Coimbra - Vagabond Opera

The crooked streets of Coimbra are smoking a cigar

The students singing fado with a black cloak and guitar

The orange peel’s unwinding through the robust underbelly

Of the gilded maze of Coimbra

There’s a whore with an umbrella

And you quaffed too many ports 'cause that bottle was a flirt

The African with half a face flicks ashes into dirt

Your compass is unpeeling, it’s hanging upside-down

And the sinister cafe sings another round

And the cobbled streets pursue you

There’s a beckoning pitch face

At the end of gilded walkways

They put alleys in the place

The bridge lurches into water

To escape your leg’s embrace

And she smiles a cracked smile

The prostituted daughter

Ah, my Severa

I long for Lisboa

The sheets on the bed are clean

You’ll be my countess

I’m called Vimioso

Shall I escort you to the ring

Severa

Beijinhos

Severa

Severa

Beijinhos

Severa

In the crooked streets of Coimbra

There’s an envoy of the ages

He kisses alleys with his cane

His sulfur lips are faded

Read a sonnet to a countess

That his raspy breath intones

She kissed the air so long ago

She lies underneath the stones

The crooked streets of Coimbra

Are the arms of a black widow

She folds you into orange blossoms

Cinders cradling the middle

Like a stillborn tourist stumbling

Into cracked and wet skinned pavement

My brain is singing far too fast

The alleyways are mumbling

Like a tavern or a monastery

Sobbing out its miscreants

The misfits of these alleyways

Are hardening the ambiance

Then here comes the dreamless night

Ah, fuck, here comes the dreamless night

But I’ll only dream of crooked streets

But maybe of Severa

Ah, my Severa

I long for Lisboa

The sheets on the bed are clean

You’ll be my countess

I’m called Vimioso

Shall I escort you to the ring

Aaah!

Severa!

Beijinhos!

Severa!

Aah!

Severa!