The world keeps clanging on
Pulleys hiss and rise and fall
Cities on my tongue belch; bellow -
Rotten industry!
Big and small inside my bones
And ribs and heart, and me
I cannot stand, I cannot rise
I am held back by the tides
Of seas of grey and cyanide
And blood-born waves of things inside
Sentiments that I can’t hide
(Though, believe me, I have tried)

There it is -
My sinister smile taped to a mirror on the wall!
(If I could wear my wheat, would I bother at all?)


Drop your eyes -

For the world answers only to poison and sweat!

(That falls as blood on all our heads)


I have tried to rectify
Elucidate, justify
I have danced out in the rain
I have slept with the bones of saints
But everything ends up the same -
With coal dust in the cracks