Danse Macabre

Danse Macabre.

At Walpurgis at midnight when ghosts and witches fly

In the old church graveyard where the bodies lie

When the bell is tolling. Under moonlit skies

Then the graves will open and the dead arise.

See the grey cadavers answer to the call

Take their ghostly partners for the ghoulish ball.

Charlie tooting gaily on the saxophone

That he has constructed from a marrow bone.

Eddie on a ribcage picking out the beat

Striking it with hammers. Carpals from the feet.

Danny on the guitar is a groovy fella

Strumming happily away. His plectrum a patella.

Skin stretched on a coffin makes an ideal drum

Willie’s wild performance is pandemonium.

Death is the conductor he beats time with his scythe

Whilst gyrating skeletons rock and roll and jive.

You would be most welcome. They’ll plead with you to stay

To join the celebrations until the break of day.

But you should ask to be excused and say that can’t be so

Or you will find at daybreak they will not let you go.

And when the dawn is breaking in the eastern sky

They’ll disappear beneath the earth and you will with them lie

In a wooden casket a tombstone at your head

With your name upon it for friend, you will be dead.