Inspired by Caravaggio's Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness

Repent!
in my dreams
Repent!
in my waking
Repent!
in the crunch of every locust I eat
Repent!
in the sands of my resting place
Repent!
in the dust on my feet

I asked
What shall I cry
in this wilderness so vast?
What shall I sing
to Jordan’s banks?
Repent!
The voice answered,
and it rang in my ears,
and it rolled through my bones,
and at once I understood my father’s fear.
The voice of the LORD
is not a dessert rose,
but a knife
cutting ego from its sinew.
The voice left my father dumbfounded.
The same gave me words to speak.

Repent!
in my step
Repent!
in my breathing
Repent!
swimming in my tired eyes
Repent!
in the water I bury them in
Repent!
resonating each fiber of life

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!
Give me crack and **** ***
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is ******.
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I'm the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is ******
Things are going to slide ...
There'll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing
You'll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin'
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby:
it is ******
Things are going to slide ...
When they said REPENT REPENT ...