To keep readers up on crucial secondary players in Justin Robinson’s noir monsterverse and to also celebrate his upcoming appearance in the Spring Awakening group reading of Shades and Shadows, here’s a melancholy ditty by Sawbones, one of the goblin trio in Wolfman Confidential. Series aficionados may recall that goblins communicate in doggerel…er, rhymed poetry.
The goblin group portrait is by Fernando Caire; Sawbones is the one on the right, showing off his major skill as mob (Mab?) enforcer and lighter of cancer sticks (click twice on the image to see it full-size). And if you haven’t yet delved into Justin’s inspired noir/pulp monster mash, City of Devils, Fifty Feet of Trouble and Wolfman Confidential are with us, with another sibling on the way — more on that soon!
The Shades and Shadows event happens this Saturday, March 23, 8 pm at The Bearded Lady’s Mystic Museum in Burbank.
***
The Song of Sawbones
by Justin Robinson
– a City of Devils Series Companion Ditty-
Bartender, another round,
Three fingers of rye, straight up;
‘Til mem’ries or grief are drowned
Hide the bottom of my cup.
I’ve not forgotten you, my dear,
How could I with your lovely face,
Order your drink, whiskey or beer,
While your countenance I try to place.
So sweet to share this time
And bask in my faded glory;
Drink with a goblin past his prime
And hear old Sawbones’s sad story.
Know you who I am?
Tell a lie, who I was?
No longer worth a damn;
Power slipped ‘tween my claws.
Before my life turned sour
I was important and great,
Served at the right hand of power
And spoke with the Gobfather’s weight.
I feel as though I know your name
While I look upon your lovely face,
My memory, a candle flame
While your countenance I try to place.
Then came Christmas ’55
Instead of presents ‘neath our tree,
A desperate fight to stay alive
That claimed a mighty sidhe.
On iron wings came angry blades,
Bellum’s corpses had no pity,
Came they in rotting brigades
And to the brain went the city.
With the boss in the ground
Old Sawbones lost his job;
No thoughts plain or profound,
Just another unemployed hob.
Tell this goblin, tell him true,
Familiar be your lovely face,
A picture comes in my mind’s view,
While your countenance I try to place.
In the days of milk and honey
We goblins were a trinity,
Pulling in scads of money
With a violent affinity.
Our leader was the vile Flux,
A goblin black of heart,
His skills were worth a million bucks,
The Gobfather’s small counterpart.
Then came the cursed day
We found old Flux in the reservoir;
A goblin someone thought to slay
In a manner most bizarre.
We have met, I know you, please,
I have looked upon your lovely face,
Be not a meatstick tease
While your countenance I try to place.
Murk was a foolish knob
Who never learned to rhyme,
Stout of heart, the silly hob
Was strangely good at crime.
Found inside our humble shop
Impaled on an iron dirk,
Never again to eat his slop,
’Twas the end of piggish Murk.
Wolves now say the guilty hand
Belongs to the Monster Slayer;
“Find this villain,” I demand
For I am a loyal taxpayer.
Yes, I’ve met you, this I know,
Evidence clear in your lovely face,
Sweet recognition were I your beau
While your countenance I try to place.
Wolves have found the Slayer not
And I sense his job half-finished;
Will my sentence be blade or garrote,
Though I am undeniably diminished.
This goblin lives on borrowed time
And I will spend it drunk,
Spinning out my lonely rhyme
Before I wind up in a trunk.
Let’s you and me adjourn to a quieter scene
And succumb to our baser urges,
I will make of you a fairy queen
And cease these maudlin dirges.
Really? No fooling? You’re game?
Color me surprised;
I’ll never find an equal dame
Who would be so energized.
Wait, hold on, you’re the Songbird—
Your face I suddenly remember;
But your body was interred
When you were killed last November.
No, you are not she,
No matter how much I might wish,
You are a trick of memory;
Still, though, quite a dish.
Right out here, to the night
Go girl and goblin hence,
It’s dark out here, where’s the light?
I’m parked o’er by the fence.
Here we are, sweet morsel mine,
A short ride awaits you;
After the change, we will dine,
And I will shortly date you.
Oh, that shadow twitched;
Not a shadow, but a dame,
Your beauty had me bewitched,
And rendered Sawbones lame.
Know you, too, do I
The boss’s Golden Swan;
Your blade worthy of a samurai
Not a delicate little fawn.
Oh, I see, your task complete,
You’ve slain the boss’s mugs;
A scythe you were, with us as wheat,
And woe to fallen thugs.
Go on, end your mission,
You were the boss’s mate,
I’m ready, fear not ignition,
Old Sawbones meets his fate.
