Song of Babel

Verse One:
I have heard the blind voices beseech me in the night when the mob comes to their door and the dark figure visits them, "Are you at all troubled by the idea that seems eerily familiar."

Chorus:
But fear not, brave pilgrims, be content to sit idly by and pretend our disappeared friends had it coming. One more dead Indian is just one more dead Indian. He is an ungodly individual, not a class, not a metaphor. We didn't want to kill every Sunni or Hutu or Jew, this one just had it coming. That one, oh, and these ones too. Martin Luther King Jr. should have known better than to parade his black ass across that motel walkway. And Mathew Shepard should have known better than to sachet his gay ass across the prairie.

Refrain:
When the planes come to carry us away we will suddenly know the difference between an act of violence and a movement bent on extermination. Then we will look around, finally, for support and there will be no one left to defend us.

Verse Two:
I have driven the desolate miles of the Wyoming highway. Each paper bag caught in a fence, each piece of fabric escaped from a laundry line and snared on a barb explodes against the unchanging landscape like a bomb. Every inch of fenced line byway screams to me "I die alone. I die alone. I die alone." And I am not the only one.

Refrain:
When the planes come to carry us away we will suddenly know the difference between an act of violence and a movement bent on extermination. Then we will look around, finally, for support and there will be no one left to defend us.