For Mr. Thomas
Van Morrison Lyrics

From faded newsprint used to wrap a fish
From something that was once used up and discarded, the muse selects your face in a way that is hard to understand

Inscrutably the muse selects your face
The muse chooses you in a way that is hard to understand

As I sit drinking famously in an Irish bar
As I leisurely enjoy a drink in an Irish bar

Five thousand miles and thirty years away
A figurative distance from where we are now

With the usual ceremonial you were crowned one night
You were celebrated in a customary way on a particular night

King of the field where doctors nail the cows
The authority or leader of a place where cows are treated by doctors

To make of the cock's quill the rights of language
To turn something small, like a quill from a rooster, into something powerful and meaningful, like language

And the pricking heart a sword against the hours
The idea of something as vulnerable as a heart can become a weapon or shield against the passage of time

Let smirking scholars writhe in their favorite bondage
Let those scholars with arrogance and conceitedness suffer in their own preferred bondage

And hold you plaintiff to the charge of art
And accuse you of being responsible for the creation of art

Exhibit A: he falls on legendary lines
As proof, I present that you have written lines that are legendary

Singing mother I don't want a pain here in my heart
Expressing the desire to avoid heartache and emotional pain

The judge in me sucks eggs and jerks the sacred meat
A reference to the idea of a critical voice inside the author's mind

But the boy in me still dreams in Milk Wood town
But deep down, the author still has youthful aspirations

Like two provincial bastards playing the galleries
Like two individuals who are not accepted in high society, enjoying themselves in galleries nonetheless

I hold your photo to a mirror upside down
Flipping a photo to look at it from a different angle

And as bacon wafts through hungry streets, your ghost pervades
A metaphorical reference to the lingering presence of the person the author is thinking about

Just like an old ex-boxer aged twenty two
Another metaphor, likening the person being thought about to an ex-boxer who is still young in years, but old in experience

Staged-up like Falstaff or the wild welsh Rimbaud
Referencing two fictional characters, suggesting that the person being thought about is also somewhat of a character

You'd laugh to see the monograms they make of you
A thought that the person being thought about would find it amusing the way people try to label him

Ah, Mr. Thomas let us ramble through the midnight fair
An invitation to go on a journey, as if walking through a midnight fair

Let us throw old bottles at the Ferris wheel
Suggesting that they should not take themselves too seriously and should have fun, like throwing bottles at a Ferris wheel

Let us paint library on the library let us raid the moonlight
An invitation to engage in some sort of mischief, painting something strange onto a library and enjoying the moonlight

Let us steal whatever we are supposed to steal
Engaging in some harmless mischief, taking something that they are not supposed to take

Let us watch while the days grow daily more mundane
Watching as days grow increasingly dull and boring

That rough God go riding with his shears
A metaphorical reference to some divine entity taking action with a tool of some kind

Hack wide the belly of the swollen mountains
An image of using force to open something very large, like a mountain

And rip molten heroes forth from their furious tears
Extracting an idea or inspiration from great emotional pain and turning that into something productive

Oh, Mr. Thomas
An address to the person being thought about, Mr. Thomas

Why don't we feel whatever we're supposed to feel
Questioning the idea of what is expected of them and why they are not feeling it