The deaths he caused were accidents   He committed no murder   Oh yes, some died of fright when they woke up in the night   To find a leopard in the room where they'd been lain after the feast   They should have known, those silly fools, the beast was tame   Heliogabalus wasn't to blame      For the deaths I'm illustrating in this quilt   Heliogabalus cannot share any guilt   Cannot share any guilt      Some lived to suffocate under the suffocating weight   Of a thousand fresh-cut blooms   He sent cascading from the ceiling of his room   Upon a crowd of his admirers   How was he to know some sybarites   Would drown beneath the flowers?   If a parasite can't swim should we blame him?      He was blond, he had blue eyes, he was completely without guilt   As I intend to demonstrate in my Heliogabalus quilt      They condemn his four year reign, his naked chariot team   The deadly snakes released in the forum at the climax of the games   His nights of gay debauchery, rushing through the slums   Disguised as tavern potboys, perfume sellers, barbers   Such exaggeration, such slanders!      If you'd been emperor of Rome at the age of just 15   Wouldn't you have done the same?   So why then does his name   Retain the mantle of the evil always claimed by joyless vultures   To explain the strange allure other cultures?      Heliogabalus wasn't to blame      He was beautiful and sexy and completely without guilt   As I intend to demonstrate right here in this quilt      Condemn me freely if you wish   But when my quilt is finished   I intend to sleep as soundly and as well   As Heliogabalus in hell