Circus (Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan 2004)
We put up our tent on a dark green knoll outside of town by the train tracks and a seagull dump Topping the bill was Horse Face Ethel and her marvelous pigs in satin We pounded our steaks in the ground all powder brown and the branches spread like scary fingers reaching We were in a pasture outside Kankakee And one eyed Myra, queen of the galley, who trained the ostrich and the camels She looked at me squinty with her one good eye in a Roy Orbison t-shirt as she bottle fed an orangutan named Tripod And then there was Yodeling Elaine, the queen of the air, who wore a dollar sign medallion And she had a tiny bubble of spittle around her nostril and a little rusty tear for she had lassoed and lost another tipsy sailor And over in the burnt yellow tent by the frozen tractor the music was like electric sugar And Zuzu Bolin played Stavin' Chain and Mighty Tiny on the saw And he threw his head back with a mouth full of gold teeth and they played Lopsided Heart and The Moon Over Dog Street. And by the time they finished Moanin Low I was soakin wet and wild eyed And Doctor Bliss slipped me a preparation and I fell asleep with Livery Stable Blues in my ear And me and Molly Hoey drank Pruno and Koolaid And she had a tattoo gun made out of a cassette motor and a guitar string And she soaked her hanky in three roses and rubbed it on the spot And she drew rickety heart and a bent arrow and it hurt like hell And Funeral Wells spun Poodle Murphy on the target as he threw his hardware Only once in Sheboygan did he miss at a matinee on Diamond Pier and she'd never let him forget it They were doing two shows and she had a high fever and he took off a piece of her ear And Tip Little told her she should leave the bum And Poodle said, "He fetched me last time I run But I'd like to hammer this ring into a bullet And I wish I had some whisky and a gun my dear I wish I had some whisky and a gun my dear"
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