mistreat me darling and i might just disappear upon freighter running dark out of algiers put tiny grains in children s tears while taking 25 of all the flashbulbs and mementoes from the mechanized divisions rolling over your frontiers i saw my baby talking with another man today speaking softly in a confidential way i saw a shadow pull his glove off as a bluebird flew over life s is no pleasure when you doubt the one you love who are all these strangers i never will go back again go back into the past for the flood is rising fast you can break your window and look down into a muddy glass it s mirror or lens to burn there was a deal done in benghazi and belgrade upon a scimitar or other crooked blade ransacks and loots vacated suits and pistol points but never shoots army sitting in a locomotive yard without their boots upstairs your man is painting the rain out in the street imagines woman that he s destined still to meet he s trying sidetrack one to count on caught somewhere between countess or a courtesan and it s only love to feign and then it s gone he s a privateer as dusk gets near a brigand after dark his victim lined with chalk a corsair filled with horsehair to the core dashed on your eyes of adamantine you despised his stripling whine that little smudger and the mouthpiece that he s with using his clause just like a practised fingersmith i dreamed i took his digit prints and then sewed then on a villain s hands watched him ransom and demand until called the flatfoots in  who are all these strangers all these strangers i sat down on a narrow bed i thought about the things she said all these strangers how i wished the night would never end so tried to stop the days ahead i d carve her name down in the wood some small remembrance if i could