(I Was Drunk At The) Pulpit

I was drunk at the pulpit, I knew it was wrong
And I left in mid-sermon tempted by a bar-house song
The pews creaked and shifted as they turned to watch me leave
And I pulled a little bottle from the pocket in my sleeve

The sunlight was stronger to my church-dark widened eyes
Than the light which had blinded me with Christ's own half-lies
Yes mid-sunday morning, my old playmates sat
Round a stumble stained table, Christopher spat
And he kicked out a chair and showed me to sit
Then they started back singing in that shit-smelling pit
They were grinning and dribbling with comforted heads
Their wives were in church or at home and in beds
Well I sucked down a cupful and God shone within
In a red earthen mask, and I saw where I'd been was a palace of sin.

Let them abstain on unbucking high horses
Poor wooden structures which merely eye courses
That these log heads run just to find some respite
In the whiskey-induced holy unending night
Yes I thought I saw new light, the black one which dimmed
The bleach garments with which mingled pee on stained rims
Oh the church songs they paled next to this fiery chorus
Composed from a living depth especially for us

There were arms linked in sympathy, gilded the glaring
Of these bloated companions, who hid 'neath their swearing
Some need for another, kin to brother lust,
Which coarse words and music, was faith and less trust
Yes I saw a dependence, an inherent weakness
Within walls which hid sunlight and hindered all frankness
That floor there supported what souls couldn't stand
On their own in their own eyes, to hint they are men
Who are slave to their vision but to that alone
Yes each of them cloistered fear of being alone
Wherever folks gather, to imply a rule,
They are each one a sinner, each one a fool
For if I drink my whiskey, and if I sing a song
I have no breast companion, a-trailing along
To imagine a sharing of burdens I earned
To steal from the embers i strove so to burn
God is one's corpus, and Jesus one's blood
The world is within you, without is of mud...