the old madmen are all going blind
as the orphan buys a uniform
and takes his place in line
where the beggar sees a boxer
punching craters in the sand
in an advertisement next to where
the new cathedral stands
the firemen are all laughing at the rain
through the ringing of an ambulance
and cries of the insane
who crawled out of the newspapers
with sewage in their hands
and made their way down the interstate
to the downtown coffee stands
I don’t remember anything but you
we’ve been pushed around forever
and the sun is going down over you
doing time in the prison of the mind
holding out in the shadow of a star
falling down from the weight of all the lies
running out of the person that you are
the fortune teller wants the planets to align
but Mercury’s in retrograde
and Jupiter won’t shine
she’ll never know why the troubadour went blind
or why the world came together
on the day that heaven died