Grotesque was the frown on this desolate old town
Where the big top stood tall but seemed gloomy
The sailors were led to the hairdresser's shed
And the blinded commish'ner looked rheumy
There were restless riot corps, gettin' kicks out on the floor
With the tight-rope performer bound tensely
The passports, once blue, had a brown-colored hue
And the postcards were selling most surely

Ms. Davis had eyes fixed on Cinderella's stride
As her hands gaily filled her hip pockets
A confused Romeo was commanded to go
Then the ambulance sounded while speedin'
The moon was obscured and a couple of stars blurred
And the stressed fortune teller was leavin'
Then Abel and Cain and the hunchback sank
For the show, the Good dude was a-preenin'

Ophelia's desire made her rattled tail flounce
But she craved in vain like a maiden
Her dead romance view on her birthday two-two
Had her wearing a vest that looked steely
She yawned at fate in a lifeless pious state
As she made her religion her passion
Though afternoon rain left a bow so plain
She just stayed 'neath the window a-glimpsin'

When Al Einstein dressed like that Robin Hood chap
With his mem'ries all stowed in a tree trunk
A bummed cigarette made his frightened friends fret
None so jealous as one good-t'know monk
The drainpipes were sniffed and the alphabet was lisped
While a violin fugue was a-playin'
His fame did incite many sprites to leave in fright
So grotesque was this row's desolation

While Doctor Filth stowed all his leather cup woes
Sexless patients got vexed and looked dour
His nurse with cards played by the cyanide cave
You could hear penny whistles behind her
The curtains were nailed, and a feast was devised
The phantomly priest watched the op'ra
The phantom explained to the anorexic dames
Why they'd punished that poor Casanova

Agents patrolled, superiors ringed
As they brought parasites to the fact'ry
They strapped on machines then brought kerosene
From castles, arranging a scorching
Praise Neptune with odes, great Titanic glowed
A pair of great poets did glower
And as Ezra Pound groaned, T. S. Eliot intoned
Singers laughed, and some anglers held flowers

Oh, the letter you sent, it arrived yesterday
As the knob of the door was imperiled
Your words so kind boomeranged, denting my mind
Folks you mentioned, I deemed as quite sterile
Grotesque were the frowns on the faces upside down
For I remade them all as if loony
"Inferior," I said, "were the names I did shred
Future mail: only send from these boonies"