Red Right Hand

(album: Where The Viaduct Looms - 2021)

Take a little walk to the edge of town
Go across the tracks
Where the viaduct looms like a bird of doom
As it shifts and cracks

Where secrets lie in the border fires
In the humming wires
Hey man, you know
You're never coming back

Past the square, past the bridge
Past the mills, past the stacks

On a gathering storm comes
A tall handsome man
In a dusty black coat
With his red right hand

He'll wrap you in his arms
Tell you that you've been a good boy
He'll rekindle all the dreams
It took you a lifetime to destroy

He'll reach deep into the hole
Heal your shrinking soul
But there won't be a single thing
That you can do

He's a god, he's a man
He's a ghost, he's a guru

They're whispering his name
Through this disappearing land
But hidden in his coat
Is a red right hand

You don't have no money?
He'll get you some, he'll get you some
You don't have no car?
He'll get you one, he'll get you one

You don't have no self-respect
You feel like an insect
Well don't you worry buddy
'Cause here he comes

Through the ghettos and the barrio
And the Bowery and the slums
A shadow is cast wherever he stands
Stacks of green paper in his red right hand

You'll see him in your nightmares
You'll see him in your dreams
He'll appear out of nowhere
But he ain't what he seems

You'll see him in your head
On the TV screen
And hey buddy, I'm warning
You to turn it off

He's a ghost, he's a god
He's a man, he's a guru

You're one microscopic cog
In his catastrophic plan
Designed and directed
By his red right hand