The eyes in the wallpaper

Are really grey.

The springs in the guns

That lie rusting in the reservoir

Are really grey.

The lids on the thermos bottles

Which hide in the warmth

Of the underarms of schoolchildren

Are really grey.

The ants on the sandwich

That fell to the hot sand

From the hand of the crippled girl

Whose mom gives her cupcakes and milkshakes

Are really grey.

The cobbles in the alley

That hid the group of convicts

From the storm of policeman pellet guns

Are really grey.

The twisted flowers of springtime

Which stand alone in the garden

In the middle of the city

That houses half the world's people

In its one little arena

Which is cleaned by a house full of servants

Who make love in the backs of Ferraris

While their kids sit home and play Nintendo

With the kid who invited himself over

To annoy you and your neighbors

Are really grey.

The pistons in the engine

That moves the brazen pigeons

Around and around the sculpture

That stands alone in the dirty night street

Which is littered with papers and handbills

That tell of murders, & CDs, & hamburgers, & philosophies

That can make you a better human being and plus reform you

By taking your mind and plunging it

Ridding you of the worries of a modern society

Which ties its teachers to time bombs

And lets its streets be littered

With papers, and pamphlets and handbills

Are really grey.

The three triggers on the H-bomb

That rests on a ledge with two pigeons

Overlooking a city outside of Las Vegas

Where the people always wave morosely

At the soldiers passing through on the fast trains

Who have wives and sisters and mothers

At home eating rice in their bedrooms

Are really grey.

The fittings on the lock-plates

That hold the weights on the wires

That pull the elevator to coat closet

That is the secret escape of the President

Who knows the fate of the world

And hopes he can get enough time

To protect his family from it

Are really grey.

The buttons on the lapel

Of the tuxedo rented from A-J's

Before the city was burned and buried

By an unforgivably erroneous of action

By a priest who was going to the wedding

Of the rabbi and his maid

Who eloped to Utah last summer

Before the plague wiped out the cattle farm

And left only rotting corpses

Are really grey.

The blood stains on the parchment

Of the crinkled skin of the big old woman

Whose last words were heard by the rats

Which scampered up the cracking wall

While from tail up their bodies disintegrated

In the heat, the light, and the fear

That eight years of political consternation

Brought to half the world, and its President

Are really grey.

The eyes on the tadpole

Whose tail was frozen in the tar

That was once the road to the stadium

Where the soldiers would march with their colors

Lifted by the wind soon to be choked with dust

Of the feet women and their children

Which were removed by the blades of the traps

And licked by the tongues of whiteness

That tasted the walls of the city

Which was built on the ruins of the palace

That once held the Queen of the World

Are really grey.

The pills in the bottle

Which is clutched in the dead hand

Of the woman with the glasses

Which covered her deformed eyebrows

Are really grey.

The words written in boldface

On the poster at the steel mill

Where the other boys play real games

Are really grey.

The stones in the river

That runs by leper home

Are really grey.

The people in the picture

Are really grey.



The sky and the land are really grey.