Ghetto Defendant

[Ginsberg]

Starved in metropolis

Hooked on necropolis

Addict of metropolis

Do the worm on the acropolis

Slamdance the cosmopolis

Enlighten the populace

[Verse 1: Strummer]

Hungry darkness of living

Who will thirst in the pit?

(Hooked in necropolis)

She spent a lifetime deciding

How to run from it

(Addicts of metropolis)

Once fate had a witness

And the years seemed like friends

(Girlfriends)

Now her child has a dream

But it begins like it ends

[Ginsberg]

Shot into eternity

Methadone kitty

Iron serenity

[Chorus]

Ghetto defendant

It is heroin pity

Not tear gas nor baton charge

That stops you taking the city

(Strung out committee)

Walled out of the city

Clubbed down from uptown

Sprayed pest from the nest

Run out to barrio town

(The guards are itchy)

Forced to watch at the feast

Then sweep up the night

Flipped pieces of coin

(Broken bottles)

Exchanged for birthright

[Chorus]

Ghetto defendant it is heroin pity

(Strung out committee)

Not tear gas nor baton charge

That stops you taking the city

(Not sitting pretty)

(Grafted in a jiffy)

Not tear gas nor baton charge

That stops you taking the city

The ghetto prince of gutter poets

Was bounced out of the room

(Jean Arthur Rimbaud)

By the bodyguards of greed

For disturbing the tomb

(1873)

His words like flamethrowers

(Paris commune)

Burnt the ghettos in their chests

His face was painted whiter

And he was laid to rest

(Died in Marseille)

Ghetto defendant it is heroin pity

(Buried in Charleville)

Not tear gas nor baton charge

That stops you taking the city

(Shut up in eternity)

[Ginsberg]

Guatemala

Honduras

Poland

100 years war

TV re-run invasion

Death squad Salvador

Afghanistan

Meditation

Old Chinese flu

Kick junk

What else

Can a poor worker do?

[Chorus]

[Ginsberg chanting]