MG

Matthew Good on homelessness in the vancouver downtown core....and the way it is handled by the rich and priviledged.......

Out of the alleys
Our needle strewn fields
Into the sunlight that the brochures reveal
Like snake come for rabbits and rabbits for meals
Where the oar and axe flies

Well this is our story (stick to it)
But it ain’t the truth
Because the truth’s just for liars
That need an excuse
Around here love’s a gangster
And charity’s the proof
Where God deals on Sunday’s
Under a rain burning roof
It’s five blocks a universe
And aliens for each
Like invisible ghettos of privilege and grief
And pinned up between them the carrion fly
Living off skeletons of recycled lives

This is the place you find out
Well this is the way you find out

We all live downtown
Pay two even, no parking
Live with a clown
Step over ourselves

We all live downtown
Pay in blood, no parking
Sleep on the ground
Step over ourselves

We all live downtown
We all die downtown
Step over ourselves

Well this is our story (stick to it)
But it ain’t the truth
Because the truth’s just for liars
That need an excuse
For a king crown a banker
The queen crown a noose
Like heirs to a graveyard where the dirt’s always loose
It’s five blocks a universe
And aliens for each
Like invisible ghettos of privilege and grief
And pinned up between them the carrion fly
Picking off skeletons under a big northern sky

This is the place you find out
Well this is the way you find out

We all live downtown
We all die downtown
Step over ourselves