(I Was Drunk At The) Pulpit

I was drunk at the pulpit, I knew it was wrong

And I left in mid-sermon tempted by a bar-house song

The pews creaked and shifted as they turned to watch me leave

And I pulled a little bottle from the pocket in my sleeve

The sunlight was stronger to my church-dark widened eyes

Than the light which had blinded me with Christ's own half-lies

Yes mid-sunday morning, my old playmates sat

Round a stumble stained table, Christopher spat

And he kicked out a chair and showed me to sit

Then they started back singing in that shit-smelling pit

They were grinning and dribbling with comforted heads

Their wives were in church or at home and in beds

Well I sucked down a cupful and God shone within

In a red earthen mask, and I saw where I'd been was a palace of sin.

Let them abstain on unbucking high horses

Poor wooden structures which merely eye courses

That these log heads run just to find some respite

In the whiskey-induced holy unending night

Yes I thought I saw new light, the black one which dimmed

The bleach garments with which mingled pee on stained rims

Oh the church songs they paled next to this fiery chorus

Composed from a living depth especially for us

There were arms linked in sympathy, gilded the glaring

Of these bloated companions, who hid 'neath their swearing

Some need for another, kin to brother lust,

Which coarse words and music, was faith and less trust

Yes I saw a dependence, an inherent weakness

Within walls which hid sunlight and hindered all frankness

That floor there supported what souls couldn't stand

On their own in their own eyes, to hint they are men

Who are slave to their vision but to that alone

Yes each of them cloistered fear of being alone

Wherever folks gather, to imply a rule,

They are each one a sinner, each one a fool

For if I drink my whiskey, and if I sing a song

I have no breast companion, a-trailing along

To imagine a sharing of burdens I earned

To steal from the embers i strove so to burn

God is one's corpus, and Jesus one's blood

The world is within you, without is of mud...