Once I Saw the River Clean

Once I saw the river clean
Distant future, wait for me
I grow pleasing to the eye
And the queue will queue for me
Once I saw the river clean
Soon the clock will strike for me
Childish mind anticipates
Grown-up mind consummates
I walked with my grandmother
Down a windblown Chester Road
With her fifty-two new pence
For her twenty number-tens
And my forty-five pence too
Demand «Metal Guru»
Once with hearts securely stacked
Then we walked all the way back
I walked with my grandmother
Along the groan of Talbot Road
In the gardens by the graves
I can just about behave
Arrogant and paranoid
All around, see fathead youth
Look into their brutal eyes
But only if you want the truth
Once I saw the river clean
Scratching up the latest scheme
Time will come but it hasn’t yet
Someone’s out to get me
I walked with my grandmother
Cornbrook Street, where incomplete
She would never be again
A Dublin dancer, free and young