?Neath the leaden lid<br />
I saw your face<br />
Ashen and pale as you walked away<br />
And I stayed behind <br />
Oh Where?d you go<br />
Dearest friend of mine<br />
<br />
Can you recall the lurid scene of savagery<br />
The sea beast belly-up and beached<br />
Twice as long as a seven mast ship<br />
<br />
They took him apart with pliers and a crane<br />
Oh they took him apart, though it took several days<br />
And they took him apart and the townspeople came<br />
And chit-chattered away<br />
<br />
The sky that night seemed lacerated<br />
Each cloud a con- contusion<br />
Some wade in the water to wash his bones off<br />
I wade in the water and I watch ?em<br />
Then they stack him up on a pushcart<br />
Haul him off to the maritime museum<br />
<br />
The horizon boasts a widowed light<br />
That punches pinholes ?tween the sycamores and pines<br />
And through the sodden bogs I make my way back home<br />
<br />
The biddies of the town can chew this tale down<br />
And gnaw it into skeletal scraps ?til fiction is fact<br />
See the truckling trees, bare in the air<br />
But for struggling kites<br />
Oh! His bones are bleached, laid out on the truck<br />
His teeth are brushed and his mouth is shut<br />
His bones are tied with twine and screws<br />
Put on poles, hoisted up in a room<br />
<br />
I recall looking once ?neath your lids<br />
To a universe full of starts<br />
And the days drag on awfully long <br />
When you?re not one who can carry on<br />
Chit-chattering away<br />
Chit-chattering away...<br />