Absinthe Noir

Fifty-two are broken And broken are fifty-two Thirty-two snails running Sixty fish so blue Eighty-eight dogs yelling Yelling yelling yelling Eighty-eight dogs yelling Broken backs so rude Crying in the sunlight Are fifty-five more ryes Crying in the moonlight Are twenty-two more eyes Eating all the mold wood Ninety-nine more bears Eating chomping growling How many bears are there? Eleven-hundred beetles Crawling in my skin Nine-hundred-fifty wormlings Crawling in my eyes Underground I’m buried Underground I lie Til’ twenty-six new lovelies Come and find inside Inside of ninety deer Inside of fifty cats Inside of eighty rats I am dead inside Inside outside all around Ninety-eight men lie Cold and heartless in the ground Ninety-nine more die Falling from the sky there Eighty-seven bats Flicking flopping Heads are dropping Eighty-seven bats Crawling in the forest Are sixty-two skinned rats Falling from the ground Are ninety-eight red cats My bones will turn to puss And my eyes become a stew As fifty-five more rabbits Give me rabid flu Eleven-eighty-nine bees Shoot up into my ears And mellow out my brain And take away my years Ninety-one flamingos And fifty-two baboons Eat rotten yellowed flesh And they might just eat yours too Underground I lie Within the dirt and cold As forty-one raccoons Steal away my bones Twenty-two eyes And fifty-seven legs Stand in the corner And watch As you in your bed, you lay When you’re fast asleep With ninety-two more thoughts And fifty-seven dreams With sixty-seven plots I’ll come into your bed And count your little hairs That sit upon your head With ninety-nine more stares Sleep tight my little lovely Think of fifty things That keep you from going calmly Going quite insane Dream off to sixty nightmares And think of eighty things With fifty broken backs And seven broken wings For when you wake up soundly Within the dirt and grime And sixty-two skinned rats Are falling from the ground While ninety-five white cats Steal your bones and hound