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Rozz

1.Mr. Quilt's Rotten Luck

1.
On a crooked, cobblestoned and ancient road I briskly strode when two men wearing bowler hats, curled moustaches, all in black, on a tandem bicycle went this way, that way till they fell beneath a coach-and-four.

2.
When I was just six I was rather curious regarding paternity. Just who could my father be? I think he was skeletal. I think he knew mother, well, controversially.

3.
Then some time much later on, during breakfast Aunt Yvonne choked upon a bacon rind. She sang backwards, nearly died. Then there was my friend from school whose dog turned rabid, mad and cruel, and ate his master up.

4.
I would need more fingers than are given upon either hand to count up all the sea-choked screams, calcined whispers, rendered seams, pudgy-pretzled baby limbs, punctured lungs and altered hymns I�ve seen and heard today...

2.Unlovely Baby

One
On thin carpet there squatted a child born unlovely. He festered underneath the table and the dinner guests swore that he ate a beetle and then smiled.

"But, oh, that's nonsense! He's never eaten any insects... though his chin is agleam with drool and many-jointed legs..."

Two
On thin carpet they stood and each guest lulled the little larva- but reluctantly; so ugly! And he smelled like rotten codfish! And besides, he squirmed and writhed and in a sudden fit of tears he took the Colonel by the ears and bit him on the nose and grunted! (Blood on his crooked lips!)

Three
On thin carpet they gasped and shrieked and coattails and lace unceremoniously recoiled from the unlovely lullaby baby. And to the carpet he did plummet and each guest did watch him hit and saw how his small skull did split and out crawled broken beetles and a surge of crimson froth! (Blood on his curdled lips!)

Chilling Conclusion
"Shall we withdraw to the parlour for aperitifs?"
"Yes, and my nose needs a bandage..."
"Well, I find the present support for workhouse reforms disturbing."
"I have a cousin in Marshalsea..."
"Sunday or Monday, we're leaving for Retchingstead."
"...No, I don't think I'll ever have children."

3.Needlefeet

One
-In a house of sticks sat a marchioness and two of her maids. They went there Sundays.
-Isolde had to be a fancy lady. She had a manor specially built for tea.
-Polly was a doll, Wendy a felt horse. They sipped with their pinkies up, of course.
-Isolde�s friends would say, in a candid way, that her society was improving, most days.

Chorus One
-Isolde in her hidden house, off in a copse while mother slept. Father gone in a pinstriped suit and a governess hanging clothes, singing Irish.
-Isolde had a dirty cheek; blackish loam smeared on pretty white birch bark and because of the low light, stinging, not seeing, �twas a splinter buried...

Two
-In the dappled shade, spinney leaves will fade. They hid behind an old wicker chair-seat front gate.
-She must drift outside; dainty, lilting strides, and by fairy craft give her teahouse eyes.

Bridge
-Isolde wants window light! She dislikes parasites! Open the walls and oh, my dear, well that smells lovely!
-But do you hear the sound of a dead and wood bone cracking? There�s a foot upon the ground without and the birds have left off laughing!
-Stay within thy castle and mute thy ladies� thread and cotton tongues. Their songs, if sung, would bring the broken stick foot hither!
-Another step draws near! Thy ladies shake with fear! Don�t make a sound! Tendrils run along the ground, they�re searching, searching!
-Is it alive or dead? Does the footfall have a head? Is it a face with eyes, and has it spied Isolde small and pale with dread?
-And then sepulchral breath slips past teeth all wrong from death. That crooked air won�t linger there, it drips and drops on Isolde�s hair�

Chorus Two
-Isolde tumbles out and away, gone from the woods and into the daylight. She will sip her tea with the governess and listen to mother sleeping!
-Isolde doesn�t need a special secret wooded teatime retreat! There�s nothing restful about a parlor rank with rot and loud with needlefeet!

4.Squashed Blossoms

Deep down in my cellar hole I craft bulbs that grow, grow, GROW!
No one sees and no one knows. In this I act alone!
Wilting down those wooden stairs I poke and prod at botany!
Exhalations in the yellow light, my fingers creak and I sing out!
Deep down in my cellar hole I go�
No one sees a thing so no one knows�

5.The Toad Curse and How It Perished In Flames

I can make fire breath. I learned it as a lad. My master told me I had prowess no one ever had!

I could conduct the light� I�d look away to her� She�d match my spit with spite; I don�t know what her reasons were.

I fell in love with her. My tongue is purple-black. I lit a bluish rose� She carved a curse into my back!

