Bloody Tattoo
Blood on the floor, blood on his clothes, blood on the knife, blood on your hands, blood on your soul…
Drip drip drip…
Cleanse it, remove it. Smother it with soap, solid and liquid, rub it with water, hot and cold, scrub it, cloth and sponge, scrape it, nails and wire…
But it’s not your hands that need washing…
Drip drip drip…
Cleanse the soul, remove the stain. But you cannot do it, however hard you scrub; that power belongs to God alone.
And God will not save you.
Drip drip drip…
God is dead with the man, killed with the man, killed with this knife, these hands, these hands stained with a blood that will never go, staining your hands, your soul, red and wet and stinking…
Drip drip drip…
On your hands, on your soul, in the room where he died, the stink – creeping through the air, spiralling into corners, hiding within the bedcovers…
Drip drip drip…
The bed where you lay with the incubus Power and conceived a changeling child; a half-demon eel that slipped from your womb and slithered through your veins to rest in your breast and coil round your heart, filling you with lust for its father…
Drip drip drip…
And it was lust for the child’s father that drew your plans and moved your hand, that dirtied the knife, that released the blood, that stained you and marked you and branded you for life –
Dripdripdrip
MURDERER!
Drip drip drip…
Water dripping on a stone wears the stone away.
Drip drip…
Blood dripping on a mind…
Drip…
Drip drip drip…
Cleanse it, remove it. Smother it with soap, solid and liquid, rub it with water, hot and cold, scrub it, cloth and sponge, scrape it, nails and wire…
But it’s not your hands that need washing…
Drip drip drip…
Cleanse the soul, remove the stain. But you cannot do it, however hard you scrub; that power belongs to God alone.
And God will not save you.
Drip drip drip…
God is dead with the man, killed with the man, killed with this knife, these hands, these hands stained with a blood that will never go, staining your hands, your soul, red and wet and stinking…
Drip drip drip…
On your hands, on your soul, in the room where he died, the stink – creeping through the air, spiralling into corners, hiding within the bedcovers…
Drip drip drip…
The bed where you lay with the incubus Power and conceived a changeling child; a half-demon eel that slipped from your womb and slithered through your veins to rest in your breast and coil round your heart, filling you with lust for its father…
Drip drip drip…
And it was lust for the child’s father that drew your plans and moved your hand, that dirtied the knife, that released the blood, that stained you and marked you and branded you for life –
Dripdripdrip
MURDERER!
Drip drip drip…
Water dripping on a stone wears the stone away.
Drip drip…
Blood dripping on a mind…
Drip…