our charity

 

the chapel's latest float is setting a course

buckets overflowing for the worthy cause

spit wiping pears on your sooted shirt

saying prayers for the working dirt

that's what you are since you got so giving

holding out your hand

ripe for the taking

some detail caught in the lantern glow

saw frayed cuffs wiping at a dripping nose

and red weals on a donkey's hide that'll never come off

can roll and roll and roll in the pasture

but it'll never come off

is this where you are since you got so feeble?

huddled down in the dirt

where you fight evil

so, wet blessed with jerusalem and jam

your cloak soaked right through

and drowned the precious little lambs

you can't be shook or hurt

because the ark's already built

and if only cream gets in

let's pray god cradles milk

for that's what you are though you try so hard

to keep the devil down

in your own back yard

our charity began at home and set sail on a boat

through looks stuck in rivers & arrows stuck in throats

left in shelves of silt deep down in the banks

lies an invisible interest and someone to thank

for all that you since you got so lived-in

a place you can trust when our charity's willing

 

oh the meeting was good and the friends were kind

and the temperance brass band struck up just in time

the sap is rising on the trunk

and some of the guys were rolling around drunk

with beaks wet with lipstick & elderberry wine

they tap out s.o.s. to a lillied high tide

and think of all the misfortune they might yet find

and others they've dodged or left behind

and that's what they are since they got so giving

held out their hands and waited to be shaken

brass plates & forelocks, manor gates & sweat shops

railings & sidings & triumphs over weaklings

beatings & hidings going strong in quire stalls

and i've gone quite faint at victorian mores

sure the poor house scrubbed up well

still had to pull it down

peel the lice paste from your skin

and the gilt from your crown

so, what part did you play in the latest crusade?

these ventures for good and gottens for gain

who stumped up the readies, the willings and ables

through maps, sticks and gorges & twelve times tables?

it's quite a feat to make the world blush pink

to get knee deep in mud and not even blink

 

the veil's been parted so keep your twisted legs hid

because no rods are spared on a surly cripple of a kid

so when you are all three, you should keep low in the ditch

pawn your locket for blankets on nights blacker than pitch

when oaks begin to creak & lungs start to wheeze

and you made your last farthing from gathering leaves

you'll meet a monkey in a pulpit who'll pour silver on your hands

and make a chimp out of jesus and tell you how it began

(baby if only I had made it all up see)

hell the blizzard's here and I've not spokem

freely or damned or closed or open

ever ready, upright, you'll be lashed soon enough

for those spells short and smashed

when i was looking for love

it's time for a change beyond you control

clippers are tossed and seas start to roll

the kid got low, slithering around

stomach on cinders, eating worms that she found

has a plague pit for a neighbour & first pick on a plot

gnaws long & yellow on roots that won't rot

the bit bores black & the bed spits it out

leaves our sopping wretch with five tenths of a shout

in the earth's neath the crust she is taken aback

to the glory years of sudden attack

and that's what you've got when you add it up

gum, bottle tops & pennies in a pewter cup

and that's what i am since i got so give-in

held out my hand

and i waited to be shaken