Let's Not Chat About Despair

You, who speak of crowd control Of karma or the punishment of God: Do you fear the cages they are building In Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas While they're giving ten to forty years to find a cure? Do you pray each evening out of horror Or of fear to the savage God Whose bloody hand Commands you now to die, alone? Let's not chat about Despair Let's not chat about Despair Do you taste the presence of the living dead While the skeleton beneath your open window Waits with arms outstretched? Do you spend each night in waiting For the Devil's little angels' cries To burn you in your sleep? Do you wait for miracles in small hotels With seconal and compazine Or for a ticket to the house of death in Amsterdam? Let's not chat about Despair Let's not chat about Despair Do you wait in prison for the dreadful day The office of the butcher comes to carry you away? Do you wait for saviors or the paradise to come in laundry rooms, in toilets, or in cadillacs? Are you crucified beneath the life machines With a shank inside your neck And a head which blossoms like a basketball? Let's not chat about Despair Let's not chat about Despair Do you tremble at the timid steps Of crying, smiling faces who, in mourning Now have come to pay their last respects? In Kentucky Harry buys a round of beer To celebrate the death of Billy Smith, the queer Whose mother still must hide her face in fear You who mix the words of torture, suicide and death With scotch and soda at the bar We're all real decent people, aren't we But there's no time left for talk: Let's not chat about Despair Let's not chat about Despair Let's not chat about Despair Please, don't chat about Despair