That Beautiful Word

When we opened the basement the battered cadaver looked brittle and small
Not a world weary gumshoe could say what occurred.
Then it blinked and it coughed and it sputtered - it wasn't quite dead after all.
It was only the shell of that beautiful word.
There was talk of unsavory methods and wills that were broken and crushed
but it seemed so alarmist and vague and absurd
till the grim light of dawn hit this vessel whose own very soul had been hushed.
Tell me what have we have done to that beautiful word?
That beautiful word fell like the sky.
What kind of lullaby turns love into a lie?
Say, haven't you heard? Letters this high spell out the reason why: lie.
First we drugged it with bald self-importance, then rented it out like a whore.
Fire and brimstone was always the payment preferred.
When it lay down with power and religion it couldn't get up anymore.
That's the way we crippled that beautiful word.
I can't even remember how it came how to be cursed.
But whatever the meaning now it means the reverse.
We used alchemy backwards to make lead out of gold.
Now this quivering cipher does whatever it's told.
We learned nothing from interrogation but how to turn faith into frost.
Now not even the glow of a cigarette stirred.
Fear came on little rat feet too late, and our own were the voices we lost
like the orphan we made of that beautiful word.