song

Song

She reads to me in murderous intent
poems of virgins
and black hearted clergy
tales rabid
of the hells for me cemented
in cancerous eternities demented
and what pleasured pains implicitly
await me.
She speaks to me with arson in her eyes
torch scorched ballads
of torment
and sonnets filled with rhymed disguise
that do in their pretty words belie
their silken soft and sinful stroked descent
She sings to me with murder in her eyes.

Good Friday Song


I laughed with Leonard Cohen
on Good Friday afternoon
we prayed to old Jack Daniels
that Death would visit soon.

The old bartender took the call
and in a crying voice did say
a toast to friends both here and gone
for Death had passed away.

He’d taken black on Monday morn
maudlin as the heaven’s host
and lost his purpose in a dream
of a thankless holy ghost.

And though he prayed on Tuesday
Wednesday, Thursday too,
on Friday took a glass in hand
and knew that he was through.

So lost without his faith no more
Death rose once from his bed
he grabbed his pistol from the drawer
and put a bullet in his head.

on the minstrel (who has his fancy lost)

my fancy falls not fair today
from poesie and bright thoughts I stray
the darker humours undermine
my desires to sing and rhyme
of more bright and lustful things
which into most morning bring
a cheered soul that skips its way
into fair fancies of the day,
so rather than for verses strain
I will from vain attempts refrain.

twelve lines

I walked through purple heathers wild
their heads washed fresh with dew
and in their perfumed boudoir
I wrote this song for you
I sang it as the sun gave way
to fogs upon the glen
and even o’er the mists of time
I’ll sing it now and then
whenever heathers breathe the air
and sigh their last bouquet
my thoughts within these simple words
is all I’ll have left to say.

Faux Folk Song

St. Patrick sailed from Tithebarn Street
or so the story goes
and sailed across the Irish Sea
a thousand years ago
and all the snakes in Ireland
did quiver in their skins
as they’d heard St Paddy
had come to do them in.

St. Patrick sailed from Tithebarn Street
in dark old Liverpool
where woodlands fell as sailors tell
for ships the seas to rule
and on board such a sturdy bough
he sighted Eire’s green
and all the serpents quaked and shook
he’d come to do them in.