Italian



Wax rammish, white herrings
Awash with yellow derring-do
His countenance as purple as the dawn
So I could pluck a crow, wrapped up in brimming hampers
Betwixt the bark and beamish, in my little craft

I cast the dice and witness more towardsness
The secret place where man might hang a jewel
Your pinches, your pearls, superfluous interlacings
Your flowery jaggings, puffings-up and black within

Where shall you live but hell, amidst the hags and devils
When purple piper knuckles down to trill
Where shall you live but hell, amidst the hags and devils
When purple piper knuckles down to trill

Expenses, apprentices, the skull and all its striplings
The maidenheads of rotten courtesans
A Frenchman, a wrenchman, a slaughterer displeasures him
His countenance as purple as the dawn

Italian, I'll wager, the son of John Indifferent
The young boys take their pleasure up and down
Where shall you live but hell, amidst the hags and devils
When purple piper knuckles down to trill

Wax rammish, white herrings
Awash with yellow derring-do
His countenance as purple as the dawn
So I could pluck a crow, wrapped up in brimming hampers
Betwixt the bark and beamish, in my little craft

Where shall you live but hell, amidst the hags and devils
When purple piper knuckles down to trill
Where shall you live but hell, amidst the hags and devils
Italian, I'll wager, within

Macbeth



Have you known the hideous sickness of Macbeth
As he sleepwalks into violence and to death
With his wife, that haggard crone
And though it doesn't help to moan
It seems that moaning's what that hideous bitch does best

There are scripperscrappers scratching at your door
The police won't take your phonecalls any more
And the terrible old man controls
A hound with phosphate fangs and sends him
Galloping towards you on the moor

Have you never heard the cellar killer say
That perhaps tonight will be your lucky day
It may be a hollow boast
Or you may be already toast
For after all this is the Scottish play

Charcoal



Conteret me, destroy
Your beauty doth exceed my most voluptuous wish
The heat of lips I kiss
Transforms me in the forge of bliss
Destroy me now, and let my joy my death befriend
O never can, o never can destruction end

Destroy me, destroy me
Dowse my fire with tears
Employ me as
Charcoal, charcoal
I'll draw you as you char my soul

Your part is pale and slender as it grips
The heat the hips betwixt
Transforms me in the forge of bliss
Destroy me now, and let my joy my death befriend
O never can, o never can destruction end

Destroy me, destroy me
Dowse my fire with tears
Employ me as
Charcoal, charcoal
I'll draw you as you charm my soul

Conteret me, destroy

Guerilla



Limpet forget me not
Stinkhorn, liverwort
Punk clown, spider bot
Slackworm, hands tied up
Blind Cupid begat you not
Refugee, guerilla

Clamorous suffragette, sceptre and your rod
Group King Four was a merry old sod
With a pennyworth of paper and paupers
Flip-flop guardsmen, thick stout weasels
Creeping stealthy ‘pon thy prey
Who shall be thy prey today?
Gibson's ribs are rubbish pork
Stillborn in a skincoat
Swagger like Silenus, follow bulbous Epicurus
Refugee, guerilla

Rubbish as a rundlet
A dismal Adams, sweetkin madams
Strumpets used to shuffle on the knee
Clack and gabble, animal
You semi-Australian
Summoning the bailiffs for Salome's eyes
Barefoot penitentiaries in the Zeno colonies
Refugee, guerilla

Spittle hanging heavy like honey in a hive
Yarmouth Bay, Babylon
Over-cloy the Hellespont

Refugee, guerilla
Refugee

Ghost



Up on the mountain, always alone, there stands a cherry tree
Down in the city, always alone, moves the ghost of me
I wouldn't mind, it would be fine, to be joined at the hip with you
But the waves crash on rocks and smash the ship in two

Ghost story, memento mori, stop and smell the flowers
Slack at the middle, trying to rekindle sexual superpowers
Crushed under glass, life going past like a subway crowd
I want to live all I can live, all that I'm allowed

And if I recall anything at all, I'll recall this filthy moon
Orange and lonely, hollow and holy, with a junky spoon
And if it should happen that we never meet again at least we had this week
We will recall this old hotel, this refreshing sleep

Lying alone 'til daylight arrives, the emptiness of night
All my doubts scuttling about and nothing ever feeling right

