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Oh I know everybody here's been dying to get back to Rosemont Street |
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But that road was made of flesh and now it's dead and now it's beat |
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The sun burnt past every rock across the street from that cracked lot |
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Detroit air just breaths away and that sun died in a petrified way |
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Onto the driveway, table napkins blown away |
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Into the alleyway and summer is the strangest time of day |
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I've seen beauty far upstate |
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A century is all it takes |
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To turn a homestead to the ground |
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But there is one thing that I found |
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I ain't seen these things in vain |
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And deep outside the siren's wailing far from me on the still night |
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And through the yards the spores are sailing on the toes of those dreams in flight |
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To the north...back and forth |
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Our moments make us off-ramp islands where language tramps and falls to silence |
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Oh to forget...the T.V. set |
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And images of stranger feelings rape our walls and wallpaper our ceilings |
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I've seen beauty far upstate |
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A century is all it takes |
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To turn a homestead to the ground |
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But there is one thing that I found |
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I ain't seen these things in vain |
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I was born to the lawnmower's crying |
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And the drying of our gilded lot |
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Trust in God when our roofs are sighing, again |
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And the hill is crying thanks a lot |
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Watertowers are drunker than grandfathers |
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But they're equally happy |
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All that's golden was once eternally unfoldin' |
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Now dusktime is the glimpse to see it... |
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But I'm a burstin' piece, a questionin' priest, like a politician out east |
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I've seen swimming pools full of darkness, on the brightest moonlit nights |
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And I've seen fairgrounds, heard their sounds, and in that ground lies just what I've found |
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Basements are now all we got with decade shades and days that rot |
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Landbirds flew over my head, flag at half mast no one is dead |
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Oh I know that that's not true, but we're so desp'rate, what else can we do? |
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I've seen beauty far upstate |
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A century is all it takes |
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To turn a homestead to the ground |
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But there is one thing that I found |
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I ain't seen these things in vain |
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And everybody dying here has made it back to Rosemont Street |
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The roses shake, the sidewalk aches and Detroit air is hissing at our feet |
