Salvation, in B#

Bigtime Baltimore, new
hustlers on old avenues,
Pennsylvania in sixty-two,
old heads now just a few,
memory forgetting the way
an addict learns to pray—

Dirty foam on the harbor.
rock of hope on the shore.

Some necks still rotate,
as kids fly down the hill,
broken fences and gates
full of faces that will kill,
highs like smashed plates
in eyes full of pain pills
telling Satan he better pay
a dope fiend’s holy pass.

Dirty foam on the harbor.
rock of hope on the shore.

Ask people where they been,
who got twenty, who got ten,
call it dollars, call it years,
lay out smiles, hold the tears,
murders done in silence,
grieving heaven’s absence.

Dirty foam on the harbor.
rock of hope on the shore.