If I Were a Carp

Owen Pallett

Compositor: Owen Pallett

Heave ho, farewell to the quay!
Merry sailors, sailors we!
The horizon is our proscenium!
Our dead will come to know the sea
Our cook is a wanted man
A thousand thalers for each hand
Our captain lost his good sense
Driven by a lazarus' words

Have you not been told of Lazarus?
He felt the icy grip
Brought back by a morphine drip
He told the captain this:

Tragedy, tragedy! Death has you fooled!
No throne of bone, no terranean pool!
No scythe, no cowl, no skeleton
His greatest trophy is this myth
Every sailor, salmon, every carp
Will follow rivers to the source
Only the dead will know the course
Do you really want to know of the afterworld