Sinner in the Sea

There’s a piano playing on the ocean floor between Havana and New Orleans
Drummin’ a requiem for the dead and the souls hanging on every poet’s prayer
Running to the rock, running to the sea
Prayin’ to the Lord, please shelter me

But the ground keeps shaking
Water is boiling on fire
Blood pulsing through their veins
Like the waves crashing on the Malecón wall

Clocks stopping at twelve on the eve of a forgotten war
Luis drivin’ a ‘59 making it half way across the Gulf
Stranded on the rock, stranded on the sea
There’s a wall in the ocean between you and me

Dreams of reaching dry land
Talking to the fortune teller
Prisoners pounding the jail
Like the waves crashing on the Malecón wall

Someone lost an eye
Someone lost the truth
Trying to save face
‘Neath the eyes of the Virgin el Cobre

Shout me a line sister
Shout me a line sister
Oh I see your hands in the air
See you drowning on the other side

Chief’s in the parish and the drummers in the square
Walkin’ across the fire, walkin’ across the waves
Sinner on the rock, sinner in the sea
There’s a sunken bridge ‘tween you and me

Running past the embassy gates
And the Santería shrine
Blood pulsing through their veins
Like the waves they remember crashing on the Malecón wall