Once I Saw the River Clean

Once I saw the river clean

Distant future, wait for me

I grow pleasing to the eye

And the cue will cue for me

Once I saw the river clean

Soon the clock will strike for me

Childish mind anticipates

Grown-up mind consummates

I walked with my grandmother

Down a windblown Chester Road

With her fifty-two new pence

For her twenty number-tens

And my forty-five pence too

Demand metal guru

Once with hearts securely stacked

Then we walked all the way back

I walked with my grandmother

Along the groan of Talbot Road

In the gardens by the graves

I can just about behave

Arrogant and paranoid

All around, see fathead youth

Look into their brutal eyes

But only if you want the truth

Once I saw the river clean

Scratching up the latest scheme

Time will come but it hasn't yet

Someone's out to get me

I walked with my grandmother

Cornbrook Street, where incomplete

She would never be again

A Dublin dancer, free and young