Chris Whitley Follow

Dousing himself with lilies and lighting himself into laughter,
hysterical at the shrieking feet of those whites who wear their crosses
on their sleeves, with their spinning swastikas neatly pinned behind their eyes.
I've heard of those who have sliced the throats of their razors to see a
stream of revolution spill off the tiles and into the mountains of that tiny land we call free
I know of cages from whose teeth flow tears, rage and sedation tenants
who refuse to feed the hand that bites us all.
I know of crimes so unspeakable they must be shouted, of a land
whose streets are paved with those without homes.
I know of a land numbered by the staccato upheaval of chorused
consumerism, of those who mutter "love" under their breath while
riding into a grey horizon, sweetened with steel, and preserved through war.

Dousing himself with lilies and lighting himself into laughter,
hysterical at the shrieking feet of those whites who wear their crosses