He jumped off the box-car
In Eastbourne, the beast born
In him was too hungry to hide:
His neck in grief’s grommet,
He groaned through his vomit
At the churn
And the yearn
At the turn
Of the tide.
He headed him soon
For a sad-lit saloon
In back of the edge of the strand,
Where a man almost ended
Sat down and extended
His speckled,
Blue-knuckled
And cuckolded
Hand.
Cried, The wind broke my marriage in two.
Clean through the bones of it,
Christ how it blew!
I got no tomorrow
And sorrow
Is tough to rescind:
So forgive me if I should break wind, son,
Forgive me
At this the bartender
Addressed the agenda,
A dish-cloth kept dabbing his eye.
Said, Pardon intrusion
Upon your effusion
Of loss but none wooed it
Or rued it
As I.
For after the eve of Yvonne,
My God, how it hurts now the woman has gone!
Heart-sick as a dog,
I roll on like a log
Down the roaring black river
Where once sailed
A swan.
Then the dog on the floor,
Who’d not spoken before,
Growled, Ain’t it the truth you guys said?
I may be a son-
Of-a-bitch but that bitch
Was my Sun
And she dumped me,
The bitch did,
For dead.
So three lonely guys in the night and a hound
Drank up, and they headed them out to the Sound,
Threw up, then they threw themselves
In and they
Drowned.
O dee-o-dayee…
O dee-o-dayee…
Woe-woe-dalayee…
KIT WRIGHT