The Cabinet of Kuniyoshi Kaneko

歌詞

Leopards prowl the studios of the Duc de Berry's great chateau Where Cocteau's beast rehearses Beauty's rape Lewis Carroll marks his diary with a small white stone As Kuniyoshi Kaneko prepares to paint Listen to the shells my darling, what you hear is not the sea But whispering, malicious human hearts Adults who don't wish to know the Duc de Berry's great chateau And hate the world of childhood and of art We who paint or photograph to stop your dying in its path And fix you in the permanence of spring Can't stop the prattlers prattling The rattlesnakes who, rattling, see ugliness in every living thing See ugliness in every living thing The calculated insolence of little girls in sailor suits Whose faces seem to say more than they know Appetites and ornaments for the libertine in all of us From the cabinet of Kuniyoshi Kaneko Follow to the studio where Alice Liddell plays the roles Of tousle-headed naked gypsy girls The Reverend Charles L. Dodgson from the darkness of his camera Preserves her for himself and for the world Children torn by cruel desires, the handiwork of murderers Who hack their little bodies to the bone Somehow live to tell the tale, astonishingly fit and well They couple in the fabulous chateau We who paint or photograph to stop your dying in its path And fix you in the permanence of spring Can't stop the prattlers prattling The rattlesnakes who, rattling, see ugliness in every living thing In every lovely living thing A looking glass is not a world A painted girl is not a girl In games there can be no forbidden things In life remain considerate, in art the Devil's advocate Why deny that Pegasus has wings In life remain considerate, in art the Devil incarnate Why deny the siren when it sings? In games there must be no forbidden things So watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen go by And mark your diary with a small white stone Little hearts of marzipan and lacquer work from old Japan In the cabinet of Kuniyoshi Kaneko