Rosemont

Oh I know everybody here's been dying to get back to Rosemont Street
But that road was made of flesh and now it's dead and now it's beat
The sun burnt past every rock across the street from that cracked lot
Detroit air just breaths away and that sun died in a petrified way
Onto the driveway, table napkins blown away
Into the alleyway and summer is the strangest time of day

I've seen beauty far upstate
A century is all it takes
To turn a homestead to the ground
But there is one thing that I found
I ain't seen these things in vain

And deep outside the siren's wailing far from me on the still night
And through the yards the spores are sailing on the toes of those dreams in flight
To the north...back and forth
Our moments make us off-ramp islands where language tramps and falls to silence
Oh to forget...the T.V. set
And images of stranger feelings rape our walls and wallpaper our ceilings

I've seen beauty far upstate
A century is all it takes
To turn a homestead to the ground
But there is one thing that I found
I ain't seen these things in vain

I was born to the lawnmower's crying
And the drying of our gilded lot
Trust in God when our roofs are sighing, again
And the hill is crying thanks a lot
Watertowers are drunker than grandfathers
But they're equally happy
All that's golden was once eternally unfoldin'
Now dusktime is the glimpse to see it...

But I'm a burstin' piece, a questionin' priest, like a politician out east
I've seen swimming pools full of darkness, on the brightest moonlit nights
And I've seen fairgrounds, heard their sounds, and in that ground lies just what I've found
Basements are now all we got with decade shades and days that rot
Landbirds flew over my head, flag at half mast no one is dead
Oh I know that that's not true, but we're so desp'rate, what else can we do?

I've seen beauty far upstate
A century is all it takes
To turn a homestead to the ground
But there is one thing that I found
I ain't seen these things in vain

And everybody dying here has made it back to Rosemont Street
The roses shake, the sidewalk aches and Detroit air is hissing at our feet