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The Power Of Lust

The roses had no thorns in Eden
The milk and honey flowed at no cost
Then lust slithered in with forbidden fruit
One bite and paradise was lost

Don’t blame it on Eve, the girl couldn’t help it
Blame the wiring in her prefrontal cortex
We’re all in thrall to the flesh machine
History is cast in desire’s swirling vortex

King Henry couldn’t keep it in his codpiece
Herod dribbled drool at Salome’s wiggle
Lust is sated, heads decapitated
Wars declared for a bit of slap and tickle

Ample cleavages can topple empires
Bondage and whips can launch a thousand ships
Lust-breathed Antony let Rome in Tiber melt
To straddle Cleopatra’s curvy hips

Lust is a bunga-bunga bacchanal  
Lust lives in palace, bordello and slum
Presidents’ trousers are caught around their ankles
Popes, potentates and peasants all succumb

Monsieur Hollande’s secret blonde said “keep your helmet on”
Pizza-delivery-playboy fashion
Mr Major made Currie red-hot, “Oh yes”
Then tucked his shirt back in his pants of passion

But lust just doesn’t stop at triple X sex
It’s not only Raquel Welch in “Bedazzled”
Lust hungers for Iggy Pop’s liquor and drugs
Lust devours, lust is on the razzle

Lust dusts itself in golden glittering bling
A gilded scaffold for a Queen’s execution
Fifty two Faberge eggs, diamonds and pearls
Pave the road to bloody revolution

Lust craves control of the great unwashed
Lust is a power trip on testosterone
Lust debases and debauches, lust depraves
Lust can turn a bunch of tulips to stone

Lust insists you can always get what you want
Lust says what is yours is mine, all mine
Lust must overtake The Joneses come what may
Lust inclines towards the Philistine                                                 

Lust is a sticky fingered, drunken glutton
Lust loves to grope, grab, plunder and gazump
Lust is a domineering sugar daddy
Lust has the tango-tanned* face of Donald Trump

The cistern of our lust will never be filled
Lust will blindly snatch, steal and spend
Lust forever needs the latest shiny apple
One bite too many and this world will end

copyright elvis mcgonagall, 2017
for bbc radio 4 archive on 4’s “a brief history of lust”

* or maybe “irn’-bru face” is a more appropriate carbonated drink
metaphor as I’m afraid he is technically half-Scottish - apologies on
behalf of Scotland everyone.