The Thief - Momus

Hoodlums, scoundrels, guttersnipes and crooks

Come hear the truth they never print in books

Everyone loves a robbery, planned or unplanned

Larceny and luxury go hand in hand

So go steal something bloody great today

Write it in your journal, Jean-Paul Sartre needs a play

Steal a little once, steal a little better every day

You’ll need at least seventeen identities and names

Always stay vigilant and awake

Because you risk arrest if you make one dumb mistake

Only when thinking is the single thing without which one would sink

Has a person ever really earned the right to think

Say you’re going to steal a great big fish today

Sit by the river and wait til the anglers look away

Why grub for money in a system built for wealth?

Grab that money and have it for yourself

But don’t be a thief unless it gives you a sexual thrill

Being a thief’s a calling, it’s vocational

We’re in an orgy of haggling and treason in the fog

Don’t just stand there daydreaming, filthy on the dock

See the dunderhead opium-smuggler fall

When he fails to shave his beard off in the cheap Belgian hotel

Steal a little once, steal a little better every day

With seventeen identities and names

At every single moment stay vigilant and awake

They’ll get you if you make one mistake

Only when thinking is the single thing without which one would sink

Has a person ever really earned the right to think