The Guttersnipe

Lyrics

[Verse 1] Sing hallelujah for the guttersnipe lives He's not at all behind all your middle-class ways Cry no, I am drowning for I cannot forgive For all wealth is measured in stacks of days Pigeons and peons bear the laurel wreath My head is pounding on the door of my heart Placing reason as an icon of grief Turned wretched as a gargoyle drenched in the dark Drenched in the dark [Verse 2] The guttersnipe stares with an altar boy smile The glare of irrelevance as they taunt him and tease him Crying from the wilderness of middle-class style They watch his boat as it sinks into knowledge Over those youthful dreams sunk deep in the fruit Learning patience is no virtue, it's a vice And they were so far ahead they were known as truth Staring at prisms of light and prisons of life Prisons of life [Verse 3] Where the prison flowers shrink from lack of love Examine the freedom, that pain in your stem Is there no relief outside the gates of enough? Only pigeons seeking crumbs where the guttersnipe's been The love of old ladies and disease of young maids They make children smile as they scatter with the wind And filth is the fever of the middle-class mind All wrapped up in waste and wealth and in wine Wealth and wine [Verse 4] Tell me of your passions, you slimy small waif With your big toe in the water and your throat full of thirst There is nothing to repeat of the miseries of hate They are your wealth and your redemption for sinning In this foul-smelling hellhole where the guttersnipe dines With desire rubbing bellies with disgrace and disease Endless stairways out of the squalor to climb With dreams void of color, forced to their knees Forced to their knees [Verse 5] The radiant smile of the Catholic queen Has sent chills into believers like a dangling rope Tied to the trunk of a century-old tree In a forest of drunk, dropping breadcrumbs for hope Black candles, black roses, the givers of false light The saint of prostitution and a sacrament of fright How they drip so fast, forcing the middle-class flight The forger of freedom and sorcerers of the night Sorcerers of the night [Verse 6] No way to play the tunes on the stench of winter winds Where the notes form in agony, drunk and tortured within Others who had paid the price write back of legends With imagery of topcoats dragged through alleys of sin Pleasing little puppets with their thank-you-ma'am smiles Taking train rides to excellence, keeping journals of each mile But always riding first class so as to not leave home And claiming every discount except the one left alone The one that's always left alone [Verse 7] Sing hallelujah for the guttersnipe breaks bread Those hands that hold the loaves in the windows of hope All twisted and warm with the honesty of death And yearning for mouths all hungry and cold A moment of silence for the guttersnipe lives Your companion in dreams refuses to smile His wealth is the fact that he has nothing to give As he beckons your madness to enter his trial Enter his trial [Verse 8] Long into the late hours of winter afternoons So calloused and thick-skinned in his cradle of cold And shivering and shaking with his outstretched tongue And yearning for mouths all hungry and cold His song is distilled from deceit and despair The burden of destiny from sorrows and sins Those beautiful eyes sunk in the wilderness of care And a voice from within cries I am here I am here