Who Knew?

 Princes and paupers, skivvies and skanks

One road down skint street another

Day in the worm field of pout

Porous as Jesus on the Sermon

On the mount

Serpico in trousers

And a snake in a mexican hat

And sheepskin corruption

In the belly of the crow

Crawling in lower orders of

skid row

And I see in the lights

That are beginning to glow

My reflection in the eyes

Of those I used to know

What are these cathedrals of doubt

That grow

Up from the sewers

Where trout eggs sew

And uncertain notes

On their organs blow

Around the city drain pipes

For surely this is the one place

That's left

A crescent on a jacket

A sin of lifelessness

A cordon-bleu accompaniment

To swordfish stew

Whom the unicorns have been cooking

Well who knew?

The Walrus in the dental church is checking out the labour

And counting all the costs

Of being a super-saver

And if you can't save the whales

THen Aquaman needs you

To be his PA and keep his filing cabinet

In good working order

I charged you up like a light sabour and shone you through the dark

And it met with many of the stars

Whose wars were not with me but with the skylark

Who sang to St Luke in his hot bath

Who raised cold lazarus from his bed of damp bark

And sent him off on his midnight

Canoe

Down the milky river, but again who knew?

Who knew of hercules and his labour too

Or of the midwife whose breath was overdue

And bank balances weighed

And babies in carts

And supermarket slaves

And children who swim with sharks

And the kettle is boiling over

Because its been filled to the brim

Now the tea has to brew

And every patience is a virtue

who knew?

I met a man with a can of worms down by the railroad edge

He said I've been down every road in the world

But I've never broken my pledge

But the roads have broken

And the cart wheels

The chariot charities are tokens

Of deal or no deal

And if you believe what was spoken 

Then it forces you to steal

What was never yours to take in the first place

Who knew?

Like dogs in the park

Where the homeless man slept

And he is in abject dejection

And my own parle with ennui

Amounts to a certain British-Russian defection

Someone wishes me dead he said

Then talked to a dog on the bone

He licked his chops

Then smacked his lips and said

Now I think I'll go home

But it was the case of the spy who loved me,

And she would never let him win

He may take diamonds, he may take pearls

But he'll take the heart of the girl

What a sin!

To love a foreign man from a foreign clime

And bend to the whim or rule of the crime

It's a moral defection

And inbred introspection

That leaves Frankenstein's monster

Scratching his chin

Who knew?