Geese on the Hudson Out in the valley they make breakfast from poison While we hate the farmhand not the man who employs him Or the shiny new box the system put our boys in Such a beautiful state until history spoiled it I loved your blood until gravity boiled it This fear at the end, it can't be avoided my friend Do we have special powers or just comic book confidence You taught yourself golf to forget what a promise is You picked out your coffin and moved to the provinces Where hearts grow hard and the skin it just softens And thins into ribbons, I knew it would end like this Believe me, it's true, I think of you often, I do The lake is placid, the tragedy nascent The rain is just acid but the pain makes a statement I know now what that smile on your face meant The unloaded howitzers take up space in your basement Face full of blood son, like geese on the Hudson knighting heroes in our flight Oh yeah, we used to dance all night Out past the farms and dead fields with snow on'em He built the reactor now they can't scrape the glow off'em He can see in the dark but he can't create offspring And his probation officer's the only one who talks to him Our city declares itself a nuclear-free zone But you and I know he'll always be deep in our bones A uranium sun rose over the Atlantic A watchmaker's just a low-rent mechanic And I loved you then, one day in specific When you threw your alibi into the Pacific The pacificists drowned but they'll be back to the badlands Recycled Man, we're all just bottles and cans Dealers and dissidents and angels of temperance Detectives and state's evidence, peasantry and presidents Holy men and charlatans, soldiers and civilians Aliens and citizens, are really all we've ever been From origin to oblivion, going out or coming in I loved you then, when dawn comes I'll love you again