What we once thought we had, we didn't   And what we have now will never be that way again   So we call upon the author to explain      Our myxomatoid kids spraddle the streets   We've shunned them from the greasy grind   The poor little things they look so sad and old   As they mount us from behind   I ask them to desist and to refrain!   And then we call upon the author to explain      Well, rosary clutched in his hand   He died with tubes up his nose   And a cabal of angels with finger cymbals   Chanted his name in code   We shook our fists at the punishing rain   And we called upon the author to explain      He said, everything is messed up round here   Everything is banal and jejune   There's a planetary conspiracy against the likes of you and me   In this idiot constituency of the moon   Well, he knew exactly who to blame!   And we call upon the author to explain      Prolix! Prolix!   Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix      Well, I go guruing down the street    And young people gather 'round my feet   And they ask me things, but I don't know where to start   They ignite the powder trail straight to my father's heart   And, yeah, once again   I call upon the author to explain   Yeah, we call upon the author to explain      Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing   That mediocres my every thought?   I feel like a vacuum cleaner—a complete sucker!   It's fucked up and he is a fucker   But what an enormous and encyclopedic brain!   I call upon the author to explain      Rampant discrimination   Mass poverty, third world debt   Infectious disease, global inequality   And deepening socio-economic divisions   Well, it does in your brain   We call upon the author to explain      Now hang on   My friend Doug is tapping on the window!   Hey Doug, how you been? (hey Doug)   Well, he brings me a book on holocaust poetry – complete with pictures   And then he tells me to get ready for the rain   And we call upon the author to explain      Prolix! Prolix!   Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix      Bukowski was a jerk!   Berryman was best!   He wrote like wet papier-maché   But he went the Hemingway   Weirdly on wings and with maximum pain   We call upon the author to explain      Down in my bolt hole I see they've published   Another volume of unreconstructed rubbish   "The waves, the waves were soldiers moving"   Well, thank you! Thank you!   Thank you and again   I call upon the author to explain      Prolix! Prolix!   There's nothing a pair of scissors can't fix