The Cabinet of Kuniyoshi Kaneko

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