The Bull in the Butcher's Window (Pizzle)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
November 1910, Topeka's chill at 10 AM,
The butcher's window on Kansas Avenue,
Glass fogged from the inside cold, 50 degrees,
Sawdust floor absorbing the iron tang of blood.
Bouba stands there, breath visible,
Points to the sinewy length, 2 feet hung by twine,
Pale and swaying in the draft from the open door.

[Chorus]
Pizzle, you call it pizzle,
From the bull felled last Tuesday,
Dried tendon, Middle Dutch pesel, since 1523,
Thomas Fuller wrote of you in 1662,
Adorning stalls with horn and might.
Butcher coughs, sharp bark echoing off stone walls,
Turns to his cleaver on the oak block.

[Verse 2]
In Yorkshire, Henry Tate's ledger, 1873,
Lists you for trade, dried for whips or chews,
Kansas Farmer ad, March 1901,
Finest quality for dogs or crafting.
I name you pizzle, no shame in the word,
Virility on display, by-product of slaughter,
Heavy cleaver thuds, bucket of offal underneath.

[Bridge]

E.P. Thompson noted the harvest jest,
Children waving you like a wand for fertility,
Clergy frowned, but fields remembered.
Butcher coughs again, pretends not to hear,
The musky scent lingers, ammonia undercut by wood.

[Verse 3]
Not just meat, this foundation of trade,
Rural Europe to American shops,
John Smith's history, 2011, recalls the hooks,
Ceiling laden, glass highlighting dust motes.
I say pizzle, warm in the saying,
Morally unsparing, a quiet joke in the chill.

[Outro]

Pizzle in the window, named and known,
Butcher's cough the only reply.