Dust 2 ... - Elvis Costello

If dust could only talk

What would we hear it say?

Before it’s brushed aside

Just as it’s swept away

It’s just the evidence

It’s of no consequence

It’s only flesh and bone

Why don’t you leave it alone?

If dust could only speak

Caught in a falling beam

If dust could only cry

If dust could only scream

For it’s the single witness that might testify

Could I spit out the truth?

Or would you rather just swallow a lie?

But dust is always caught behind a coat of paint

Beneath the marble fingernails of kings and saints

And in the theatre curtain where they hang a drape

Or in the ticket pocket where your hands escape

Before they start to wander

Or they start to shrink

You rub your eye a little and appear to blink

And then she caught you staring

She knows just what you’re thinking

What got into you was not a ghost as such

It was just dust

Here comes the juggernaut

Here come The Poisoners

They choke the life and land

And rob the joy from us

Why do they taste of sugar

Oh, when they’re made of money

Here comes the lamb of God

And the butcher’s boy, Sonny

Well I believe we just

Become a speck of dust…