Let's Not Chat About Despair

You, who speak of crowd control,

of karma or the punishment of God:

Do you fear the cages they are building

in Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas

while they're giving ten to forty years to find a cure?

Do you pray each evening out of horror

or of fear to the savage God

whose bloody hand

commands you now to die, alone?

Let's not chat about Despair.

Let's not chat about Despair.

Do you taste the presence of the living dead

while the skeleton beneath your open window

waits with arms outstretched?

Do you spend each night in waiting

for the Devil's little angels' cries

to burn you in your sleep?

Do you wait for miracles in small hotels

with seconal and compazine

or for a ticket to the house of death in Amsterdam?

Let's not chat about Despair.

Let's not chat about Despair.

Do you wait in prison for the dreadful day

the office of the butcher comes to carry you away?

Do you wait for saviors or the paradise to come in laundry rooms, in toilets, or in cadillacs?

Are you crucified beneath the life machines

with a shank inside your neck

and a head which blossoms like a basketball?

Let's not chat about Despair.

Let's not chat about Despair.

Do you tremble at the timid steps

of crying, smiling faces who, in mourning,

now have come to pay their last respects?

In Kentucky Harry buys a round of beer

to celebrate the death of Billy Smith, the queer,

whose mother still must hide her face in fear.

You who mix the words of torture, suicide and death

with scotch and soda at the bar,

we're all real decent people, aren't we,

but there's no time left for talk:

Let's not chat about Despair.

Let's not chat about Despair.

Let's not chat about Despair. Please

Don't chat about Despair.