I stand amidst a circus of freaks
With my clowns, narrator and jailer;
The company princess kisses my cheek
As I am led off for slaughter.
I am old world born into no world at all,
Damned to walk a fine thread;
High above those that pay for my pride
Yet virtue buys me no bread.
Cursed in life as I am in love
My cage offers no silence;
Against the eyes that stare at my soul
To poke me there in violence.
Comfort I grab in a memory,
Of a sepia-stained life past;
A faded dress and smiling eyes
Through a looking glass.
A trumpet heralds me to parley
There to play the joker;
Before the golden rings of fire
Then it shall be over.
There is another way to dust
Than this path on which I tread;
No old-time songs of memory
Will comfort me in my bed.
I am to hang it’s the price I pay
For all the little things;
That I saw with a different eye
Judged to be my sins.
No more wet tears shall I see
Upon her face of white;
Nothing I shall feel again
Or walk among the light.
The princess cries for mercy,
She tries to name a price;
As the rope around my throat
Takes my soul away from life.
Now I have only hell to fear.
April 2001
Danny Matier 