Will you die for me? Do you love me enough to give up your life? Standing here in the desert The crumbling city How much do you love me? Can the world be as sad as it seems? At this the old man smiled Sitting there in Tangier Scars running from his wrist to his elbow Perhaps I’ll buy his book today And I look at the boy with me hand on his thigh As I move to the bed in the corner And he started to smile A plaintive smile of the boy as he lies on the bed And the old man smiled as his Prick started to twitch twitch twitch And little drops felt out and fell to the floor And he looked to the side Wondering what to do with his knowledge Cold cold water in the bowl by the bed on the floor 23 days and 23 hours of the day And the old man smiled as the being swelled and the blood came As he stuck the needle in his arm Watching the blood burning and turning in the glass Wondering where he’d be sitting tomorrow Wondering which table his person would pass that day Sitting in a café in Tangier And down to his cable came Captain Clark He’d worked on the ferry for 23 years and a day Taking the junkies and the babies and the corpses to Spain Looking at the coffins in a line across the water You sink if you’re dead Cold cold water A cloud up above And everyone’s equal if it rains on you And the old man smiled And his arm bent as he paid the bill So I walked round the corner To a room in the Bowery And the boy was bent double naked on the floor Rubbing himself with some kind of cream And is this all a dream Look at the blind men Sitting in a row with white sticks Takking at the TV screen And they try to eat us By the broken bed They’re always mad And Captain Clark welcomes you aboard Flight 23 from New York to Mayami And it crashes in a forest Burning bodies growing clod People spewing blood from their faces Screaming “Why me?” “Why?” And everyone says I’m mad And everyone says I’m mad The always say I’m mad And I see myself in the gutter and the water With the water wing gangrene dangling myself Cos we really want to slaughter Looking wide-eyed and so confused at the wall It’s gone on so long I wonder just who is here Cold cold water Cold cold water And the old man smiled as he walked back to the café Drinking coffee as his friends just stood around Can the world be as sad as it seems? Do you love me? With my knife against your throat It could only be me You would only do this for me And the old man smiled Just the same as before Slowly getting old arranging his things Making business neat and tidy Sitting in a café in Tangier That’s the way the world ends With a whimper
