We Call Upon the Author

What we once thought we had, we didn't And what we have now will never be that way again So we call upon the author to explain Our myxomatoid kids spraddle the streets We've shunned them from the greasy grind The poor little things they look so sad and old As they mount us from behind I ask them to desist and to refrain! And then we call upon the author to explain Well, rosary clutched in his hand He died with tubes up his nose And a cabal of angels with finger cymbals Chanted his name in code We shook our fists at the punishing rain And we called upon the author to explain He said, everything is messed up round here Everything is banal and jejune There's a planetary conspiracy against the likes of you and me In this idiot constituency of the moon Well, he knew exactly who to blame! And we call upon the author to explain Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix Well, I go guruing down the street And young people gather 'round my feet And they ask me things, but I don't know where to start They ignite the powder trail straight to my father's heart And, yeah, once again I call upon the author to explain Yeah, we call upon the author to explain Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing That mediocres my every thought? I feel like a vacuum cleaner—a complete sucker! It's fucked up and he is a fucker But what an enormous and encyclopedic brain! I call upon the author to explain Yeah we call upon the author to explain Alright, yeah Rampant discrimination Mass poverty, third world debt Infectious disease, global inequality And deepening socio-economic divisions Well, it does in your brain We call upon the author to explain Now hang on My friend Doug is tapping on the window! "Hey Doug, how you been?" (hey Doug) Well, he brings me a book on holocaust poetry, complete with pictures And then he tells me to get ready for the rain And we call upon the author to explain I say, ah Prolix! Prolix! Something a pair of scissors can fix Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was best! He wrote like wet papier-maché But he went the Hemingway Weirdly on wings and with maximum pain We call upon the author to explain Yeah well I call upon the author to explain Yeah well down in my bolt hole I see they've published Another volume of unreconstructed rubbish "The waves, the waves were soldiers moving" Well, thank you! Thank you! Thank you and again I call upon the author to explain Yeah I call upon the author to explain I call upon the author to explain Yeah we call upon the author to explain I said Prolix! Prolix! There's nothing a pair of scissors can't fix