Sleep Long

(album: Hectic - 1988)

Sleep long, sleep well
Only to awake in hell

One day I saw a man asleep
In a doorway on the street
Through walls of sheltered inhibition
I perceived his condition
Dying of hunger, and exposure
Food and shelter, two blocks over
Within this place we breed and dwell
We've created living hell

Sleep long, sleep well
Only to awake in hell

City sleeps and pigeons flutter
Vagrant dies in the gutter
Prideless death somehow befitting
To life spent working on forgetting
Riding on the bus, I looked outside and thought about death
Passing cars the only tribute to his gasping final breath

Sleep long, sleep well
Only to awake in hell

Then I went home, to get my mind off things
I decided to watch television
Constant subliminal brain immersion
Subconscious death wish coercion
Buy and consume and want and need
Never fall from the trap of greed

I thought about the bitter pain
Of jail cells and falling rain
I thought ahead and I looked away
What can you do anyway?
In sheltered youth and our pretension
Avert our eyes to divert attention
Only to see the human victims
Always there to remind us

Sleep long, sleep well, Only to awake in hell