Текст пісні
We tramped in our black coats, sweeping time, sweeping time
In the red forest, emerging to face the day
Pink with iodine, wet, bedraggled, a bit gone
Adorned in flowers, radiant, radioactive
Following a trail we somehow knew
Rain no longer rain, tears no longer tears
And the grail, oh, the grail was this close
Finished with foil, wrapped in plutonium
We rambled strange forests, not a living thing
But the buzzing of flies and mischievous fairies who danced underfoot
Branches snapped in our faces
Our kingdom behind a chain-link fence
We had our contamination coronations
We grappled in the quarries
We polished marbles and we knelt and shot for spoils
In our fervent circles
We set up our furious camps, our tents punctuated with pegs
Nicked with pocketknives, little foxes gauging the hard earth
Cursing the bottomland for making us soft
We gathered rye, stuffed sacks, made pillows for our men
We were soldiers with no war
We wrung the blood from soaking beds
We covered the martyrs' rolling heads
We balanced the buckets filled to the brim
And we saw nothing and everything
Our ships boasted obscenities scribbled on parchment sails
Floating illiterate rivers, overturned in pools of rainwater muck
We blew songs of praise into horns of sacred animals
Catcalls, confessions, teenage prayers
Woven into tapestries of cloistered gardens
No mother had we now
Vowels erupted with a new violence, bearing no ill will
Save to be born contaminated with a dust
That sparkled with such strangeness
We wept for joy
A blue light projected from the cap of being
We climbed the stairs into a bluer heaven
Scarred with streamers, bleeding the wind
We savored the spectacle and then it disappeared
But we were already gone
We possessed a new radiance
Dew dropped from our noses
We boasted shining skin, shedding it without a sigh
We raised our lanterns and some seemed to walk in a light of their own
We drew close to our new kind
Our regulation boots of dog tongue
Our dresses of ermine and fleece
Our glad rags woven by the blind
For ours was a country of sockets that were
EmptyEyes that were empty and yet within
One could read all our childish hopes
Each of us with our own story
Our own sweet life
Cut with the cloth of ecstatic strife
It is time
We hear the call
It is time
We have our black coats
Sweeping time
Sweeping time
It is sleeping time
And soon we will break from our moth husks
Alive in the night
The sky smeared with stars we no longer see
A child's creed stitched on handkerchiefs
God does not abandon us
We are all He knows
We must not abandon Him
He is ourselves
The ether of our deeds
Listen, listen
The whistling hobo calls
Sweeping time
Sweeping time
We sleep, we scheme
We press the vibrant string
Asleep for a thousand years
Then happily wake again
Plutonium-239
Protons: 94
Neutrons: 145
Decay mode: alpha decay
Cooling towers
Water room: 172
Water level: +25
Reactor 4
Decay mode: uncalculated
14 Minus 22
.2, .3, 5
Radiation reading: 50-15
All the birds were singing
The night they slept
The birds were screaming
Nothing was left
Each little one in his own little bed
Each with a crown
Each little head
All the birds were singing
And every note
Gave birth to nothing
For all is gone
For a thousand years
And a million tears
And a thousand dances
On an empty floor
There are roses underfoot
That one cannot smell
There is fruit on the vine
That one cannot eat
And they went to bed hungry
And hungry they...
Цыцы кричали, кричали
А звуки молчали, молчали
Там, где на тысячу лет мир исчез
На миллионы слёз
На тысячу ответного осколка
На жёлтом полу
На миллионы слёз
Проростень за под ногами розы
И снег за виноград в глазах
Они голодными легли в кровать
Голодными и будут спать
Всю тысячу лет, тысячу лет
Свет теперь придушит мальчик на фитилёк
Мальчик светит, горит, а малыш будет спать
Тысячу лет, тысячу лет
Птицы будут петь тысячу
Тысячу лет
Тысячу лет