While The Ghosts Are Putting Make-up On Their Deathmasks In The Green Room
If you just got here, Edgar Allen Poe's already had it out with the raven,
but nobody cares much, since it should have happened a long time ago,
and besides, Nevermore's not much of a door to get out of
in case of a fire. Go ask the thief who left the moon in the window
and my reflection in the mirror when everything else disappeared.
He'll tell you about the cat burglar who fell off the seventh floor
and lived to go on tour with the tale when she got crazy enough
to be wise, and put on a golden parachute that was the same size as her skin.
Have you seen Rasputin? I'm looking for my bleeding heart,
and the last time I heard of him he was in a bag in a river
with a snake that was using a rooster as a fire to keep warm
while the toxins and the bullets took effect, though all the haemophiliacs
and worried assassins said when they pulled him out, he still wasn't dead.
Hey, you've got to give a man credit for not dying
when he was too innocent to float like a waterlily or an ice-berg
in a trial by ordeal that's more Germanic than Slavic
though he should have been more subtle in his approach
to a courtful of jesters and gleemen who hate
the sound of anyone's laughter in their midst but the king's and their own.