Ego Ballad of St. Nick

Take command,
Take his hand.
Give him peace
And release him
From this cold oubliette.
Please don’t let them forget
Who he is:
Serpent’s kiss.
He’s a snake nailed to a cross
By peasant farmers,
But he’s only their demon du jour.

I know you.

Palace of hypocrites,
Status-clad and thoughtless.
This is where father sits;
Pour another port glass.
Detonate honesty.
Truth is suicide in
Middlebrow middle earth.
Why are you all hiding?

I know you.
You herald truth, you do.
You must be wiped out good.
Thought police will tame your blood.
We hump our parish pumps.
Rednecks will brand your rump.
Our scythes are cold and blunt
Unlike our public front.

Joan of Arc,
In the park
Got attacked
By a pack of
Noble youths
Whose rejection of truth was absolute.
She got raped,
They escaped.
She tastes cider whenever
She wakes from a nightmare
In her mouth which can only sing truth.

I know you.

Ducking ponds, Wishing chairs:
Such a rigid science.
Could make one quite despair:
Turn to sexual violence.
What a dead hinterland,
Desert of the doldrums.
Nothing in a grain of sand:
The universe behold them.

I know you…truth etc.

Satire’s cheap
And a leap
From the horror
Of the daily grind,
Stops the shit
From fermenting your mind.
The prophet sings
‘Slay the kings’
And he rallies forth
With a trident and a toothpick
To extract all the shit
From the gob of the world.

I know you.
I KNOW you.
I know YOU…

Send me on holiday.
Give me tranquilisers.
Pacify, wash away.
Lower the truth visor.
Hold on a minute, Nick.
Where’s the humility?
You’re a conceited prick.
I hope this ain’t about me?

No, I love you.
That’s why I talk to you.
That’s why I phone you late.
That’s why we’ll emigrate.
Get me away from here.
I want you always near,
So I don’t go insane,
Kamikaze a plane.
You give me sacred peace
And a sense of release.
I’m one atomic son.
I get angry for fun.
Chaos bewitched the earth
The day that my mum gave birth.