Simon and Garfunkel - A Poem on the Underground Wall

Collected Works / 1981-03-01 1. 7 o'clock News/Silent Night 2. AMERICA 3. Anji 4. April Come She Will 5. At the Zoo 6. A Most Peculiar Man 7. A Poem on the Underground Wall 8. A Simple Desultory Philippic 9. Baby Driver 10. Benedictus 11. Bleeker Street 12. Blessed 13. Bookends Theme 14. Bridge Over Troubled Water 15. Bye Bye Love 16. Cecilia 17. Cloudy 18. EL CONDOR PASA (IF I COULD) 19. Fakin' It 20. Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall 21. For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her 22. Go Tell It On The Mountain 23. Hazy Shade of Winter 24. He Was My Brother 25. Homeward Bound 26. I Am a Rock 27. Kathy's Song 28. Keep the Customer Satisfied 29. Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream 30. Leaves That Are Green 31. Old Friends 32. Overs 33. Patterns 34. Peggy-O (Traditonal) 35. Punky's Dilemma 36. Richard Cory 37. Save the Life of My Child 38. Scarborough Fair/Canticle 39. Somewhere They Can't Find Me 40. Song for the Asking 41. So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright 42. Sparrow 43. The 59th Street Bridge Song 44. The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine 45. The Boxer 46. The Dangling Conversation 47. The Only Living Boy in New York 48. The Sound Of Silence 49. The Sun Is Burning 50. The Times They Are A-Changin' 51. Voices of Old People 52. We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin' 53. Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. 54. Why Don't You Write Me 55. You Can Tell The World

A Poem on the Underground Wall

The last train is nearly due,
The underground is closing soon,
And in the dark deserted station,
Restless in anticipation,
A man waits in the shadows.

His restless eyes leap and scratch,
At all that they can touch or catch,
And hidden deep within his pocket,
Safe within its silent socket,
He holds a colored crayon.

Now from the tunnel's stony womb,
The carriage rides to meet the groom,
And opens wide and welcome doors,
But he hesitates, then withdraws
Deeper in the shadows.

And the train is gone suddenly
On wheels clicking silently
Like a gently tapping litany,
And he holds his crayon rosary
Tighter in his hand.

Now from his pocket quick he flashes,
The crayon on the wall he slashes,
Deep upon the advertising,
A single worded poem comprised
Of four letters.

And his heart is laughing, screaming, pounding
The poem across the tracks rebounding
Shadowed by the exit light
His legs take their ascending flight
To seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night.