I dance when beauty�s near. I hop to taunts and jeers. I sought out stony glens� Lovely ladies don�t come here.

I paint the rock with flame. I burn and bruise my feet. I spit, I�m naked, ever-hungry, I forget to eat.

I stamp out flowers and I fill my ears with mud. (That way the birdsong will not stir and agitate my blood.)

I stare at ugly things. I suffer cuts and stings. It�s been a happy, hopless, curseless ten-years hermitting!

But then I smell the air and see her shrivelled there� And though my blood begins to jump and boil, I don�t despair.

The curse is breathing flames that I could never name. I ask her, shaking, quaking, why the bloody hell she came!

She does not answer me. Her eyes are withering! The wind begins to bend her� Now my muscles start to sing!

I clasp her desperately, and we jump fifty feet! Am I the very toad that used to hop along her street?

I fell in love with her. My tongue is purple-black. I light a bluish rose and heap the flames upon our backs�

6.Molars

PART 1
-He collapsed into fists, and his fingers burned.
-He spent shadows growing tall and thin.

-He had hardly lived, was only just a man, when he was consumed.
-He might have smoked a briar pipe, might have worn a monocle, but instead he ATE.
-He never dreamt of teeth, never dreamt of molars, growing where they should not be.

-He crafted knots using miles of throat.

-He screamed with chipped enamel, blistered airways flecked and sprayed with digestive juice.

-He fingertips, he broken lips�

PART 2
Whoa-oh-oh and so forth.

PART 3
-He wasted memory, his smallclothes eaten�
-He fashionably undone, his crepe-covered family�

7.One Time, One Summer...

1. She phoned� we rush through milk and mush. We laugh� make swords from old tree-house boards.

Chorus One
Outside, there�s Fred and his sister, two sets of twins� We�ve got skinned knees, unusual stones, and lately, him�

2. His buttons are coins from faraway archipelagos. He winks; our slingshots hurl screams and tiny things with wings!

Bridge One
Hanging dripping shirts and sheets, a washerwoman hears our feet a-stomping by and when we cry, �Midsummer�s here!� she blinks each eye. And then we sing the song he taught; we buzz like bees and howl a lot! She withers into five years old; hands on hips, her stance is bold! She joins our marching army, laughing, waves a stick, afraid of nothing!

Bridge Two
And he�s fun to follow! He points and Mary-Ann�s grown a tail! And his eyes are gleaming! And Mr. Tucker, there are hoof-prints on your tiles! And he never tires! He could dig to China hunting worms! And he chats with saplings! They laugh and sway, say he speaks archly!

3. Many wars, many battles� by noontime we�re hungry! Didn�t know, under bark, under stones� you can eat those! Many fins, many wings� Many bites, many stings! Didn�t know; under petals� they�ll tell tales �ere the flowers fold!

Chorus Two
And on towards night his beard turns white, his eyes are dull and he says, �My voice is a cobweb wisp; we�re a toe towards snow but I�ll live again.�

8.I Remember Tendon Water

One
I'm sitting slowly, I'm bending my knees. Cold granite touches my skin where the veins are close, stealing the warmth from the back of my legs... I lay down on the stone seaside and wait for waves. When I am damp I will see my first friend and he'll laugh at my hair floating far, far behind me. I know my toes are inadequate undersea tools but my first friend will help me to be...

Quite simply I'm sinking and thinking of times in the past where bouancy marked my adventure. I know that the darkness is partly to blame for the fact that this sensation has not a name...

Chorus
My tiny child was killed by a car and my twin brother lives so far away. First friend has working gills! My last love took all of her pills!

Bridge One
My friend, by the way, is green in the gills and on an average day can swim millions of ways. About the nails and scales he is a silvery blue, and it's not that he swam, but rather, he flew!

Two
I thought it would be dark like the space between dreaming down here but I can see a half-moon above me, elusive, yet mostly sub-orbital... see how my friend splashes wildly! He coats every drop of the moonlight and sends it in swirls past my face in the cold, salty water. He has no idea of the pain that it causes to fight the temptation to follow it down!

My friend hasn't noticed I'm blue in the face! He's just not aware that my man-lungs need air! But I'm loathe to swim up towards the surface where headaches and car-battered children will clutch at my brains...

Bridge Two
And if you ever ask if I can fly, I'll tell you, "Yes, I've died!" The wings that form post-mortem ebb and flow with every tide. Skin and tendons fall away, but I shall glide forever fey, and nails and scales in the dampest depths shall lead me far away...