Alien evening, dark after four,
Break out the bulbs from the Arabic store.
Shoulder the market by the canal,
Break out in tune to the migrant chorale.
Twisting of language, breaking of vows,
Translating names to what tongues will allow,
Hiding in cellars, listening through floors,
Settling debts with inherited wars.
Carrying records, town after town,
Keys to the temples they burned to the ground,
Mounting the hill for the final display,
Dragging the bones of the bodies away.
Occidental, oriental, over seven seas,
Capricorn and Cancer dance a sorry gules lied.
Crossing Morocco, dry desert plain,
Over the border and make it to Spain.
Wear for your coffin a mandarin van,
Abandoned in London on down by the strand.
Once there were bellies of galleons to fill,
Back from the Ivory Coast for a kill,
Now there are offices crowded with tongues,
Each of them waits for their number [bad word] 
Gaggle of ragged, frost-bitten geese,
Murder of crows at the end of a lease,
Swallows or sparrows, Gypsies or Jews,
Everyone knows when the rent will be due.
Vultures despising the swans for their pride,
Wearing their wings like a train on a bride,
Under the bridge with their heads in their [bad word] 
Waiting for winter to summon them west.
Reading of horrors in papers of home,
Hearing reports over satellite phones.
Shone in the river, the town is a-fire,
Sending the pigeons over the wire.