Lyrics

The Industrial Part of Town

Found dead in the industrial part of town.

Behind the dumpster by the 7th unit,
a foreboding scent of sawdust and piece-work to it.
Immortal youths' paw print debris,
broken glass and roach clips sit like babies’ teeth.
The first witnesses were on their third date,
slurred the gum smack and lipstick of illegal-age
to the junior cop on up the food chain
to the papers with the girl on the third page:

'Body found in the industrial part of town.'

The chief investigator of the scene -
a comfortable-in-her-clothes-early-40’s-33 -
noted the work that had been done on his teeth
and knew that he’d never paid that extra bus fare up Jane Street.
On his hands there was that orange-brown residue
characteristic of a Short Colt .32.
'Whoever said it,' she said, 'must of bin’ blind,
who said 'the dead, they look peaceful from where they lie.''

Glorified in the industrial part of town.

His parents got out in ’56;
'Ah, Rakosi Street accept our sincerest.'
From a boat, and then on to a train,
on to the office where they touch-up your last name,
and to that hostel with the mattress on the floor
where circle anxious thoughts of souls that stayed on it before,
and to that work crew that you follow around
to that second job that guards that second life you found.

And glory to this industrial part of town.

His dad had proudly passed down the store;
a modest soccer shop he worked his whole back and forth for.
And by the same hand that fed his old man
built the trough that feeds a fatter, needier demand.
And the Lord appointed the Great Box-Store
to swallow up a sleepy shamed-faced, small retail.
The bullet entered in the roof of his mouth
and ricocheted inside his skull before it got out.

In dust we part in the industrial part of town.

The End and illness that absorbed the air
dried up the thick and generous blood in his hair.
Revolution's child born and raised to
embody all the hope of second life and soul anew.[ii]
But who dies outside at least gets found
and a Phoenix burns itself always on the outskirts of a town.
And after it’s cleaned and before it's identified
a body waits in stainless steel that’s smooth and galvanized
and custom built in the industrial part of town.

Rackoczi Street is Budapest's main street
[ii] from Dark Rosaleen by James Clarence Mangan.