No more sweat and no more grip
Watch the rising bullet stick
Fading faster than a knife
In between the pale sunrise
Life is short and willing tries
To push me in a way that lies
Whence wanton men, they pa**ed their lives
In Spanish suits and cut the tides
Of French Egyptian profligate men
Surrounded in their fortress pin
Pasting notice of their plan
To reach the end of life, of men
On the rooftops, they are chatting
About the scene below
The alley dogs in Division Street
Have come to see the show
While the madman, he is hiding
Behind a pocket full of lies
Buying his loneliness with a
Gleam in his eyes
He seems so slightly doubtful
He is driven to his knees
Is polishing up his spectacles
So that he may finally see
His friend, the one-eyed horseman
Who can only pantomime
Who lacks any sort of substance
But offers thanks in which he chimes
In a littered pilgrim smile
He nods at him
And thumbs his nose
The medicine-bottle-black magician
Screams then shouts his prose
He wears his fine gray linen
While looking like a stray
“A whale” he said, “consumed me
And then took me away
And told me that of future earthly matters
That really could not matter less, all
Depend on the shape
Of the planet, I guess”
All along Division Street, soldiers sing
While their mothers weep
They shuffle in one by one
Lining up like trampling sheep
They took down all the posters
Of the president's election
Avoiding any instance
Of considerable reflection
The bells have rung the wedding
The gypsy grabs your hand, and asks
“which direction are you heading?”
As they empty out their flasks
The business men stake their claims
As the horn blowers play
The vendor sells concessions
To street patrons who pay
For endless entertainment
At the price of none
While begetting all formality
Which in their minds they shun
The fat men take their ice baths
They curse their own two feet
For being without rhythm
They cannot keep a beat
And below the organ grinder
Is playing in the street
As they inquire to see the owner
So they can get the better seats
They are drawing up their contracts
Pushing the news through the wire
Phoning influential intellectuals
And posting up their fliers
And outside
The policeman show
The horses neigh
And the crowds bellow
The street children play
The spaniels bark
Through muzzled nets
While sings the lark
And quietly the dancer
Moans for him
Filling her gla** to the tip
With dry vermouth that she brings to sip
With fingertips to vermillion lips
Then she came and s**ered in
The bastion-lying simpleton
Who raised his eye when she was gone
And destroyed his tongue by giving in
Now his soul is plowed, halo undone
Looking for the only one
Sunlight shone in through his teeth
His fingers broke, he filled with grief
Quickly trembled into a fix
Of shaken, broken pick-up sticks
Now, you can hardly recognize his face
He sleeps in back pockets of empty space
In constant memory of a mermaid who
Chased him down a rabbit hole
Where he found statues of
Gla** elephants and seashell shoals
He found her naked in the mirror
He took her for her every word
While she left him in the hanger
Left him singing like the bird
My teeth are growing gritty
My tongue is full of dust
My piranha hands are melting
My Bedouin feet smell of musk
My lambast, my tears, my echoes
My hungry-tired talk
My nerve-ridden laughter
My feet can hardly walk
I ran into Saint Augustine
He made me feel it in my bones
Fed me in the church
Followed me where I was thrown
He said, “Boy I'd do anything to not wind up in a
World like this”
“don't you know there's no good or bad?
Everything simply exists.”
Always had I forgotten
I was lost, mistook, and gone
I never quite understood
Whose side I was on
He says, “Life is quite, like that,” you know
“It's often unafraid
To make you feel so una**ured
And in the end so n'ave.”
I found what you had left behind
Took my head for a cure
Found them in the back of the street
And gave them every word
The word is often hidden
Is left inside of books
But if you leave it up to me
I'll tell you where to look
Division Street is ruined
Is stocked full of unhonest men
Corrupted by the crooks
And chiefs; the captains
Of our crimes
The clowns hound you for your gifts
They make you give up all your toys
And don't decide on leaving ‘til
They've stripped you of all joys
Seventy-seven angry men laugh
At the poet in the streets
The organ grinder
Makes a joke
About how bad he's beat
Everything that's broken
Every forgotten knave
Is never realized
And gone from people on the page
I could not care less for anyone
Who is not on my side
I've bargained with a thousand men
Seen a man tell lies
I've lost out on everything
By which you've lived your life
And mostly I am sickened by
This side of paradise
I am not a prophet
I do not claim to know
Anything about Division Street
That you didn't already know
But I have grown so tired
Left feeling so very gamed
So left behind on everyone
And in the end a name
In the end of everything
All I've ever felt is used
But Division Street is calling me
I've missed its rag-waif blues