Yes Sir-ree, I am what I am, full of rum and seaweed
An old salt sailor, portmanteau in hand
Full o’ fish-bait and Barber-sol
With breath to gag a mackerel I tell ya
Cooper wire to keep my head together
Else it would split open like an alien egg…
You’d like that, wouldn’t you?
But hell, I can take it,
I’m ribbon on a birthday balloon
Chrome on a Harley Davidson
The alligator leather of a gigolo shoe
I’m the Pope’s odd luck,
A real postmodern Frankenstein
Schooled by the best of them,
So keep the kids away if you’ve got any sense
Or I’ll turn ’em into pickpockets–
Not that the needy grubbers aren’t robbing you
Deaf, dumb and blind already
Nasty little suckers– Where’s my cigar…
I set it down here somewhere?
Oh there it is, right where I left it
Between the legs of my lovely assistant,
Thank you, my dear… You don’t look so well
Smoking in that part of your anatomy,
Now leave me be.
I have ballads to write and noses to tweak,
Goodbye or until we meet again…
Take that as foreshadowing
From a shadow without a body
Where’s my body, I set it down here somewhere.
