The Subterraneans

These children of the ancient tribes
Their cards dealt to the wheel
Ride the subway to oblivion
And tell you how to feel

Shaken by these earthquake days
Where there's nothing left to need
My unforgiving thinking ghosts
Have all but gone to seed

Reduced to the haunting hallways
In those sketches of the past
Allowed to surface daily
childhood flavours that won't last

Reduced to night sky watching
In a whole another time
Reduced to speaking Russian
On the rose-red central line

These predictions of a coming war
And tense truth-tax evasions
Piss in the halls of justice
Stall trains between the stations

They don’t question fast-track changes
To the languid laws of convention
Not in the ink mouths of the media
Nor a shortened span of attention

So down your football sedative
Take away the world’s hard edge
Pretend that you don't know me
The thin end of the wedge


February 2010

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