White Shawl -

She wore a white shawl

She wore a grass veil

Chilled wind, white lips

Ribbons of plaster strips

Black hair tied up, held back with string

Visions and shreds and rips and slings

Teach these souls to fly she said

And make these spirits re-appear

Its getting dark

I’ve got no time to squander

Sipping juices at leisure in this garden of pleasure you have

here

Exit stage right, latter that night

Through the house of death she flew

Along white corridors

And lived by a miracle

She said 'I've the soul of a flea'

All fleas inhabited by the souls of drowning men

Hear their tiny cries

Blind to remorse

Insensitive to excess

And bound to repeat

They’ve fallen from grace

Again and again and again, so she said

Falsifiers, deserters, Jack-in-the-box perjurers

I can name them all

They’ve had me all, against the wall.