Jubilee

He fills the flower vases, trims the candle bases

Takes small change from the poor box, Tyler has the key

He takes nail and hammer to tack up the banner

Of felt scraps glued together reading, Jesus lives in me

Alone in the night he mocks the words of the preacher

God is feeling your every pain

Repair the Christmas stable, restore the plaster Angel

Her lips begin to crumble and her robes begin to peel

For Bible study in the church basement

Hear children Gospel citing, Matthew 17:15

Alone in the night he mocks the arms of the preacher

Raised to the ceiling tell God your pain

To him the world's defiled in lot he sees a likeness there

He swears this Sodom will burn down

Near Sacred Blood there's a dance hall

Where Tyler Glen saw a black girl and a white boy kissing shamelessly

Black hands on white shoulders

White hands on black shoulders

Dancing, and you know what's more

He's God's mad disciple, a righteous title for the Word he heard

He so misunderstood though simple minded a crippled man

To know this man is to fear this man to shake when, to shake when

To shake when he comes wasn't it God that let Puritans in Salem

Do what they did to the unfaithful

Boys at the Jubilee slowly sink into brown bag whiskey

Drinking and reeling on their feet

Girls at the Jubilee in low-cut dresses

Yield to the caresses and the man-handling

Black hands on white shoulders

White hands on black shoulders

Dancing, and you know what's more

Through the tall blades of grass he heads for the Jubilee

With a bucket in his right hand full of rags soaked in gasoline

He lifts the shingles in the dark and slips the rags there underneath

He strikes a matchstick on the box side and watches the rags ignite

He climbs the bell tower of the Sacred Blood to watch the flames

Rising higher toward the trees sirens wailing now toward the scene