Cataract eyes with a shotgun shine
A naked whore's cracked face appraising
Her leathery body smothering a claustrophobic death
And I squirm, an altar boy at confession
Drugs and blood the anthrax mix of vices
Drip dried black on the forecourt floor
A faded ghost drifts by now nameless to release
The children still run and skip with 10p mix and coke

A fourteen-year-old girl with pigtails and faith
Screams like a chimpanzee's shattered soul
Crystal tinkles on sacred rock for the righteous to mourn
All the while a man of faith performs his dark confirmation
The father, son and Holy Ghost are not here
But a tortured girl is stripped bare and bleeding
Porcelain ankles buckle under gluttonous probing
No therapy left for a dead god

A white-knuckle ride, with tea for dessert
A sip of commiseration over spilt milk and broken noses
The six-pint glass boxing champ breaks hearts again
A dash of blood over pots and pans
Sunday roast cigarette burns, a lesson for the ladies
Now she knows who's boss, one slap more to keep her in her place
He loves her, so he does over two sugar and milk
Right before he beats her again for flinching in fear

Bad sided garbage homes on the wrong side of the double rails
Festered lives on the run from guns and hate
Huddled behind barbed wire fences dead babies in their arms
The living play with old mortar shells from the last civil dispute
Aids agencies run over themselves to supply the survivors
Yet generals eat the most their pockets stuffed with blood
And so on the lifeline of refugee states these nomads shuffle to death
A work of perpetual misery for newscasters to feed on

Stockings and suspenders fishnet thongs and backless bras
Short denim skirts provocatively reveal butt flesh
Knee high suede boots with stiletto heels
Her torso skimpily covered by a wrap around pink strapless top
In shops all across the land you can now buy these clothes
In the kid section you can find the gear for your cherub
To dress her up as a whore and send her out for the wolves
It is your right, in our society today, so embrace it heartily

A final verse of service a dictated hate of simply being
Why can't I be the happy ant, not knowing or seeing
The fashionable bee draped in fluid expenditure, a slave unknowing
Life drifting by, opinion polled to death by fifty-second ad breaks
Would you want my pain, a mortal on the grindstone?
A life wasted for the possibility of affording a bigger TV
Eighty years isn't enough and eternity is always out of grasp
When all I hear are the monkeys screaming

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