Speechless
In Montreal
where Europe meets America
I saw Leonard Cohen’s house
and that was good
since it was the jazz festival
there were bands playing on the street corners
like I knew they always would
and a surrogate sister
took me in her arms and said
‘Hey Andy, welcome to the New World’
I was speechless
Speechless
In Toronto
they’ve got the longest street in the world
and on it I found a place called
‘The Beat Bookshop’
I went in to buy a 25￠ trash novel
called ‘Stranger in our Midst’
round the corner
in an electrical store
an old man looked me in the eyes
he said ‘Son, you look speechless’
Speechless
In Washington and Philadelphia
the driving seat of this whole big country
I saw the endless horizons
parcelled up real neat
and delivered as a skyscraper in a street
the guy selling matchsticks
in the hotel lobby
the homeless queueing
outside the White House for food
left me speechless
Speechless
New York heat hit me late one night
going down to the convenience store
with big Stevie for a beer
something about the subway steam
the way cigarettes never taste
the way they do round here
and the guy playing the drums
in the back of a bus
and the rappers down on
6th Avenue and 13th Street
left me speechless
Speechless
Rain swept the Chicago streets clean
a bright shiny city all covered in lights
a clean girl from the Mid-West
told me this city’s so good
they didn’t need to name it twice
a second city wind
blew from across the lake
we had a bottle of wine outside for Bobby’s sake
and I was speechless
Speechless
By the time we hit Texas
our Irish skin had nearly fried
and we saw the faceless place
where in 1963
they said America died
me and Liam in a diner
you know they said our accents were outrageous
even though we were speechless
Speechless
Last stop was Atlanta
so deep in the South
the sky was clouding over
and the music came tumbling out
then the phone rang like something from a cable movie scene
calling me home from that American dream
speechless
I was speechless
Speechless
in the hotel lobby
speechless
with my life on a trolley
speechless
like the letters I never wrote
speechless
with a lump in my throat
Then the night came dark
the moon turned black
the rain fell up and the wind blew back
I was speechless
Speechless
Just now I saw the bloated belly
of a starving child
matchstick arms and an old man’s eyes
sitting on a skull too weak to cry
he’d watched his family slowly die
in some forgotten corner of Africa
they said foreign aid was dropping
because of the war
I was speechless
Watching TV till late tonight
since the bulbs were gone
it was by candlelight
the night was dark
the moon turned black
the rain fell up and the wind blew back
and every ten seconds flashing on the screen
were the bloody banners of the American war machine
I was speechless
And the President pleading
support the war
won’t somebody tell me
what we were fighting it for
Speechless
The same now
as it was then
for we are the hollow men
our heads stuffed with straw
we are the hollow men
our heads stuffed with straw
The night fades
till we’re deep in the darkness
and we drop.
The light fades
till we’re deep in the darkness
and we drop
Speechless
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