A - Thrumming House of Sexual Potency

(These being the lyrics to a song written to accompany a story by
Beth Settle [Beef] bearing the same title.)

Tear open those eyes, boy
The morning has torn through your limp, tortured rags of curtain
to worship your great, golden
body that women impaled themselves on by the dozen
You've let it wither along with your liver and lungs
Ask anyone for a cigarette
Now your muscles are worms and you're highly strung
You lie on the razorblade edge

Your body was a thrumming house of sexual potency
Your heart was a drumming in the temple of Nandi
But now you're in desolation, your temple is defiled
You're thin and bony like I've always been, and yes - you're
reviled

Oh you're vile
Very, very vile
Your name is vile
That's what the papers say

Stagger to the bathroom
with a dagger there nuzzling your waist and an arch in your back
Address the mirror
and the stained and unshaven face waiting there scowls from his
rack
Your scars have all turned to scabs and you peel them now
What d'you think you'll find there?
Diamonds of canyons or traces of all the days wasted?
Or the vessels that beg to be bared

Your mind was a bordello for the modern businessman
Your morals a museum for every wretch who loves to damn
But now you've moved downmarket, you're nothing but old bones
I am the face in the mirror, boy, with the knife and book of
prose

Oh you're vile
Very, very vile
Your name is vile
That's what the papers say

Open your battered front door
The rain seems like nails making stabs at your broken skin
No legs left to part
but the ones that'll split every screaming hinge in your rust
grin
Your empire, once mighty, now blighted with treason and guile
You can roar all you want
It's the tin ring of all the hollow cans that litter your exile
rattling in your cunt

Your motto was emblazoned on the shaven head of every child
Your songs were weapons for you and everyone you riled
But now your name is bloody, your temple is defiled
You're thin and old like I've always been, and yes - you're reviled