The Axe Is Blood Red

The axe is blood red, by the worn churchyard door, And there's a dark moisture where it's usually dry: The pigeons are quiet now and no longer cooing; For the ones who survived must fly higher than high. So fly away Peter, fly away Paul; Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more. The children are weeping and rubbing their eyes As the feather's go tumbling, unanchored and free; Bloody clumps clinging, to bush and to vine, And a small pile of birds at the foot of a tree. So fly away Peter, fly away Paul; Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more. The attacks were unwarranted; murderous rage: Something gone awry, in the caretaker's mind; So he pulled out his coat sleeve the long skinny blade, Putting to rout all the birds and their kind. So fly away Peter, fly away Paul; Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more Now the children have nightmares, which rouse them from sleep, But it's too late to save their young eyes from the sight; And the mute beaks are opening up toward the sky, While they beat bloodied feathers through long endless nights. So fly away Peter, fly away Paul; Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more.