i've got this phosphorescent portrait   of gentle jesus meek and mild   i've got this harlot that i'm stuck with   carrying another man's child   the solitary star announcing vacancy   burnt out as we arrived   they'd throw us back across the border   if they knew that we survived   and they greeted us with palms   they asked for ammunition,   acts of contrition and small alms      i might recite a small prayer   if i ever said them   i lay down on an iron frame   found myself in bedlam   i wish that i could take something   for drowning out the noise   wailling echoes down the corridors      i've got this imaginary radio and   i'm punching up the dial   i've got the a.c. trained on the t.v.   so it won't blow up in my eye   and everything that i thought fanciful   and mocked as too extreme   must be family entertainment here   in the strange land of my dreams   now i'm practising my likeness of   st. francis of assisi   for if i hold my hand outstretched    a little bird comes to me      i might recite a small prayer   if i ever said them   i lay down on an iron frame   found myself in bedlam   escaping from the fingers that were   stretching through the bars   wailing echoes down the corridors      the player piano picks out "life goes on"   the ringtone rang out "jerusalem"   and in this pit of sadness   where the rank of wretched plunge   we've buried all the innocents   now we must bury revenge      they've got this scared and decorated girl   strapped to the steel trunk of a mustang   and then they drove her down a cypress grove   where traitors hang and stars still spangle   they dangled flags and other rags along a   coloured thread of twine   and theny they dragged that bruised and purple   heart along the road to palestine      someone went off muttering   he mentioned thirty pieces   easter saw a slaughtering, each   wrapped in bloodstained fleeces   then my thoughts returned to vengeance   and i put no resistance   though i seemed a long way from my home   it really was no distance      i might recite a small prayer   if i ever said them   i lay down on an iron frame   found myself in bedlam   bowing like an actor acknowledging applause   playing the crusader who was conquering the moors   when he knew the consequences   but he won't admit the cause   wailing echoes down the corridors