S A T A L O N E
He was beautiful when he sat alone, he was like me, he had
wide lapels, he was holding the mug in the hardest possible
way so that his fingers were all twisted but still long and
beautiful, he didn't like to sit alone all the time, but this
time, I swear, he didn't care one way or the other.
I'll tell you why I like to sit alone, because I'm a sadist,
that's why we like to sit alone, because we're the sadists wao
like to sit alone.
He sat alone because he was beautifully dressed for the
occasion and because he was not a civilian.
We are the sadists you don't have to worry about, you think,
and we have no opinion on the matter of whether you have
to worry about us, and we don't even like to think about
the matter because it baffles us.
Maybe he doesn't mean a thing to me any more but I think
he was like me.
You didn't expect to fall in love, I said to myself and at the
same time I answered gently, Do you think so?
I heard you humming beautifully, your hum said that I
can't ignore you, that I'd finally come around for a number
of delicious reasons that only you knew about, and here I
am, Miss Blood.
And you won't come back, you won't come back to where
you left me, and that's why you keep my number, so you
204 I
don't dial it by mistake when you're fooling with the dial
not even dialing numbers.
You begin to bore us with your pain and we have decided
to change your pain.
You said you were happiest when you danced, you said you
were happiest when you danced with me, now which do you
mean?
And so we changed his pain, we threw the idea of a body at
him and we told him a joke, and then he thought a great
deal about laughing and about the code.
And he thought that she thought that he thought that she
thought that the worst thing a woman could do was to take
a man away from his work because that made her what, ugly
or beautiful?
And now you have entered the mathematical section of
your soul which you claimed you never had. I suppose that
this, plus the broken heart, makes you believe that now you
have a perfect right to go out and tame the sadists.
He had the last line of each verse of the song but he didn't
have any of the other lines, the last line was always the
same, Don't call yourself a secret unless you mean to keep it.
He thought he knew, or he actually did know too much
about singing to be a singer; and if there actually is such a
condition, is anybody in it, and are sadists born there?
It is not a question mark, it is not an exclamation point, it
is a full stop by the man who wrote Parasites of Heaven.
I 205
Even if we stated our case very clearly and all those who
held as we do came to our side, all of them, we would still
be very few.
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I A M A P R I E S T O F G O D
I am a priest of God
I walk down the road
with my pockets in my hand
Sometimes I'm bad
then sometimes I'm very good
I believe that I believe
everything I should
I like to hear you say
when you dance with head rolling
upon a silver tray
that I am a priest of God
I thought I was doing 100 other things
but I was a priest of God
I loved 100 women
never told the same lie twice
I said 0 Christ you're selfish
but I shared my bread and rice
I heard my voice tell the crowd
that I was alone and a priest of God
making me so empty
that even now in 1966
I'm not sure I'm a priest of God
I 207
I N A L M O N D T R E E S L E M O N T R E E S
In almond trees lemon trees
wind and sun do as they please
Butterflies and laundry flutter
My love her hair is blond as butter
Wasps with yellow whiskers wait
for food beside her china plate
Ants beside her little feet
are there to share what she will eat
Who chopped down the bells that say
the world is born again today
We will feed you all my dears
this morning or in later years
2os 1
S U Z A N N E T A K E S Y O U D O W N
Suzanne takes you down
to her place near the river,
you can hear the boats go by
you can stay the night beside her.
And you know that she's half crazy
but that's why you want to be there
and she feeds you tea and oranges
that come all the way from China.
Just when you mean to tell her
that
