We sit playing in his room,

this is how it always goes,

he shakes stars out of a tune  

I just puff along

 

He is a saturnine fellow

like Pan on bad a day or like the devil,

he doesn’t give that much away

while I pour secrets from a severed vessel.

 

All the songs are sad romances

suffering so much in deliverance

that I think I’d like to be that dame

who goes blind on the bridge and topples in.

 

Into the river, into the flood,

umbrellas of Cherbourg splattered in mud.

Too much singing in the rain

you’ll never be fit for the sun again.

 

 

October 2006