Ah, Daniel

 

Ah, Daniel

 

 

Don’t they chuck you into a lion’s pit

and - come dawn - you weathered it?

As you were, boys, she’s on the keys

hitting Es, gives you the finger, up, up –

spinning her ghost pegs to coax strings

and she’s cranking it or backing it off,

twisting space like a gripped nipple

and you’ll face the music of her violin

gladly. Give it a go? Course you’ll try

but at 64, your tuning fork’s a bitch,

while under her hair sings perfect pitch

and Isn’t that a husband passing by?

Just checking chests and heave-ho,

his policeman’s helmet is on patrol,

noting busty flushed swollen mounds,

licks his pencil and scrawls a treble clef

on the lookout for a pilfering theft.

She takes her bow, strokes out a frown

in the general direction of two clowns -

that’s you and him, bass and rhythm,

but hark - when she flashes her salty grin

it sends you soaring high, above the pit,

gut-punched drunk, solar plexus hit

gasping, grasping frets for bum notes.

On the manuscript of her face is wrote

Devils to Georgia and Galway Girls,

and milkmaids with their butter churns,

fisherman’s blues in chests that burn

foiled packets took diamond shaped.

She’s necking the heel so why not take

all of me? Take my arms, take my lips,

raise up those sleepy lions, crack whips

and pour her harmony onto lusty louts;

for God sent angels to shut their mouth.