Lover's Lament

from Threadbare EP by Shane Murphy

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Painting: The Lover's Seat: Shelley (1792-1822) and Mary Godwin in Old St. Pancras Churchyard, 1877
[William Powell Frith]

lyrics

A LOVER'S LAMENT

Rose quartz and fool's gold
on a chest of drawers of quilted maple.
Magazines are mineral oil-stained
and the lamp is burning low on the table.
A stoneware vase of dried hydrangea,
split with a sunbeam sharp as a railroad spike,
pins a letter from a love estranged,
though I can't decipher its tenor, quite.

Sing, and wound me: love's water I cannot ford.
Such things consume me (to be held, to be adored).
So well dressed, so alone--
even songbirds jilt me when it storms.
Sing, and wound me: love's salve I can't afford,
water I cannot ford...

Clutching at flotsam in the wake
of her leaving, man drifts
and dangles as from her lobe a gold earring:
adornment adored within fashion and reason,
misplaced or cast aside at the change of the season.

credits

from Threadbare EP, track released April 18, 2011

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Shane Murphy Poughkeepsie, New York

shanejosephmurphy.com

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