A Murder A Ballad A Girl Mad As Birds
A Murder A Ballad A Girl Mad As Birds
(with a line from Dylan Thomas)
I sing this song ‘neath the willow tree because a lad I loved. A butcher
boy was he and I his girl. Bird-mad said he and laughed, a mocking-
thing. He gave me promise, gave me ring. Now it’s funeral bells
a-ringing. A mourning song for the butchered heart. For the butcher
boy and his girl his bird. I could have been noosed behind the bolted
door, at large as the dead. With a father dear to cut me down and
a mother to weep for her bird has flown. Oh I grave-make but no nest
for me. My boy, he jayed, flew as the crow to another a girl he said
he loved. Far better than me, he gave her his desire my heart-favorite
shiny thing. So country me a death song, murder me a ballad, down
to the river I took my false lover. Sweet boy said I. Sweet bastard
the blood is on your hands your broken wings and I don’t understand,
said he. Oh am I mad, a pretty mad bird. Oh I am not your onliest
girl. Well a bird can peck whether raven or sparrow and a girl can stop
a straying lad with her keenest dagger. Oh his grave I dug in the river-
mud in the reeds by the cold dark water. And as I dug his resting place
like a cuckoo did I warble. Lie there my lying butcher boy ‘til worms
eat the flesh from your bones. That girl you love fair better than me
can weary waiting alone. Now I sit alone ‘neath the willow tree and wait
on the law to come. For the thrice-mad thing the murder-crow the girl
a-mourning her dove. For the butchered boy in the still black mud. Oh
they’re bound to turn me gallows-bird when they see. What I’ve gone what
I’ve done because. A lad I had and I loved a lad who would not love only me.
[This poem was supposed to appear in a lit mag earlier this year, but the mag folded before it was published. I decided to publish it here rather than continue to send it out.]