In the dark and desperate halls,

 where the music pours through cardboard walls into the street –

Deep in the shadowlands,

 the Mistress of the Urban Dance sways to the beat

Then she turns inside and shuts the door

 and stares in silence at the floor

 as she strips away the smile she bought last week

And the radio songs that she hears are the restless sighs of the wounded

I rush with burning feet

 past the sleeping dead in the desolate streets of the dawn –

While the slaves of the solemn rite,

 their faces dressed in pale-polite, stumble on

And the stranger here huddled on the side

 looks up at me with red-washed eyes

 like a ragged soldier battered by the storm

It seems the higher I climb, the farther I see, the stronger I feel the emotion   – and then it's gone!

And the pain in my heart that won't heal feels just like the song of the   wounded

There's a rock in my head, and it pounds like a wave,

 and the look on his face as he stands by the grave of the Nameless,

 in an empty place they call "home"

And the feeling's so big, but you can't get it out,

 as the blind lead their kind when they stand up and shout on the   pavement –

 Listen, can't you hear them on the phone?

It's hard to swallow their lines when you're choking on your own

I stood alone last night

 while a thousand victims dressed in white wept aloud –

Lost in the present mood

 and the pained and pressing solitude of the crowd

And we gaze in awe while the cameras roll,

 surveying the state of the human soul,

 as we act our parts in anguish one more time

And the sounds in the night that we hear –

And the sounds in the night that we hear –

And the sounds in the night that we fear are only the cries of the wounded

They're all just the cries of the wounded ...

Copyright © 2020 Vic Grady