Lyrics:
Patchwork Cliché

 

© 2007 by Mary Crowell.

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,”
They said that when I was young.
Mine is the body taken today
Cut from the ropes where it hung, it hung.
Cut from the ropes where it hung.

“Why buy the cow if milk is free?”
Her mother would scold her and cry.
She didn’t hear her mother or me.
He stabbed her and left her to die, to die.
He stabbed her and left her to die.

Chorus:

The arms of her killer,
Brain of her lover,
She I’ll remember
And never recover.
I am a patchwork –
Betrayer, betrayed;
Of both the bereaved
And a murderer made.

“Never a woman shall you trust,”
I heard from my Pa as a girl.
I loved her truly. He killed for lust
And took from me my only pearl, pearl.
And took from me my only pearl.

“Dead men are silent. They carry no tales,”
They said as they looked hard at me.
The men and the women in funeral veils.
They wouldn’t believe it was he, was he.
They wouldn’t believe it was he.

Chorus

In for a penny; in for a pound,”
I told him as I came to call.
He’d left her bleeding, clutching the ground.
I shot him dead by the wall, the wall.
I shot him dead by the wall.

“Tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye,”
They said. Then I ate my last meal.
My body just placed in the grave to lie
Was there for the scientist to steal, to steal.
Was there for the scientist to steal.

Chorus

“There is a monster inside everyone,”
They’ve said this. I’ve heard it before.
Fool of a doctor can’t know what he’s done.
The mind and the arms are at war, at war.
The mind and the arms are at war.

“Death is an ending for body and mind,”
I’ve heard, “And the soul -- it departs.”
I and my enemy’s fates intertwined.
The doctor cares naught for my heart, my heart.
The doctor cares naught for my heart.

Chorus