The Charm of Innocence

I was born with the charm of innocence
 On my back like a cross
 Thorns upon my forehead
 Round my neck I wore it
 Sometimes a rabbit's claw
 Sometimes an albatross
 It began at a school that turned boys into gentlemen
 Then turned them on to debauchery
 I was forced to my knees in front of these gentlemen
 If I refused they would torture me
 On Sundays I'd stalk the Botanical Garden
 And under my uniform something would harden
 Whenever I passed a girl of my own age
 Or did it begin with au pair girls from Germany
 Paid by the hour to look after us?
 Did it begin with that first opportunity
 To corner a stranger with nakedness?
 Maybe the clinical way they undressed me
 Stayed with me and deeply distressed me
 I think, at heart, I'm something of a prude
 I was born with the charm of innocence
 On my back like a cross
 Thorns upon my forehead
 Round my neck I wore it
 Sometimes a rabbit's claw
 Sometimes an albatross
 Then at 18 I decided I wanted
 To be a commercial photographer
 I rented a studio down by the docks
 Which I shared with a friendly pornographer
 I photographed models in fluorescent light
 Whose veins were so blue and whose breasts were so white
 I assumed, like the moon, women were blue cheese
 When I left home I already had five years
 Of self abuse under my belt
 I found certain women who'd let me try anything
 Just to find out how it felt
 In some garish hotel room with vile decoration
 The wallpaper witnessed my first pollination
 The paisley patterns witnessed an abortion
 I was born with the charm of innocence
 On my back like a cross
 Thorns upon my forehead
 Round my neck I wore it
 Sometimes a rabbit's claw
 Sometimes an albatross
 In the army they taught me to share the abuse
 That I'd kept up 'til then to myself
 There's nothing like killing
 For coaxing a shy boy of twenty-one out of his shell
 In the dark continent with a peace-keeping force
 I fell in with a bunch of Algerian whores
 And promised them I'd try and keep in touch
 We met up again in the 18th arrondisement
 I remember them well
 Their lank stringy hair and their big bulbous noses
 Their unmistakable smell
 I'd approach all the ugliest, seediest jerks
 And ask them to keep a young model in work
 Some men, thank Christ, don't discriminate at all
 I was born with the charm of innocence
 On my back like a cross
 Thorns upon my forehead
 Round my neck I wore it
 Sometimes a rabbit's claw
 Sometimes an albatross
 I will pass my old age by a pale two-bar fire
 Patiently waiting to die
 Twitching the lace as the schoolgirls go past
 Tracing a page of Bataille
 And if you catch sight of my secondhand coat
 Leaving behind it a faint whiff of goat
 Remember both of us are naked underneath
 I thought it would end with the first obscene phone call
 The second professional kill
 But somehow detached from my actual behaviour
 This innocence burdens me still
 Up in the attic I pick up the brush
 Paint in the crow's feet, paint out the blush
 The face this portrait is of is still capable of
 The face this portrait is supposed to be of is still capable of
 The face this portrait is of is still capable of (Paint out the blush of shame)
 The face this portrait is supposed to be of is still capable of (Paint out the blush of shame)
 The face this portrait is of is still capable of (Paint out the blush of shame)
 The face this portrait is supposed to be of is still capable of (Paint out the blush of shame)
 The face this portrait is of is still capable of (Paint out the blush of shame)
 The face this portrait is supposed to be of is still capable of (Paint out the blush of shame)
 (Paint out the blush of shame)
 (Paint out the blush of shame)
 (Paint out the blush of shame)