The Son Of St. Peter

Alone on the sill

Thinking of St. Peter and the greatest book ever written

When I look at the maker will he take me in his arms

I can see the smoke from the factory fire that still burns

Below me there is a man who walks the street

He once told me of an underground cafe

Whose publican kept a pet boy and a pet fox

He cleans the well every morning, he has only fallen in once

floating there for three days before anyone found him

No one could drink the filthy water for a week

He was the cleanest he had ever been

And across the city, The autumn colour has begun to fall

With puddles along roads that smell of shoe polish

I light a cigarette with the cold fingers

My mothers fingers, fingers that have drawn shapes in the sands of the past

And the crows avoid the home sick pigeons

While inside my lungs the dust of a roman empire settles

I am finally alone on the sill

This vast bookshelf to look out from

Holding my leg up I see the calm street

But the minds of the maids are all made up

And I can see somewhere that a well muscled lad has had his way

But no where can I see a place for a child of St. Peter

Somewhere along the shore by my home town

perhaps is a cafe where he can sit

But he will never really belong and he reads the greatest book ever written

By a man who always meant well

But he drank too much wine

Even on his hospital bed

In which he could see great canyons and valleys within the sheets

He wondered which Historic figure he would meet on the rocky paths

And if the trees and blackberries had grown over his way

What would he find?

Past the factory's smoke

I can see the light house

That wicked little light house

That warns people of the cliffs, carved smooth and beautiful

Like the arms of a young fisherman

But then once past the cliffs the ships come in

And no one warns them

Of the child of St. Peter

Who sits on his window sill

Staring out, immortal with his words

Avoided by all the crows and the pigeons

Loved by the well cleaner

Who tells the story of the publican who kept the pet boy and pet fox