The Weeds of Babylon

Scented necks and collars on Babylon’s main street

With the Buskers by the church and the whores in the cafes

School kids kissing under bridges

Maurice and I were the weeds in the hanging garden

History is for exhale, future for the inhale

Tight jeans and thinning hair

Holding hands in the cinema

You drink bourbon I drink beer

We are the weeds of Babylon

Orchids, honey suckle, grape vines and ivy

Ponds and rivers and fountains and falls

This city is an Eden without higher judgment

And we were the weeds in the hanging garden

The band in the restaurant are playing our song

The man on the radio is singing it wrong

The presents under the tree are covered in mould

Babylon real estate can be bought but never sold

If you knew I was going to leave

Then why didn’t you stop me?

And yes its many years gone now

But I want to know

My liberation would have meant nothing

If you had of stopped me

If you had of kept me in Babylon

Amongst the Slugs and the Snails

We two weeds

We two boys

Amongst those hanging gardens of Babylon

Snug in your Spanish speaking warmth

And now I don’t know if you are still there

Amongst the whores in the cafes

Weaving your way through the buskers near the church

Pruning and clipping and thinning every day

Just to feel the sun on your scented shoulders

In Babylon