Image: 2006, The Proctor Charlie Collective
Dave
Where have you been, my someone’s old friend
To leave you sag from withered bones?
Your shallow blue of misted eye
Your leaning breath with no disguise
Your rosy cheeks so like and kin
To drunkenness which lies within
The lusty cry of suckling babe:
Who would hear that gulping breath
Now echo hollow, wheezing death?
Where comes this stench that’s bought so cheap
Of jealous Moloch’s garbage heap?
Your debt of dust to earth repaid.
Where have you been, my someone’s old friend
To leave you stare like weathered stones?
No come, my everlasting fool
Leave etching lines on mortal granite,
Sketching lives on mortal clay
Fossilized in cold decay.
Yes come, my everlasting fool
And lift those toes from rooted fungus!
Stay the march of churning blade
to beat the time to dances played!
Yes beckon beams of solid sunrise
Down to cut the cords asunder
Down to rob old Moloch’s thunder
Down to resurrect and save
a bent beloved hell named Dave.
Babe Simple, 1976