I want to live all I can live, all that life allows
Dragging the night into the light, through the quisling clouds
Mist in the valley, trains in the city, a hot day's sudden showers
Slack at the middle, trying to rekindle sexual superpowers

Up on a mountain, always alone, there stands a cherry tree
Down in the city, always alone, there moves the ghost of me

Judy



Judy lights a cigarette, I walk her to my walk-up flat
With Repetto shoes, a chocolate hat
She looks like Marie Antoinette
Her tailor is an astronaut
And when she smiles I really ought
To tell her what I really thought
About her photograph

Judy's laugh is like a rasp
Judy's lips are bold as brass
Judy says she's working class
Maybe through the looking glass
Blows a kiss, picks up a glass
Fills it from a secret flask
Slings it back and shyly asks
If she can take a bath

And I wonder why does sex
Always make me think of death?
Does it matter, I say no
There's a thousand ways to come but only one to go

The sex is good, we speak of Yeats
His lucky loves, byzantine hates
And how before the pearly gates
He made St Peter sit and wait
While he made ready to create
Like some plenipotentate
Releasing fluids from his brain
Judy says she feels the same
A silence settles on the flowers
We are living golden hours
Like the carp that emperors
Keep to feel superior

And I wonder why does sex
Always make me think of death?
Does it matter, I say no
There's a thousand ways to come but only one to go

Look within, the end begins
Only when beginning ends
Judy says, and smiles, and bends
And when she bends beneath her dress
Suddenly I see her breasts
It makes me stop and catch my breath
And I wonder why does sex
Always make me think of death?

The sex is good, we speak of Yeats
His lucky loves, byzantine hates
And how, before the pearly gates
He made St Peter sit and wait
And I wonder why does sex
Always make me think of death?
Does it matter, I say no
Cos there's a thousand ways to come but only one to go

Pillycock



Lightning never strikes twice unless it strikes a second time
No-one dies in perfect health unless they die just fine
Nothing will come of nothing, they say, until something does emerge
And nothing is better than nothing, they say, so let that nothing splurge

Who can treat a woman right who hasn't first done her rough
Who can know what love is worth until they lose that love
You can cross the same river twice if you come to it again
Nothing says you take life seriously like playing it like a game

I hang out with Schrodinger, whose cat is and isn't there
He's as full as a ball of fluff, as empty as thin air
He's a living not-living paradox, he tells me with a grin
That I may say both is and isn't very him and very not him

Pillycock sat on Pillycock's hill, but that makes little sense
How can Pillycocks really be hills while also being men?
The foul fiend Flibbertigibbet sings in the voice of the nightingale
And Nero is a fly-fisher at the lake of Dunkerfaille

Crusoe



If you can come at all, boys, then come to Scatterseed
Come to rack and ruin, you'll be very glad you did
Surrounded by the girls, boys, dressed in sun and slap
Giving you their love, boys, and giving you the clap, hey

Well never speak of empire, boys, or opportunity
If you come to rack and ruin then you come to run to seed
Decay is half the point when you're greedy for the sun
A little of what you fancy in the face of what's to come, hey

Cos here we ache like Gregory Corso
Make love like Enrico Caruso
Walk like Leonardo, croak like Valentino
Spook like Robinson Crusoe

Our virtue always was really something of a farce
A turgid public show to keep the neighbours in the dark
If your unfulfilled ambition is to be an old disgrace
A blackguard and scoundrel with a gargoyle for a face
You'll fit right in round here, boys, where everybody acts
As if the future were a fiction and the past were just a fact, hey

And here we ache like Gregory Corso
Make love like Enrico Caruso
Walk like Leonardo, croak like Valentino
And spook around like Robinson Crusoe, hey

And so to bed on the Isle of Scatterseed
Why should being a pig be for everyone but me
My human days are gone, boys, I'm beastly after all
And so I shall arise, boys, and so I shall a-fall, hey

2009



When you two broke up, he did not give up
And now he is stalking you
You are all he talks about, how you two went out
How he'll follow wherever you go

Could he really hope to stay, does he want to hear you say
That everything can still work out fine?
What world is he on, singing what maudlin song
Where it's always 2009?

