Murder

Can you think of a reason
Why any person
Would want to murder him?
And can you account for your movements?
Do you know of a shop
Right here in the village
Where one can buy a knife?

This morning I saw a spider
She couldn’t climb out of the basin
So I gave her a paper ladder

Do you know of a single soul
Who’d want to bump him off?

Well he knew how to play this part
He had a solicitor
Family friend
And he’d made a contentious will
He knew how to set his face
And people sat up when he spoke
But no I can’t think of a soul

Then did he have enemies sir?

Well yes of course he had those.
In his line of work
And in this kind of story
Of course
Of course
Of course

I know I don’t fit
What a shame
That I fret for days
When I use the wrong phrase
For sure if I’d only done more
Made free with a willowy wife
Some Hugo would take up a cudgel
Or blade and end my life
And in this murderous genre
You seem
Inspector
Impertinent
And I ought to respond with displeasure
So why do I rack
And search my mind
For a way of helping you out?

Icelandic Theatre

The actors flow along the street
To the Parliament of Iceland
Their premier has summoned them
He wants them there
With their face paint on
All leaden white
And bony slim

The fragile women’s features
So very like their host’s
The sharp-nosed politician
And look they share with him a joke
Inflected nouns and nordic thorn
They shake with female laughter
Their bubbling fluted glasses
Their jutting scapulas and clavicles
Bob up and down
In satin gown

And the long wide road beyond
Traversing urban valley
Dips down here and rises slowly
And will you say I’ve got it wrong
And tell me this and that?
And must I then go off and find
An image of the Althing?