Verse 1
As we sat down to dinner it became plain
That none of us knew how to do such a thing
A confusion to each iris separately pinned:
Will the family be saved by the pudding coming in?
“Making apocalypse of the wait between courses again?”
Mum enquired, making mention of my principle skill
Eagerly refined since age three, while sis tuned
A new Japanese stringed instrument; on its silks she
Asked her pre-entrée dеsserts be servеd her
Eaten away by each other though we may be
Still we are, each one of us hopes we remain, family;
Having proved no longer up to holding magnate’s shadow
Our gold found out to be but Amberson sulfide , and
Devastated by death and notoriety that would not be sated
Ma and da remodelled us as mere dysfunctional patricians
Simple ignoble aristocrats waiting for a revolution they
Hope will never come; few people of note or fame
Visit these days, perhaps except me, their lone living son
I come to spectate upon the ruin I escaped, and to see
The cousins and aunts with whom the house is newly
Draped, who in richer times were commanded to
Appear at most not once a year
I was a bastard when here I was living
I feel twice the bastard when I’m visiting
I feel the wool tensing on my back, thick curls
Of black, lacquered into fine curlicues from the
Spines they’d begun as by pride of the precedent
I beat, and the fact I’m still strong
Enough to occasionally return to eat
And remember how when in this seat
Chorus
I longed for something sweet
With a need so complete
That a cone full of meat, to me
Tastes to my tongue like a treat
Bridge
I show them how I wear it
That splendid, distended wool
Verse 2
Dad loafs off from the table with his plate
Sits thereby on a west-facing sofa;
Under the weight of years and the legend
Of himself he maintains, he looks a civilian
Began a polemic, a debate, a sortée, that above
The sautéed dove was our real cream-filled entrée
I thought I heard the name ‘Thiago’ in the draft
As I saw sweet potato and filet on the plate
The prime minister, who they’d despise if he were
Fit to be or not, drew the communal ire. Dad said;
“He’s a fine enough guy, no evil
Hides in the weeds of his wheedle
But in goodness he’s got no wealth
Plus he’s not entirely unwilling to prostitute himself
Which makes his good not good enough”
Then said auntie “Bollocks and guff, this nation
Has made us both as we are, at opposite spectrum ends;
So then war is peace, and it takes a true
Radical to declare for the centre, and be a conciliator”
“Oh yeah,” piped I, “true enough, but the centre’s a wealth
Of many city states, it don’t hold by itself.”
“What’s this got to do with the main man?” said dad
“Who’ll sell our family silver for a coke with some ice?
Through him we oppress ourselves, an old sow
That eats her own farrow”, then mum lamped dad
And carted him to pasture in his favourite wheelbarrow
Chorus
I long for something sweet
With a need so complete
That a cone full of meat, to me
Tastes to my tongue like a treat
Verse 3
I caught a sudden crab of sympathy with those
Who, through lack of familiarity with this family
Could not see in them the vices that I could see
For where I once saw dishonesty monstrous
A hontous self-regard and the same willingness
To take advantage that furnished myth on Pocahontas
Now I saw a more innocent incontinence of thought
Drunkenness; that means of relation to the world
Through conflict was still there, but now somehow
Almost adorable; then I remembered that sentiment
That bore close to alienating me from sis
“They treated us bad; but who will treat us bad
Once they’re gone?”
I noticed I’d started looking at her different since, she
Still under their roof, with a distance more proliferant
Than it had been when we were little ‘uns; perhaps I find it
Hard to believe that, while they’d ruined two, they
Did right by one. When sis said that, long ago
I would not know my own strength
I would not know that my body was
A walking, acniferous smithy ever
In midst of producing a singing steel
That from deprivation’s exile I would one day return
Wearing the most luxurious of textiles
Made from the wool of a black sheep