Honore de Balzac said in love it's a fact
That there's always one who suffers, one who's bored
And you're bored with him, with tasting his pain
Straight from his smorgasbord, well

What does he believe, does he expect some reprieve
To make it start over again
With his maudlin old songs, in the world that he's on
It's always 2009

Are you sorry for him, the only victim
When your relationship died
Does it make you feel sick, is the pope a Catholic?
He follows wherever you go

One day he will visit you looking like a wounded doe
Telling you he's doing fine
With his maudlin old songs, in the world that he's from
It's always 2009

Eurotrash



Well I used to have a room on the Lower East Side
The place where the European immigrants arrived
With just enough room to swing an alley cat
The time they called me Eurotrash
Down in Chinatown the block was running down
It's gentrified now, it's a gallery town
Chic boutiques for the super-rich creeps
For people like me it's out of reach

For reasons becoming clear to me
New York City you are dead to me
Well you can turn back time but I'm never coming back
To when you called me Eurotrash

Well they called me Eurotrash and I was happy to be
I used to drink at a bar called the Passerby
Where the strobe lights flashed in a floor of many colours
And they played Fischerspooner all night
There was a new American century but Arto Lindsay moved away
And in place of the halls where we used to play
There's now a million frozen yoghurt joints

For reasons becoming clear to me
New York City you are dead to me
Well you can turn back time or turn your back on me
But I'm never going back to Eurotrash

The day of the beginning of the end of things
I was up on the roof and saw the planes
Ayako took a picture of me with the towers on fire behind
Rika said it was a beautiful sight, we argued around that line all night
But later it was something you would probably cite as a factor in her suicide

For reasons pretty clear to see
New York City you are dead to me
Well you can turn back time but she's never coming back
From the time they called me Eurotrash

For reasons self-evident and necessary
New York City you are dead to me
Well you can turn back time but I'm never coming back
I'm Eurotrash

Drunkenness



Hufty tufty the cap gun shouts
Your whole life is inside out
A cast of martinets, a whiff of Monsieur Mingo
Horse outside, going down to Sligo
So slaver and drivel like a child at mouth
No more of this drunkenness
In slavish Bacchus-born, I hate it to death
Drunkenness

Thy scurvy lungs with surfeiting be putrified
Thy wrath be fatal to thy dearest friends
A toucher, a toucher, for quaffing toy doth pass
In cup, in can, in glass, drunkenness

God Bacchus do him right and dub him knight
Rise up Sir Robert Tosspot, Sir Robert Tosspot
No more of this, I hate it to the death
Drunkenness

Deformer of the soul, abusing all the earth's fine fruits
In cellars and in vaults
Let none commit their counsels unto thee
Thy wrath be fatal to them, drunkenness

Dropsies and watery tympanies haunt thee
Thy lungs with surfeiting be putrified
Odious stinking breath
Slaver and drivel like a child at mouth
Drunkenness

Be poor and beggardly in thy old age
Let thy own kinsmen laugh when thou complainest
And many tears gain nothing but blind scoffs
Drunkenness

Hufty tufty the cap gun shouts
Your whole life is inside out
Drunkenness

Whites



The whites played by black actors are getting out of bed
Stretching into yoga poses, eating their white bread
Drinking their white coffee, wearing their white masks
Reading their white newspaper, The White Telegraph

The most flagrant injustices cannot dismay the whites
They shrug at the decay of our outdated human rights
The whites played by black actors take their white children to school
Driving through safe neighbourhoods in armoured vehicles
The whites are wearing whiteface, even though they're white
The whites play their white music at all hours of the night
And blacked up neighbours played by whites hammer on the wall
Shouting "Whitey, keep it down!" to no response at all

And the whites carry umbrellas blackened by the rain
The whites have special areas set aside on trains
The whites believe in platforms, their politicians itch
To whiten up the borders and fatten up the rich

You make me want to be a terrorist, your whiteness makes me sick
With your milk-white skin, your milk-white prick
Your milquetoast mannerisms, your milquetoast art
I want to take your whiteness now and rip it apart

But the whites played by black actors are spiralling the drain
Dying out is such a bore yet living is a pain
By 2099, when the whites have all but gone
The whites played by black actors will be there to carry on

