Locked up in the stocks
and they're all laughing their socks off at me.
Soon I will be free
unlike
those other poor souls who are swinging in the morning breeze
up on the freshly painted gallows
made especially so more could see
the face of death,
what they could be.
Come and watch the matinee
where three more souls will swing today.

A party atmosphere
a dead man here or there
it's like a summer fayre with jugglers and a clown
and 'Hey presto' magic
one more soul drops down to meet his fate.

Lately I have noticed that the police are getting tougher
and the rough and ready treatment
meted out to those who fall foul
of the local law enforcement
has become a talking point in boardrooms
by the Admiralty Lords
who were often heard to cry when in their younger day
'hang them high,hang them high
make those malefactors pay.
It's a sin
you try to live and all these people want to give you is some grief
you can't get by on the sly
and if you try to you will die as so many have found out
to their cost
I do not doubt that ii could happen here to me
I could be up there swinging free.

So today I'm in the stocks
you can laugh your socks off
laugh your heads off if you please
but I'm not swinging in the breeze
just yet.