Five-Dollar Bill

The armpits of the bridges keep the poverty asleep
As the mountains puke the day into the sky
The sun and river creep, both rejected, toward the sea
And the sullen clouds between begin to cry

Another night of drowning in the gutters in this town
Another morning finds me down the hill
I spend every wasted day drinking last night from my slate
And every night I spend my last five-dollar bill

The stench of all that isn't me engulfs me as I swim
Against the sea of those who distantly attain
While I, an island, wax ecstatic for the flower in the attic
That keeps my former self my memory's only stain

Another night of drowning in the gutters in this town
Another morning finds me down the hill
I spend every wasted day drinking last night from my slate
And every night I spend my last five-dollar bill

My city, she is silent, though the ghosts of day remain
And she shivers, raped and nauseous in the night
And the cobbies splayed between the tracks that glisten in the rain
Shed the fog that folds around the trolley lights

Another night of drowning in the gutters in this town
Another morning finds me down the hill
I spend every wasted day drinking last night from my slate
And every night I spend my last five-dollar bill

My city, she is silent, though the ghosts of day remain
And she shivers, raped and nauseous in the night
And the cobbies splayed between the tracks that glisten in the rain
Shed the fog that folds around the trolley lights

Another night of drowning in the gutters in this town
Another morning finds me down the hill
I spend every wasted day drinking last night from my slate
And every night I spend my last five-dollar bill