brass boots, where has your gaunt gown gone?

whose streets have you walked on?

who did you meet?

what did they say?

is the world just a foxhole you watch from?

brass boots saw the war we're winning dramatized on leering tv screens, 

brittle moons breaking, giant swans pecking at all the free flesh.

c'mon, c'mon, let's run to the cracked open sun.

c'mon, c'mon, lets run to the ten-story gun.

brass boots saw those trench-eyed preteens spraypainting fangs onto sanitized dreams; 

rich, rich, blackbirds falling asleep in broken bottle hot tubs.

brass boots saw everybody laughing, saw everybody sleeping; 

and death's grin grown men cleaving million dollar debts from the bank of their own skin.

c'mon, c'mon, lets run to the cracked open sun.

c'mon, c'mon, lets run.

the birds are burning down.