ON AGAIN, ON AGAIN
(Jake Thackray)

I love a good bum on a woman. It makes my day.
I assume it is part of the proof of God's existence "a posteriori".
I love breasts and arms and ankles, elbows, knees.
It's the tongue, the tongue, the tongue of a woman that spoils the job for me.

Please understand, I respect and admire the frailer sex,
And I honour them every bit as much as the next misogynist,
But give some women the ghost of a chance to talk, and thereupon
They go on again, on again, on again, on again, on again, on again, on.

I fell in love with a woman with wonderful thighs and hips
And a sensational belly. I just never noticed her lips
Were always moving. Only when we got to the altar and she had to say, "I do",
She folded her arms and gathered herself and took in a breath and I knew

She could have gone on again, on again, on again, till the entire
Congregation passed out and the vicar passed on and the choir
Boys passed through puberty. At the reception I gloomily noted her family's jubilant mood,
Their maniacal laughter and their ghastly gratitude.

She talks to me when I go for a shave or a sleep or a swim.
She talks to me on a Sunday when I go singing hymns and drinking heavily.
When I go mending my chimney pot, she's down there in the street,
And at ninety-five on my motor bike, she's on the pillion seat

Wittering on again, on again, on and again and again.
When I'm eating or drinking or reading or thinking, or when I'm saying my rosary,
She will never stop talking to me. She is one of those women who
Will never use three or four words when a couple of thousand will easily do.

She even talks without stopping to me in our bed of a night,
Throughout the sweetest of our intimate delight,
Not even stopping while we go hammer and tongs towards the peak,
Except maybe for a sigh and a groan and one perfunctory shriek.

She just goes on again, on again, on again, on and I must
Assume that she has never noticed that she's just
Been interrupted. Totally unruffled she is, and as far as I can see,
I might just as well have been posting a letter or stirring up the tea.

She will not take a hint but once she's made a start
I can yawn, or belch, or bleed, or faint, or fart.
She'll not drop a syllable. I could stand in front of her grimly sharpening up an axe,
Sprinkle her with paraffin and ask her for a match;

She'd just go on again, on again, on again even more.
The hind leg of donkey is peanuts for her. She could bore
The balls off a buffalo. "Mother of God," I cried one day,
"Oh let your kingdom come, but in the meantime, Mother, can't you strike this bugger away?"

Believe it or not, she appeared to me then and there,
The Blessed Virgin herself in answer to my prayer,
Despite the vulgarity, shimmering softly, dressed in blue and holding up a hand.
I cocked a pious ear as the Mother of God began,

But she just went on again, on again, on again, on and I
Must state how very much I sympathi -
-ze with the rest of the family. Give some women the ghost of a chance
To talk and thereupon
They go on again, on again, on again, on

Again and again, and again, and again, and again,
They go on again, on again, on again, on again, on again, on again, on.