The Cabaret We Held Without the Vicar

Lyrics

[Intro]
The Reverend took the cart into town for three days.
The air got cold. The barn loft smelled of damp straw and packed bodies.
Pemba polished his spectacles on his sleeve.
He said, tonight, the second drawer is open.

[Verse 1]
He stood on a crate with a willow branch in his hand.
Kiki and Bouba, faces lit by a single tin lantern.
On the floor, the polished stones spilled from the box.
Each one carved with a word he told them not to say at dinner.
The first note from the piano hung in the dust.

[Chorus]
Quim!
Merkin!
Pizzle!
Swyve!
The old words Chaucer knew.
The ones the court forgot.
The ones we wrote on river slate and hid under the bed.

[Verse 2]
The farmers in the back, their breath fogging the air.
They flinched at the first one.
Then a laugh, like a bottle breaking.
We had a signal, a hand held to the ear, if we heard the cart returning.
But the road stayed quiet.
And the children kept singing.

[Chorus]
Berk!
Pillock!
Plonker!
Todger!
The words from Cousin Hornswoggle's letters.
The sounds that made Mrs. Patterson pour a second tea.
The sounds of a lockbox breaking open in the dark!

[Bridge]
And Pemba. I watched Pemba.
For the first time since we arrived in 1993, he was smiling.
Not with his mouth. With his whole body.
He beat the time with that little branch.
Conducting the inventory of the human tongue.
He wasn't teaching them to curse.
He was teaching them that a word is just a tool.
And tonight, they were building a cathedral of noise.

[Outro]
Cullions!
Fundament!
Yoni!
Lingam!
When they finished, the applause sounded like hard rain on the roof of the world.
They took a bow.