Track 04: when The Light Goes

Album: SAVES

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Lyrics

this is the last word in the room when the man slams the door when the woman is screaming when the light goes in the cities where the nightmares roam in the corrugated iron jungles the overgrazed streets where the people are scooping water from the hollows of their cheeks when the light goes they are the force of a rifle butt in the face and a pink dress on the line in the wind in the flesh of the eye looking back from the mirror when the light goes with hands like these every murder has been done in time on your wrist the pulse will slacken when the last net gets cast into the ocean that is empty now when the light goes there will remain firewood that will never be used oh all the lions and giants and brave new love in the world cannot stop the single sharp slow sting when the light goes the cheerful and lucky and simple and humble will be wiped like the mean and the cunning and the sick and the sour from the sink all the fat will be pressed down the drain when the light goes there are brothers and sisters for whom it is too late to say stop sit down there is something i’ve been meaning to say when the light goes there are mothers and fathers for whom it is too late to say sorry for what i’ve done here’s a gun make it all go away when the light goes the last birds will dissolve into the wind and the black and the insects will wake and creep closer to the edge when the light goes from where the warmth is old and the people familiar and the alcohol cheap and the music not bad and the pool two rand those things will be compact and fleet and suddenly cold like a ring of smoke when the light goes there will be a fivestar meal and photographs and video footage and a story about a summer at the sea with a caravan or a face-brick holiday house or a tent in long wet morning grass when the light goes the children the child the baby will make a small sound like a liqui fruit box being burst underfoot like plastic toy car wheels on a red back stoep like dry leaves in a park shaping feeling touching the thin iron legs of a bench a bin a slide as the clouds hover deepen turn grey hulk down and begin to throw strips of rain and sleet when the light goes they have the good hearts of dogs terrapins galapagos tortoises leatherback turtles have seen nations turn grey and rescue dig up eggs remove hooks from mouths and beaks yet still build walls barbed wire and daisy cutters and long range space age mutually beneficial pre-emptive probable genocides and costly delays and manmade environmental disaster area clampdown curfew minimum wage profit margins when the light goes small human being big wide world giant uncaring space when the light goes the air is plucked and wrung hard little droplets will evaporate when the light goes the mouth is sewn shut knitted in tongues hemmed in when the light goes colour makes one last rush for the mountains turns around smiles waves goodbye before it goes