River Forktine Tippecanoe - Munly & The Lee Lewis Harlots

It was one of them days

Yes, the first Thursday of the new month

When you come to bathe in my river, Forktine Tippecanoe

I woke up early to fetch my own breakfast

Shuffled cross the deck of my houseboat

I yanked hard on my line and over my rear arced a red slider turtle

His shell mad coconut noises as it bounced across my deck

It did not break open like some frenchie’s egg-whips

So I pried open his shell

And I shucked his body out

Far away in the ocean, I could hear oysters giggling

Then I pulled out my father’s father’s helmet

The one that he wore in the Great War

I filled it full of water, set it on my hotplate

To heat up my turtle

Who I held, cradled in my palms

He looked like a preemie baby

Wiggling its undeveloped limbs

That’s when I set him into his hot new shell

It made him give me clouded eye looks

So I pried open my door

Went down to my shore

To wash out my helmet

But you come up behind me

Made me relieve myself quickly into my helmet

Boy, I cannot loosen into my river on this first Thursday

You step into my river, Forktine Tippecanoe

And I know that you’re ashamed of your undeveloped body

So I wait deep inside my houseboat

While you bathe in my river

And brother, I be waiting on you

To commence that joke the one you have pulled year after year after year after

year after year

You swim under my boat

And you rap on its underbelly

Making me shuffle across my deck

Making me shuck open my door

Making me stretch out my neck

Making me look at the cloudless sky

Making me laugh by rolling your joke

Making me say 'I thought someone was calling for me.'

You stick your head out my river

You giggle and speak retardedly

You say, «brother did you like my joke?'

I say yes, but it’s left me hungry

Could you catch me one more red sliding turtle?

Deep in my house I am giggling

Knowing that I had emptied my river of the last turtle

That’s when I hear you come up for air

From hunting my river

And I think, aw Christ, come next month

There’ll be a first Thursday

What would I like to watch you chase

With your fingerless body

Body

Maybe I will start on them northern pike

Yeah, maybe I will start on them fat sunny perch

Well, maybe I will get me a pregnant rainbow trout

I can picture it now

I will roll those un-broke eggs around in my mouth

I will be wearing my father’s father’s helmet

Goosestepping in my hobnail boots

I’ll be rapping out a message to the beasts below

Telling them someone be coming

Down to my river, Forktine Tippecanoe

My river, Forktine Tippecanoe