The Love Song of J. Snidely Whiplash

Let us go Nell, you and I
While the Canadian sunset is splayed out
Across the blood red sky like an otter pelt
Stretched out upon a skinning-board.
Let us walk through pine-scented woods,
Down trails that wander like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent.

What?  You don't trust me?

When I tied you to that railroad track
And you watched that locomotive coming at you,
It's whistle whining, its air brakes screeching;
It was just my obsessive devotion.
If I couldn't have you, then no one should.
If you were my woman I'd never hurt you.

In a room where couples come and go
I'd trump them all with you in tow.

You know, when I lashed you to that log
And turned on the sawmill conveyor that carried you
Ever closer to that deadly whirling blade,
It was just an act of love; showing you symbolically
That I could never share you alive with someone.
If you were my woman I'd never hurt you.

Would it be remiss
To ask for just a kiss?

Curses.  Foiled again.

I should have been a pair of bankers claws
Stacking bills gleaned from a teller's cage.
Someday there may come a time
When I may tire of turning widows and orphans
Out into the Canadian cold.
Already my hair is growing thin;
I'm seeing the start of a double-chin.
I now need more than just a little moustache black
To camouflage the ravages of time.
Otherwise, you know what they say...
There's "No play for Mr. Gray."
There's no love in a single's bar for an aging rogue.

I have measured out my life by foreclosed mortgages.

When I tied you to that other log
And sent you hurtling down that flume
Toward death in an icy, log-jammed river,
It was just a way of stating metaphorically, Love,
That I'd like to take you on a wild ride.
The wide-eyed terror that I witnessed on your face
Was at least an emotion more comely
Than the indifference or scorn you've shown me.
If you were my woman, I'd never hurt you.

In a room where couples come and go
I'd trump them all with you in tow.

Is it the perfume on your dress
That makes me so digress?
Would it be remiss
To ask for just a kiss?

Curses.  Foiled again.

Goodness isn't all it's cracked up to be, Love.
Doesn't the urge to be somewhat naughty prick you
A little bit, like the stays of your corset?
That straight-arrow Boy Scout of a Mountie
With the cleft jaw and the I.Q. of a sea slug,
Won't he become boring after awhile?

Deep-six the ribbons and bonnet, Nell,
And jettison the virtuous look.
I'd like to see you in stiletto heels
And a short black skirt slit up to your hips.
I'd love to see your long golden hair set free
To cascade like a waterfall down your back,
Your smile brightened by whorehouse red lipstick,
Smoke curling seductively from the cigarette
You hold in your slender manicured fingers.

Is it the perfume on your dress
That makes me so digress?

To see you dressed so fetchingly erotic,
My Love, would be a sight enticing enough
To make any man's moustache curl.
You know, my black beaver hat
Isn't the only large possession I take pride in.
Why do you think I wear a loose cape?

Let me be your Alec D'Urberville.
Let me do my damnedest to corrupt you.
I'll bet ther's a sultry vixen
Simmering beneath your muslin skirt.
I've seen you stroking the muzzle
Of that stupid Do-Right's horse,
Like some doped-up burlesque queen
Getting ready to straddle the bologna pony.

Let me take you downriver, Nell,
To dwell in Big Easy decadence.
There we can laughingly stroll past Piety
And choose to live our life on Desire instead.
We'll make love in the languid mornings
And Revel at night with the Dixieland bands.
We'll drink absinthe, and shuck and suck oysters.
You can flash your tits from our balcony, and
I'll help catch the beads that are tossed up to you.
Together we can live a life of lavish excess

Until our sins engulf us and we drown.