If I Were A Carp - Owen Pallett

Heave ho, farewell to the quay!

Merry sailors, sailors

We!

The horizon is our proscenium!

Our dead will come to know

The sea

Our cook is a wanted man, 1000 thalers for each hand

Our captain lost his good sense, driven by a Lazarus'

Words

Have you not been told of Lazarus?

He felt the icy grip

Brought back by a morphine drip, he told the captain

This:

Tragedy, tragedy!

Death has you fooled!

No throne of bone, no terranean pool!

No scythe, no cowl, no skeleton

His greatest trophy is this myth

Every sailor, salmon, every carp will follow rivers to

The source

Only the dead will know the course, and furthermore…

Do you really want to know of the afterworld?