The Examiners

Where the house is cold and empty and the garden's overgrown,
Where the letters lie unopened by a disconnected phone,
Where your footsteps echo strangely on each moonlit cobblestone,
Where a shadow streams behind you but the shadow's not your own,
You may think the world's your oyster but it's bone, bone, bone:
They are there, the examiners are there

They assume it as an impost or they take it as a toll,
The contractors grant them all that they incontinently stole,
They will shrivel your ambition with their quality control,
They will dessicate your passion, then eviscerate your soul,
Wring your life out like a sponge and stuff your body down a hole,
They are there, they are there
They are there, the examiners are there

They can parse a Latin sentence; they're as learned as Plotinus,
They're as sharp as Ockham's razor, as subtle as Aquinas,
They define us and refine us with their beta-query-minus,
They're the wall-constructing Emperors of undiscovered Chinas,
They confine us, then malign us, in the end they undermine us,
They are there, they are there
They are there, the examiners are there

In the desert of your dreaming they are humped behind the dunes,
On the undiscovered planet with its seven circling moons,
They are ticking all the boxes, making sure you eat your prunes,
They are sending secret messages by helium balloons,
They are humming Bach cantatas, they are playing looney tunes
They are there, they are there
They are there, the examiners are there

They are there, they are there like a whisper on the air,
They are slippery and soapy with our hope and our despair,
So it's idle if we bridle or pretend we never care,
If the questions are superfluous and the marking isn't fair,
For we know they're going to get us, we just don't know when or where,
They are there, they are there
They are there, the examiners are there