Gone Away Blues

Sirs, when you are in your last extremity, When your admirals are drowning in the grass-green sea, When your generals are preparing the total catastrophe— I just want you to know how you can not count on me. I have ridden to hounds through my ancestral halls, I have picked the eternal crocus on the ultimate hill, I have fallen through the window of the highest room, But don' t ask me to help you 'cause I never will. Sirs, when you move that map-pin how many souls must dance? I don't think all those soldiers have died by happenstance. The inscrutable look on your scrutable face I can read at a glance— And I'm cutting out of here at the first chance. I have been wounded climbing the second stair, I have crossed the ocean in the hull of a live wire, I have eaten the asphodel of the dark side of the moon, But you can call me all day and I just won't hear. O patriotic mister with your big ear to the ground, Sweet old curly scientist wiring the birds for sound, O lady with the Steuben glass heart and your heels so rich and round— I'll sent you a picture postcard from somewhere I can't be found. I have discovered the grammar of the Public Good, I have invented a language that can be understood, I have found the map of where the body is hid, And I won't be caught dead in your neighborhood. O hygienic inventer of the bomb that's so clean, O lily white Senator from East Turnip Green, O celestial mechanic of the money machine— I'm going someplace where nobody makes your scene. Good-by, good-by, good-by, Adios, au 'voir, so long, Sayonara, dosvedanya, ciao, By-by, by-by, by-by.