Oh, Joseph, we love this fine and ritzy party
No, through the poppy fields we rode a cart, see?
I agree, but at that time the lake was dry
There were castles and spires and dragons this high!
Joseph, what a very, very good party.

--At times, I find there are never parties
But it has been so long since this trip I’ve started
So long from home, with the pain of thought-wandering
Wander, wonder if the dead sit so pondering
In their solitude.

What time find men to thought-wander when dead?
Where seconds breathe lifetimes, bleed red
And when will thought-wandering cave in my head?
The stammered squabbles of parties bled
Out into my hearing.

--Oh, I simply cannot believe the things he says
My dear, did he philosophize about his pauper days?
Lord, how she would twist and turn the conversation
She’d laugh and cheer and nod, all to appease him
Do you hear them now?

--In no earthy place could one ever find such a cracked imagination
Go, and thought-wander the depths of my empty nation;
You’ll find a few dismantled towns, a statue, gold;
A statue of me, built by me, where parties were held
Even there you won’t find it.

Perhaps, if one could find, some lonely corner
With shadows and planks in the heart of the world
Where the dead would sit and the dead would ponder
The fuss and precision of their last friend, the coroner
There you may find it.