Now I’m gone tell you a story                  
‘Bout a short bald man in a suit;
He liked everything to be neat as a pin…
Who knew one day that man’d go crazy and end up in the loony bin?

So this little bald man had a family
And a pretty daughter named Mary
She was coming out that season…
Her Daddy thought that day’d never come - now he felt it was beyond all reason

Well this man’s name was Jerry
And he was mean as a snake
Folk say he’s ex-military…
‘Cos of that one time he stuck a dog with a rake

Well now this stout bald man liked duty
Said he wanted to control nature
To be like Moses and part the sea
That’s why his garden was on the cover of country life magazine

Now it wasn’t hard to find a husband
For his little grown up girl
When men queued up twice round the block
To catch a glimpse of Mary in her favourite frock

Now here comes the end of my story, an end that I'll soon tell
It happened the day before the wedding
When Mary’s old Daddy was going through a real mean spell

On this day he went to the Barber’s
To smarten up what little hair he had
But that Barber didn’t cut it quite right…
One tiny hair stuck up and Jerry’s face went white...

At the sight of that blonde hair crowning the top of his head
Jerry whirled around and struck that Barber down dead
It was safe to say poor Jerry’d seen red
And when they found him?
Well Jerry was drowning
In the sticky sap the Barber had bled.

Now that’s the end of this tale, apart from the “Where are they now?”
Six months down the line Jerry pleaded guilty
Now he’s locked up in the state penitentiary...
You can visit him one until three.

I remember that Day when we sat
(side by side)
On those Stairs
(Waiting for our Train)
And you bought us Miso Soup
(It tasted like Tears)

The Sun hit my legs
(With all the force of sepia toned Nostalgia)
Covering them, bathing them. glorifying.
The traffic was the push and pull
(To and fro, magnetising, Synchronising)
Of waves.
Harsh, solid, mechanical waves
(Full of the force of Human Atrocity)

Japanese Culture was "in" and everything was "kawaii" and sweet
(With the underlying disturbance of Sexualisation - *** takes pride of place in our Civilisation)

I thought I was eating the sea.
(I could see the tiny fish Nibbling us that time we went snorkelling. We saw a Sting Ray that reminded us of Steve Irwin: Danger; Barbed Wire)

The Snow-flakes
(Fish-flakes)
Swirling in the snow globe of my Polystyrene Cup
(A new kind of Fish Bowl, A new Exposure)
And they swam around and around, Hiding
(Cyclical, controlled by Lunar Activity. Natural?)

If I stared hard enough I would, no, could see myself
(Floating, Filleted)
Amongst those Ribbons of Sea ****.
With each Salty slurp
(That tasted of you, of the bitter Crust that Crowns your body in Heat)
I expected saltier Bladders to Burst in my Mouth
(Drowning me in Poison; Poisson)

I imagined the Japanese fisherman Catching Sun-Warmed Sea
(In a Polystyrene Cup)
The thousands of fish, tiny eyes that Blink, tiny gills that Palpitate - Suffocating in Air
(Aboard his boat, that Famed boat: "Daigo Fukuryu Maru")
Harvesting Silken Strands of Sea **** that Clung to its Crate
(In the same way that his Wife's Freshly washed Hair Twines about her Body. Static, Electric, Alive)

We didn't finish the Miso Soup;
It tasted too much of the Tears that I Cried.