Sinner’s Rain

The things you hear if you want to
A riverbed of tumbled lies
Whispered in one ear, a widow’s web
melodramatic telegraphic sighs

We’re all knee-deep in the trenches
Holding our rusty bayonets
While they’re filling crooked muskets
From a powder keg of dulled regrets

Another postcard from the front
Tie a yellow ribbon ‘round a tree
For tarnished silver in tin boxes
Oh, find another way to honour me

Now I’m looking out the window
Far too old to dream of passing trains
The mud still cakes the footman’s boot
It’s been forty day of sinner’s rain
Forty days of sinner’s rain
Forty days and forty nights
Gin--soaked from all the pain