Canterbury



When we get to Canterbury
It'll be great, wait and see
The food? Hot! The women? A lot!
And a crypt fit to make you wanna die on the spot

Hey my name is Nick, I'm a scholar and a mover
Alisoun's my lover, Absolom you are a loser
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hey hey hey

Pressing on ahead to Canterbury
It'll be wonderful, probably
Also the flowers, great along the way
And the tales we tell both night and day

Well I'm the Wife of Bath and I'm a real lady
What women most desire is sovereignty
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hey hey hey

Well they call me Chauntecleer, I'm the king of the cocks
And I'm proud of the way I escaped from a fox
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hey hey hey

Well I start to feel a hope that we never arrive
Art is the dope that makes me feel alive
The flowers grow huge along the way
And we tell big fibs the livelong day
Ladies and gentlemen and Geoffrey
Forget Canterbury

Brother Symkyn, I'm a miller and a swindler
Swyve my daughter you'll be living in a river
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hey hey hey

Tryster



Help me mister, I done your sister, on the blister is where I kissed her
(Help him mister, he did your sister, on the blister is where he kissed her)

I've got my list, I've got my lust, I've got my tryst, I've got her trust
(He's got the list, he's got the lust, he's got the tryst, he's got her trust)

Well I'm a lover, my wife's the mother, of the daughter, and the other
(Well he's a lover, his wife's the mother, of the daughter, and the other)

It's trick and treat, it's veg and meat, it's cake and eat, meet and greet

So help me mister, I done your sister, on the blister is where I kissed her
(So help him mister, he did your sister, on the blister is where he kissed her)
It's double bluff, my life is rough, to live for love isn't enough
(It's double bluff, his life is rough, to live for love wasn't enough)

So I'm living the life, and I'm loving the life, but I'm wielding the knife, and I'm losing the wife
(So he's living the life, and he's loving the life, but he's wielding the knife, and he's losing the wife)

You've got to kill a bit, if you want to live a bit, you've got to take a bit, you've got to be a shit
(He's got to kill a bit, he wants to live a bit, he's got to take a bit, he doesn't give a shit)

And I've lost the list, I've lost my lust, I've lost my tryst, and I've lost your trust
It's trick and treat, it's veg and meat, it's cake and eat, meet and greet

I could'nae give a shit, I'm just a wee shit, life was magnificent I went and wasted it
It's trick and treat, it's veg and meat, it's cake and eat, meet and greet

(Help him mister, he done your sister, on the blister is where he kissed her)

I'm living the life, I'm loving the life, but I'm wielding the knife, and I'm losing the wife
(He's living the life, and he's loving the life, but he's wielding the knife, and he's losing the wife)

Literature



She never writes
She's much too busy with her phone
And when you ask if she's alone
She says she must be stranded somewhere
And she's in her underwear
And there's a breeze and the evening is clear
Now her signal's breaking up
Off the map where there's a beach
Like a language without literature
Just out of reach
Chaos definitely suits her
She has wandered too far

And now she declares
She's by a rockpool she can reach by a stair
And the sky is like a sea creature
Flung up into the air
Or is it just the evening star?
Limpid and blue

She says she must be stranded somewhere
So twitchy and vague
There's a breeze and the evening is clear
Now her signal's breaking up
With the frequency of waves
Atomic arrays
She says she's alone

Like a language without literature
Off the map where there's a beach
And she's in her underwear
Like a language without literature
Limpid and blue, she has wandered too far

(You do what you want to do and I'll do what I want to do
Time crawls slowly round the room when I, I make my entrance
Eyes like headlights switch on you and I, I take my vengeance)

Scuttle



It's an animal
It's a fox!
No it's not, it's a dog
What does it matter? Come on, we've got a job to do
Cutting poles for the railway line

There's no coal in the scuttle
Don't talk rubbish, did you look in the scuttle?
I was looking in the scuttle!
The coal scuttle?
The coal scuttle, that's what I said
But I didn't want to linger long
There was an animal scuttling about
What you talking about?
Scuttling about by the scuttle?
That's right, scuttling about by the scuttle!
What kind of animal?
It was a fox!
No it wasn't, it was more like a dog
What does it matter, come on, we've got a job to do
Cutting poles for the railway line

Index