The Devil Never Sleeps

Dreaming again of a train track ending at the edge of the sea

Big black cloud was low and rolling our way

Dog at the barbed wire barking at my buzz cut friends and me

Sound of a switchblade shining in the summer rain



No one on the corner had a quarter for the telephone

Everybody bitching, there's nothing on the radio



Dreaming again of a city full of fathers in their army clothes

Chattering boys and a chicken at the chopping block

All of us lost at the crosswalk waiting for the other to go

Didn't find a friend but, boy, I really bought a lot



Someone bet a dollar that my daddy wasn't coming home

Everybody bitching, there's nothing on the radio



Dreaming again that it's freezing and my mother's in her flowerbed

Long dead rows of daffodils and marigolds

Changing her face like a shadow on the gravel, this is what she said

Blood on my chin still chewing on a red rose



No one lives forever and the devil never sleeps alone

Everybody bitching, there's nothing on the radio