The Art of War
When the planes came over
Cain was lying on his bed / half-asleep / unshaven
In the boarding house
You know the scene / I know you do / the movie set
The seedy room in black and white
The sheets all wet from sweating bread
The TV on / the cigarette.
When the bombs began to fall
He was standing by the window
In the rockets red glare
And oh / the skies / amazing / blazing
Hey, you know the song / I know you do
The children dying / blah blah blah
The fields of wheat consumed by fire
The shadows blistered on the street.
But this is Cain / you understand? / the man himself
Is standing by the window
Staring down at burning children
Running through a storm of metal
Manufactured in a tongue
They never learned at school.
He suddenly remembers
How his younger brother Abel / fell beneath the blows
Beside the bloody altar / on that awful day of sacrifice.
The sky is empty now and silent
Oh / but every mother knows
Tomorrow is another day of dying in the town.
Standing at the window / staring out
At body parts and bits of bone / the bloody stool
You know the scene / the President
And then of course / commercial breaks
When suddenly / the Son of Man /
His weary face / reflected in the window pane
He cries aloud: What have I done?
What have I done? he cries again. What have I done?