CONTENT WARNING: HOMOPHOBIC SLURS, WHOREPHOBIC SLURS

Cold specks of rain
cutting through the air
like little sparks of nerve-ending
freeze the city in motion
sting my face and arms
carve a window in the air
drape themselves in sheets about me
Oh my Lord, have mercy on us, have mercy

Eeeingghughurttttgh
shouts a tram
Eeeingghughurttttgh
as it draws a death rattle
from its metal lungs.
We see it all,
My Lord, my Lamb, my
Lord, we thaw this city’s frozen heart.

We stone the Whore of Babylon,
or Iraq,
some fucking place, at any rate:
“I don’t care, just don’t want them here!”
screams the well-informed gent
on the steps of the State Library
who hates the towel-heads and the fags
and the feminists. He’s a nothing, but a vast one.
And I wonder from whose fount of wisdom
he’s been drinking,
my Lord?
I really wonder.

What’s this? A great heaving Mass,
a breathing mess of youth:
placards and cries
fire and righteousness
so many hopes, and even more fears.
What would they know, my Lord,
what would they know, the silly things,
being scared of what each day brings.
Besides, we know what they really chant,
don’t we, my Big Guy?
We hear what they weep
as they hold themselves
or each other at night:
Dona nobis pacem.
Dona nobis pacem.
We hear their whimperings,
we hear what hot mouths beg in the dark,
we hear them Lord, if others won’t:
Dona nobis pacem.

I searched through the broad streets, Lord,
for the one I love: she was not there.
I searched for the one I love
with her mouth full of sheep:
she was not there.
I did find a Minister without a face
being unspeakable with Beelzebub
in a bar full of suits, though;
career politician that he is,
he hopes to cuddle Satan soon enough.

I searched through the broad streets.
Ubi caritas et amor
…Deus ibi est?
Yeah, that’d be the fucking day (no offence, Lord).

Youthful tears on a pillow beg for mercy,
for their creator, or someone less fortunate,
or for the middle-class demons breeding in our minds.
I think my love (not you, Lord, the other one)
who wafted into my life like a pillar of smoke
and who smiles with fear every day,
I think she might be the one drenching me
in this cold, grey rain now.

She sings so sweetly, Lord,
and I can only chant
after her teeth like flocks
cresting a bloody wave.

So anyway, weren’t you meant to take our sins from us?
They seem to be breeding all around,
incubating
in the glowing fuzz from cameras
carried
by neurotic kids who salivate at mirrors
made flesh
in the avant-garde millionaires who are
so outrageous–
and let’s not get started on the things that dance
in my skull.

Dona nobis pacem
dona nobis
pacem
pacem

Eeeingghughurttttgh
My tram!
I have to run, my Lord,
I have some pretty pills to eat.
So it’s goodbye,
farewell,
and
aaaaaaaa
meeeeeeeeen!