Lady Lazarus

Lyrics

I have done it again One year in every ten I manage it-- A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade My right foot A paperweight My face a featureless, fine Jew linen Peel off the napkin O my enemy Do I terrify?-- The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be At home on me And I a smiling woman I am only thirty And like the cat I have nine times to die This is Number Three What a trash To annihilate each decade What a million filaments The peanut-crunching crowd Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot-- The big strip tease. Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands My knees. I may be skin and bone Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman The first time it happened I was ten It was an accident The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls Dying Is an art, like everything else I do it exceptionally well I do it so it feels like hell I do it so it feels real I guess you could say I've a call It's easy enough to do it in a cell It's easy enough to do it and stay put It's the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute Amused shout: 'A miracle!' That knocks me out There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart-- It really goes And there is a charge, a very large charge For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes So, so, Herr Doktor So, Herr Enemy I am your opus I am your valuable The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek I turn and burn Do not think I underestimate your great concern Ash, ash-- You poke and stir Flesh, bone, there is nothing there-- A cake of soap A wedding ring A gold filling Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air 23-29 October 1962