1. 317

We are the soil becoming dust
We are the chrome becoming rust
We are the ones you're standing on
We are the floor you dance upon
We are the wheels
We are the rails
We are the wires
We are the nails
We are the game
We are the loss
We hang upon
A double cross

2. 17th Street

Seventeenth Street
Ruthless! Ruthless!

Look through the window no one is there
No one is watching and nobody cares
All of your wishes and all of your prayers
Dead in the letters down on the stairs

Dreaming in the counting house
Watching the price per ounce
Dreaming in the counting house
Watching the dead cats bounce

Seventeenth Street
Ruthless! Ruthless!

In chapter seven surrounded by thieves
A thousand cuts later by chapter thirteen
There is a place for you somewhere they say
Down on the sidewalk or far far away

predator, I am game
Citizen is my name
Haunting a shadow house
Watching the dead cats pounce

Seventeenth Street
Ruthless! Ruthless!

3. The Grain

Far from the ridges and rivers we crossed
So in our wandering we're lost
Far from the shores, the mountains and hills
Nothing but dust moving still
Try to forget the leaves and the shade
Focus instead on the time we made
Now the horizon is nothing but sand
So we have reached the deserted land

But the grain is so fine
In your teeth in your time
But the grain is precise
In your veins, in your eyes

Nought but the sand and the night-fallen stars
Only the cold desert moon
Sound of your voice is so shocking and strange
Suddenly so out of tune
Oh how the sound of our hearts beating down
The gusting and howling will drown
There is no shade but the shadow of you
Lost in the dust of the dunes

But the grain is so fine
In your teeth in your time
But the grain is so nice
In the veins of your eyes
But the grain in the breeze
Is like fire in the trees
But the grain is precise
In the veins of your eyes

4. Staring (The 31st Floor)

Chairs were mahogany crystal was set
Finest of victuals wealth can beget
Table and Chairmen were gathered around
Portraits of patriarchs glowering down
Staring....

Heads of the families save one that was missed
20-ton specter was not on the list
Freshly cut flowers and straw in the breeze
Obvious octopus nobody sees
Staring...

And as the Chairman
Appears at the door
The specter is elsewhere
The 31st floor
An obstacle course
Of the finest decor
One ear to the bell
One eye on the door
Staring...

Racing his thoughts and fighting the tape
Pacing the cell as his fate takes the shape
Of a 20-ton specter who's not on the list
Too big to fall too bad to be missed just
Staring...

5. The Day The City Died

Seems as though the PTA has finally conquered Rome
They're gonna charge admission and enclose it in a dome
Now it's just a theme park and the rides are over-priced
Maybe you can run the one that used to be your life

TICs and refugees are scattered far and wide
And many tales are told about the day The City died
Painted ladies faint before the speculator's eye
The gravy boat will always float until the bay runs dry

and everybody sighed
and gets all misty eyed
about the day the city died

This one's called I'm moving to Oakland
This one's called I'm moving to Portland
This one's called I'm moving to Brooklyn now

Prospectors and pushers still conspire to subdivide
And many tales are told about the day The City died
Skinny dips on crystal ships sail through the Golden Gate
I left my heart in a shopping cart at the bottom of the Bay

and everybody sighed
and gets all misty eyed
about the day the city died

This one's called I'm getting addicted
This one's called I'm getting evicted
This one's called another one moving away

This one's called I'm moving to Austin
This one's called I'm moving to London
This one's called somewhere in L.A.

This one's called I'm moving to Boston
This one's called I'm moving to Berlin
This one's called I'm off to Savannah, GA

This one's called I'm moving to Glasgow
This one's called I'm moving to Moscow
This one's called I'm moving to Detroit today

6. Romance Valley

Someone call the water
It's freezing up the spokes
Like any deal or device
It worked until it broke
Whistle past the graveyard
Where the river runs uphill
Let us juice the roundheels
No ink is gonna spill

Your insiders – Newborn spiders
Starve the sentry – Clear re-entry

Thoroughbreds who should be dead
Run faster 'round the track
All the swans down at the pond
Are turning turning black

Crumpled up and sodden
Receipts upon the floor
Trodden on and trampled in
The stampede to the door
Dance between the raindrops
And cue the violins
All the river-boaters know
The killer always wins

7. Summer Tears

And in Winter she cried
December tears
And in Summer she cried
August tears
And in Autumn she cried
November tears
And in Springtime she cried
April tears

On the fat of the land
The sacred calf, the fatted lamb

Cry Cassandra, while you can

The salted earth, a grain of sand
These salty eyes don't understand
Soon there won't be time to cry
Buried up to her film-projector eyes

And in Winter she cried
December tears
And in Summer she cried
August tears
And in Autumn she cried
November tears
And in Springtime she cried
April tears

But now she hasn't any tears to spare
So she doesn't cry at all

Sing Cassandra, all night long

now she knows what eyes are for
now she knows what tears are for
now she knows that summers gone
now she'll squander tears no more

Cry Cassandra all night long

8. Grey Wednesday

Wednesday and the wolves are at the door
Goldilocks is dizzy smelling war
Beyond the bitter end
Nothing left to send

From on high the chamber can observe
Scale of the sentence to be served
Balance of your life
Spend it catching knives

Wednesday is grey again
Can you remember when she smiled
When will she smile again?

When the till is nil you'll take the store
When the lake runs dry you'll take the shore
Yes you taught us well
See you all in hell

Grey Wednesday cloudy skies
When the horizon lies in bed
Can't face another day
Grey Wednesday walks away
No love to send today she said
and then she faded away

9. Going Somewhere

Shanks' mare, threadbare
Saturnine pace
Never quite there
What is this place?

Where did you wake up?
Going Somewhere?
Picking a path through a ruined estate
Where did you end up?
Going Somewhere?
Wandering through a forsaken domain

There was a door, but not anymore my friend
Now there is only a road
we take to the end
Before this wreck
Will sail again

There was a chance, a circumstance left to defend
Now there is only a road
We take to the end
Until this wreck
Can sail again

Things once so plain
Now seem so out of place
Transformed landscape
Trail of those displaced

This wreck will sail again
Going somewhere, going somewhere