See what a jolly bonnet I'm wearing
were Polly's last words.
She spoke them to the landlord
as she walked out the door
into oblivion.
On August 31, 1888,
Polly's lover cut her
throat and opened her
abdomen, taking vital
organs and placing
them about in the street.
He kept her uterus
as a trophy.
Whitechapel's Fiend was
oh so fickle for one week
later he took Anni Chapman.
All her organs spread
around in gay profusion
seemed to him
like ornaments
for an early Christmas.
He took her uterus and one
kidney as a prize, later
sending half the kidney
to Scotland Yard saying
the other half was in his
belly. Catch me if you can.
One month later it was Long
Liz and Katie, minutes apart.
No one heard a thing. He
disemboweled Kate on Mitre
Square with his surgeon's
knife and the cobblestone
clouds above and wrapped
her small intestines 'round
the lamp posts there.
Each new act had to be more
loving than the one before.
And The Phantam Of Death knew
unspeakable love. The London
City Police and Scotland Yard
put an army on the street.
They never got their boy.
Mary Kelly was the last,
November 8, 1888.
For her he saved the best,
scattering her flesh
to the universe.
She was his finest lover
and he left her all
in colours fair -- his darling,
his pride.
Then our Jack sailed away to heaven.
Five angels spinning on a steel
blade waited to give him what
he craved. They made a shirt
of skin for him and a plate dripping
red. He ate their eyes in heaven.
East End, neglect of Queen Victoria, raised
its head and screamed bloody murder!
In her carriage she heard the cry, and
the whole world heard from Shaw's
savage tongue.
West End only wagged about it over tea in perfect
afternoons -- Let whores get what they deserve.
Oh sterile lace of aristocracy!
Our Jack had known true love and would again!
Somewhere outside Boston,
Albert DeSalvo waited to be born.
My mother whistled the sunday news
by a stream where all the trout knew her music.
Horses cut in soap and afternoons of cinamon
laughter were my inheritance
Banks stole the rest.
My mother loved the clouds -- a silouette of Mark
Twain here, Sitting Bull's rocking chair over there.
My mother had visions. She heard voices.
They told her love's the rainy season of your life.
But gentlemen bloomed when mother's melodies
opened one laughing petal at a time
their dry hearts. My mother's gentlemen
curled about her spirit self like smoke
from the peace pipe of ancient families
going to silouettes in the slippery sky.
One of these men stayed. I was his also.
My father sang the sunday news.