It took him months to achieve the design
And all of the papers were filed on time
Work began
Blasting the stone into hymns and candlelight
Near the end, everyone told him he'd lost his mind

Nobody knew what to do with the hole
Like all other absence that can't be controlled
Mother said maybe they'd like it in Paris or someplace like that
Father said, it's just a ditch you can fill it right in where it's at

Bring your machines around
And fill in his negative space
We've got to smooth this out
Lest absence be taken for grace

How can a person be proud of a taking-away
An achievement for thieves and decay
Society stands on a monument, not on a loss (save for the kind on a cross

Now he's a man in a diner like you
Who gives no impression of trying-to-do
Even so, he's concocted a story as false as it is real
Knowing him is knowing a fiction that hides all the while it reveals

Maybe he'll die and they'll give him a stone