Sweet Violence

Sand streets in the southern night
Fleas in the trees with an appetite
I'll try my best to feed them
Just to give something to something

Pale and starved, good and lost
Herons like ghosts scattered in the moss
The days of blood behind me
With that town and God and the hanging tree
Absurd cruelty
Has had its way with me

Sweet violence is waiting for me
Every day of my life
And time's stuck carving a beat in the back
Of my head
So I'll take and take and take and take
What is mine

I was young, didn't understand
A mad war in a foreign land
Where bones glowed white in the summer sun
And the Devil didn't answer to anyone

Scared I stirred some forgotten Gods
Waking more than sleeping dogs
Old haunts cry out from the canopy
And croak a prayer for the families that met me
And my affinity
For taking what I please

Sweet violence is waiting for me
Every day of my life
And time's stuck carving a beat in the back
Of my head
So I'll take and take and take and take
What is mine
Yes I'll take and take and take and take
What I find