The belly and the beast
i in my longing fly out in the night
unveiled and irreverently dressed
i’m lip-stuck and liquored up- picking a fight
i’m the wicked wicked witch of the west
over the alleyways, backward and blind
and the sad and insatiable sprawl
over the marketplace, darkly defined
his desert is sounding a call
he was a businessman twenty-five years
when the angel appeared with his orders
i am making you mine, my divine volunteer
and i’m flying you over the border
and he can’t recall where it all fell apart
was it north of medina or south?
where the prophecy ends and the politics start
where the weapon went into his mouth
and everyone’s sleeping, and he’s flying out
and no one can keep him down now
the morning delivers the news to my door
of my president’s war in the east
but he doesn’t tell me and i don’t know who’s
in the belly and who is the beast
when there’s no place to run to, when there’s no place to hide
it won’t matter whose side you are on
like the bomb in the basement we couldn’t stop if we tried
and it won’t be long, and it won’t be long, and it won’t be long...