
O stranger at your wheel
You are locked into your suffering
And your pleasures are the seal
The age of lust is giving birth
And both the parents ask
The nurse to tell them fairy tales
On both sides of the glass
And now the infant with his cord
Is hauled in like a kite
And one eye filled with blueprints
One eye filled with night

O come with me my little one
We will find that farm
And grow us grass and apples there
And keep all the animals warm
And if by chance I wake at night
And I ask you who I am
O take me to the slaughterhouse
I will wait there with the lamb
With one hand on the hexagram
And one hand on the girl
I balance on a wishing well
That all men call the world

We are so small between the stars
So large against the sky
And lost among the subway crowds
I try to catch your eye