The Wednesday-Night Lapidary Service

Lyrics

[Intro]
The candle is lit. It's beeswax from the hive John Dee kept in Mortlake, 1578. Flickers at nine parts per million soot.

[Verse 1]
Here at the workbench, oak scarred from chisels since the guild of 1423,
I hold the slate, quarried from Welsh hills, Penrhyn, 1852.
The Reverend Goss prays in the chapel down the lane, his voice carrying psalms from King James, 1611.
He doesn't see this drawer, locked with a key from Mrs. Patterson's sewing box.
Inside, stones waiting: quartz from the Rhine, etched with words the church buried.

[Chorus]
The candle watches, its flame a tongue of light, measuring shadows on the wall.
Quim, from Chaucer's quainte, 1386, carved deep into the grain.
Merkin, pubic wig of Venice, 1450, syphilis season, hidden under lace.
Pizzle, bull's rod in the butcher's window, Spitalfields market, 1720.
Smegma, Greek soap, σμήγμα, from Hippocrates' scrolls, 400 BC.
The wax drips, seals the secret.

[Verse 2]
Chisel tip, steel from Sheffield forge, 1799, bites the stone.
Tap, tap, like the clock in Dee's study, marking hours of heresy.
The air smells of tallow and dust, 55 degrees Fahrenheit, damp as a crypt in York Minster.
Reverend doesn't know these amulets, spite stones under thresholds, folklore from Dean's tales, 1997.
I engrave for the gaps: unnamed apprentices, their hands erased from ledgers.

[Bridge]
What is cut in stone outlasts the tongue. The graver's silence, from Rogers' manual, 1912.
The flame bends, whispers of Alfonso X's lapidary, 1272, properties hidden.
No one comes on Wednesday nights. The owl hoots from the elm outside, planted 1890.

[Outro]
The candle gutters, last light on the words. I blow it out, hide the drawer.