The ragamuffin gunner is returnin' home like a hungry runaway

He walks through town all alone

He must be from the fort he hears the high school girls say

His countryside's burnin' with wolfman fairies dressed in drag for homicide

The hit and run, plead sanctuary, 'neath a holy stone they hide

They're breakin' beams and crosses with a spastic's reelin' perfection

nuns run bald through Vatican halls pregnant, pleadin' immaculate conception

And everybody's wrecked on Main Street from drinking unholy blood

Sticker smiles sweet as gunner breathes deep, his ankles caked in mud

And I said "Hey, gunner man, that's quicksand, that's quicksand that ain't mud

Have you thrown your senses to the war or did you lose them in the flood?"



That pure American brother, dull-eyed and empty-faced

races Sundays in Jersey in a Chevy stock super eight

He rides 'er low on the hip, on the side he's got Bound For Glory in red, white

and blue flash paint

He leans on the hood telling racing stories, the kids call him Jimmy The Saint

Well the blaze and noise boy, he's gunnin' that bitch loaded to blastin' point

He rides head first into a hurricane and disappears into a point

And there's nothin' left but some blood where the body fell

That is, nothin' left that you could sell

just junk all across the horizon, a real highwayman's farewell

And he said "Hey kid, you think that's oil? Man, that ain't oil that's blood"

I wonder what he was thinking when he hit that storm

Or was he just lost in the flood?

Eighth Avenue sailors in satin shirts whisper in the air

Some storefront incarnation of Maria, she's puttin' on me the stare

and Bronx's best apostle stands with his hand on his own hardware

Everything stops, you hear five, quick shots, the cops come up for air

And now the whiz-bang gang from uptown, they're shootin' up the street

And that cat from the Bronx starts lettin' loose

but he gets blown right off his feet

And some kid comes blastin' round the corner but a cop puts him right away

He lays on the street holding his leg screaming something in Spanish

Still breathing when I walked away

And somebody said "Hey man did you see that? His body hit the street with such a

beautiful thud"

I wonder what the dude was sayin' or was he just lost in the flood?

Hey man, did you see that, those poor cats are sure messed up