Richard Ii

Soon you'll be burning orphanages down

Watching ashes scattering all over town

And when the smoke gets too close to the ground

You'll see blue trampling over gray and green over brown

And you'll be cutting ears off of dead men

Pumping shells into the carcass for hours on end

Then you'll swear that we've always been friends

And be unable to conceive it could ever happen again

Of course, you have never been to blame

For the various horrible things that you did

You may have gotten away with them too

If not for those meddling kids

The lump in your throat, the ache in your bones

They are nobody's fault but your own

And whatever amount you paid

For your many distractions, well, it was too much

Oh, and at the end of the day

To whatever extent that you hate yourself, it isn't enough

And we can no longer afford

Waiting for someone to lift this terrible swift sword

In our basements, we all look so bored

We've never seen the glory of the coming of the Lord

There will be parties, there will be fun

There'll be tall gallows for everyone

And we will all be sleeping easy upon the sinking of the sun

But there's only one dream that I keep close and it's the one of my hand at your throat

I will not deny my humanity

I'll be rolling in it like a pig in feces

'Cause there's no other integrity

In awaiting the demise of our species

May you endure every indignity knowing all the while that life will go on

And when it ends, may you have nothing to say, except that it took too long

And may I be there somehow

Asking, "Where are all your friends now?"