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Abyss

In the lowest circle of the abyss where the dead clutch

Their broken radios, you're scraping the clouds from a copy

Of a photograph of heaven where angels fiddle

With their transceivers to locate broadcasts from Hell

Meanwhile sorrow knocks at your door demanding directions

To the homes of your friends but as you flee

Down a tight corridor you trip over a sign which reads

Lover's Lane and awaken the next morning dumbly reciting

The washing instructions on the labels of all the clothes

You've ever helped remove

But then you're directed by some drunken slobbering weasel

To the sublime secret everglades where the days

Are overshadowed by the words of a woman, not Billie Holiday,

Walking in the rain who says: honey, this business

Of comin an goin's just impossible

But we're always coming and going,

Coming and going, walking in the rain

That whispers only of the rapture of coming and coming and coming

Suddenly you've come to a complete halt

In the lowest circle of the abyss where street kids clutch

Angels whose black and white wings remind you

Of old, torn photos of the skies over Wyoming

Gone now, disappearing, blown away,

Borne away on the winds of happiness.

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