We then head towards Harlem
At 7pm, the Protestant service begins in a temple
Quite modern and particularly ugly
Marketing is everywhere
And Americans know how to lure the customer
Speakers in front of the church broadcast the ceremony
The gospel is in full swing
And parish men hand us
Pamphlets on good, evil, and Satan
Before we sit on the communicants' bench

There are only black people in the assembly
Except for a group of Spanish tourists
On stage, four choristers make spiritual harmonies
Behind an amplified pastor who harangues the faithful
The pastor speaks fast
And I don't understand everything in the midst of amen, amen, amen
He may be saying that today
Nothing you think deserves the name of flower
But tomorrow, tomorrow
Tomorrow you will undoubtedly wake up under a fruit tree
Like Jonas once under the castor oil plant
He says it's not the cold but the shame that gave the coat
That a man was walking straight but because of the sea he sat down
That everything is sweet and sour like at the Chinese caterer
And that we must honor the name of our father
I don't understand everything
I think I see a goddess of muscles and curves
When he says that statues also turn green
And that their crowns are a perch for pigeons
That to envy the eternity of statues
Is to envy the droppings on their shoulders
And the one that litters their pedestal
So I think of the naked goddess
And I see a scarlet sparrow levitating near her hair
I see the naked goddess and her buttocks that once danced

Then night falls
In the mobile, we have crossed ages
The girl has gone to Harlem
Harlem, it was almost yesterday
Then night falls
In the mobile, we have crossed ages
The girl has gone to Harlem
Harlem, it was almost yesterday
Time Square is around, we get off

It's hard to believe in such demonstrative fervor
Which does not resemble, moreover
This contagious fervor that I know
That of true kisses
The ecclesiastical spectacle does not touch the heart
It entertains and everyone sings, and everyone sings
"Is it the Clarity or just space after a massacre?" He says
Have we cut, burned trees
To have this clearing there
Like a swimming pool in the garden of a suburban house?
Or did we stumble upon it, by chance?
False track, find, dilemma, pincer
Screw, sky, wall and thoughts that I disapprove of by a hair
"By a hair's breadth of having done it" he says
Hell, paradise: a detail
Health walk, fold
And what to be disappointed, always by a hair
He now speaks of redemption
At the fair everything is within reach so I also sing
This morning when I woke up Jesus was on my side
On my side, on my side

Then night falls
In the mobile, we have crossed ages
The girl has gone to Harlem
Harlem, it was almost yesterday
Then night falls
In the mobile, we have crossed ages
The girl has gone to Harlem
Harlem, it was almost yesterday
Time Square is around

Then other speakers started to speak, slowly
Without movements
So we left before the end
The tourists saw what they wanted to see
That's how it is, a zoo, a stranger, a circuit
The same memories for all vacationers
We see folklore everywhere
But the bus shelters and the sky are the same everywhere
We cross New York in a shuttle
In the machine a seventeen-year-old girl, no more
With stiff and long black hair discreetly looks at me
Her black gaze is pretty, defiant and scared
The sun beats down on the lands we cross
The landscape is dusty, arid
The Latin nymph, a rickety bus
In the surrounding dryness it's a tropical country

Then night falls
In the mobile, we have crossed ages
And ages and ages
The girl has now gone far
Laid down on Jonas's castor oil plant, I think
Harlem, Harlem
It was almost yesterday
Time Square is around now
We get off

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