Idle Songs

O the Roman ambassador

Was torn apart-apart by plaster

And reassembled after:

the 40 years of bombing:

They were wild and they were crying, in the picture

Where the smoke cleared

Tear your body from your beard

And watch as the planes burn the boats from the isle

A board is a board

When the pulpit meets the sword

And the poet has been bored

He's seen Fire and he's seen Pain

And the tedium has stained,

O Vergil, get your rake out there's a pastor to be pulled

And 60 miles west of Rome: "I stopped some dreadful hoard."

And I, I will let my body go,

And when it goes and then it stinks

There will be beauty in its stink

And the last rays of the fink

Will suppose themselves to shine

Upon the corpse of Stinking Gold

That has fallen into brine,

Idle song.