No, I was torn naked and bleeding from the mouth of a death star
and woke to find mountains laid bare by the sea.
In the shallows of blood baths and craters, where the crushers of garlic and the harlots all meet
and the stiflers of dreams, dream on (right up my street)
that's where you'll find me.

In the 'Benbow' with pirates and pieces of eight and with cords tied to timepieces
(don't want to be late)
and the show starts at nine
when after drinking two bottles of cheap German wine
Salome appears with a head in her lap
we clap
because that's what we do.
(Lost innocents are few and we ain't none of all that)

But the ship sailed at four carrying whalebones to Spain
to tighten the corsets
for those Senoritas
who put me to such shame.
What's in a name that it's spat on the floor
by crimson clad virgins
who won't leave the doorways of bodegas
and Degas paints on.

A shanty
a song and the night carries me along on a wave of cheap scent
where oft' I have spent a weeks earnings on unsatisfied
yearnings.

In the end someone will send me a typewritten note or a telegram
to let me know just who and what I am
until then
in the 'Benbow' 'til ten and the crows crow at midnight when the lights all go out.