Witch heart

(going to Robyn Archer's 'A Star is Torn')

Driving tonight in freezing air
to cram the Comedy's windy foyer

we go to see a red bitch raise
eleven dead nobles from the grave

eleven ladies they had a ball
and a century to their funeral

oh they sang good and they lived hard
it was one-night stands on a dead-end road

and it's cold the gusts and black in the street
and hail comes across and peppers it white

and through the Comedy's blue and dark
we'll be those nobles screwed and starred

and raped and hurt and drunk and broke
and jailed and dead and young that ache

those ladies high in the wind and the rain
that lights them up and batters them down

one red-haired bitch talks down the years
eleven dead whores dress up their blues

the witch heart sings from a bloodless face
and lives the triumph of that distress

and the living and loving are women the more
all that festivity and power