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Five elements make up the earth. Five points a pentagram.
There were five wounds on Jesus Christ. Five fingers on a hand.
The number five’s significant. It’s all through ancient lore.
And yet our playing cards have suits that number only four.
The spades that dig , the hearts that love, the clubs that bludgeon heads
The diamonds glitter. Every suit in shades of blacks and reds.
The cards can tell a story of deceit and sex and death.
Money, shovels, baseball bats, a lover’s dying breath
The cards can also educate about society
Royalty’s outnumbered but they have the power, see?
So many of the cards that number down from ten to ace
Are cards that by design don’t even have a person’s face.
The symbols on the playing cards are metaphors for life
And like those metaphors they can bring happiness or strife
Parables, morality, mortality and more
But yet the suits involved in decks of cards are only four
Yet five’s the number echoing back through the centuries.
Why four suits? There’s more to this than everybody sees.
There was another suit existed sure as I’m alive
I swear upon a pirate’s grave, they used to number five
There was a suit that lit the rest. A suit that banished night.
A suit of lamps. A suit of stars. It was a suit of light.
Lanterns it was called back then. The lantern suit of cards.
Lanterns lit the spades, the clubs, the diamonds and the hearts
You can’t spade a grave by feel, and hearts are ruled by sight
Diamonds don’t shine in the dark and clubs need help at night
How the lantern suit was shaped is lost to history
Possibly a flame or star was its geometry
It’s known the suit was odd because the highest card was jack
Jack of Lanterns was the highest card in every pack
For Jack had killed the Lantern King and claimed his lantern throne
He told the Queen to leave his house and now he ruled alone.
And so the King of Lanterns only had a leering skull
The Queen had running makeup tears, with racoon eyes gone dull
While Jack became the lantern made to light the crooked way.
The ray of light, the ray of hope, was Jack O Lantern’s ray.
Jack of Lantern’s rebel ways inspired all the players.
Gave them hope against the rich and lifted all their cares
Jack was always pictured with a horrid, leering smile.
Friendly, charming, scary, daring, rakish, full of guile
The suit was banned in 1410 by order of the lash.
Within a decade every deck of cards was burned to ash
And every hand that held a card was severed from its arm
Decks of cards were decks of death. They brought the owner harm.
It looked as though all playing cards were gone forever then
Along with all the thousand card games kept in mortal ken
The King who banned the cards? His name’s forgotten. Or erased?
Records of the royal family ruling can’t be traced
Decks of cards did not exist for one whole century
The only place they dared to come again was deep at sea
Pirates made new decks of cards away from legal eyes
Half-remembered one-eye jacks, and kings of suicide
The harshest laws regarding cards were focused on the lights
Most cards came back but lanterns stayed in darkness due to fright
Lanterns stayed a secret suit that no one dared to play
No one dared, and no one played, and so it went away
One thing you can’t do with light is keep it in the dark
It might change but it’ll find a way to keep the spark
Jack of Lanterns drifted into legend, myth and fable
Even though his suit was gone from every poker table
Cards survived but lights did not. The suit became extinct.
Yet every Halloween you’ll see a symbol that is linked
When settlers came to foreign soil, they brought Jackie, too.
And now from every pumpkin head, Jackie looks at you.
Jack O’Lantern stares from houses giving kids the treats
His smile lights the houses stairs as tiny teeth eat sweets
He smiles at the pranks and tricks all played on Hallow’s eve
Jackie lives. That king is dead and he is not bereaved.
Affection, violence, labour, wealth, REBELLION is the key
Rebel against the definitions of society
Define yourSELF and hope will lead the path you dare to tread
For Jack is nimble. Jack is quick. Despite the pumpkin head.
So every Halloween remember Jack O Lantern’s face.
It is a suit of cards integral to the human race.
Remember Jack the fearless one, the one that lit the way
Although his suit’s forgotten, Jackie never went away.
tags
There were five wounds on Jesus Christ. Five fingers on a hand.
The number five’s significant. It’s all through ancient lore.
And yet our playing cards have suits that number only four.
The spades that dig , the hearts that love, the clubs that bludgeon heads
The diamonds glitter. Every suit in shades of blacks and reds.
The cards can tell a story of deceit and sex and death.
Money, shovels, baseball bats, a lover’s dying breath
The cards can also educate about society
Royalty’s outnumbered but they have the power, see?
So many of the cards that number down from ten to ace
Are cards that by design don’t even have a person’s face.
The symbols on the playing cards are metaphors for life
And like those metaphors they can bring happiness or strife
Parables, morality, mortality and more
But yet the suits involved in decks of cards are only four
Yet five’s the number echoing back through the centuries.
Why four suits? There’s more to this than everybody sees.
There was another suit existed sure as I’m alive
I swear upon a pirate’s grave, they used to number five
There was a suit that lit the rest. A suit that banished night.
A suit of lamps. A suit of stars. It was a suit of light.
Lanterns it was called back then. The lantern suit of cards.
Lanterns lit the spades, the clubs, the diamonds and the hearts
You can’t spade a grave by feel, and hearts are ruled by sight
Diamonds don’t shine in the dark and clubs need help at night
How the lantern suit was shaped is lost to history
Possibly a flame or star was its geometry
It’s known the suit was odd because the highest card was jack
Jack of Lanterns was the highest card in every pack
For Jack had killed the Lantern King and claimed his lantern throne
He told the Queen to leave his house and now he ruled alone.
And so the King of Lanterns only had a leering skull
The Queen had running makeup tears, with racoon eyes gone dull
While Jack became the lantern made to light the crooked way.
The ray of light, the ray of hope, was Jack O Lantern’s ray.
Jack of Lantern’s rebel ways inspired all the players.
Gave them hope against the rich and lifted all their cares
Jack was always pictured with a horrid, leering smile.
Friendly, charming, scary, daring, rakish, full of guile
The suit was banned in 1410 by order of the lash.
Within a decade every deck of cards was burned to ash
And every hand that held a card was severed from its arm
Decks of cards were decks of death. They brought the owner harm.
It looked as though all playing cards were gone forever then
Along with all the thousand card games kept in mortal ken
The King who banned the cards? His name’s forgotten. Or erased?
Records of the royal family ruling can’t be traced
Decks of cards did not exist for one whole century
The only place they dared to come again was deep at sea
Pirates made new decks of cards away from legal eyes
Half-remembered one-eye jacks, and kings of suicide
The harshest laws regarding cards were focused on the lights
Most cards came back but lanterns stayed in darkness due to fright
Lanterns stayed a secret suit that no one dared to play
No one dared, and no one played, and so it went away
One thing you can’t do with light is keep it in the dark
It might change but it’ll find a way to keep the spark
Jack of Lanterns drifted into legend, myth and fable
Even though his suit was gone from every poker table
Cards survived but lights did not. The suit became extinct.
Yet every Halloween you’ll see a symbol that is linked
When settlers came to foreign soil, they brought Jackie, too.
And now from every pumpkin head, Jackie looks at you.
Jack O’Lantern stares from houses giving kids the treats
His smile lights the houses stairs as tiny teeth eat sweets
He smiles at the pranks and tricks all played on Hallow’s eve
Jackie lives. That king is dead and he is not bereaved.
Affection, violence, labour, wealth, REBELLION is the key
Rebel against the definitions of society
Define yourSELF and hope will lead the path you dare to tread
For Jack is nimble. Jack is quick. Despite the pumpkin head.
So every Halloween remember Jack O Lantern’s face.
It is a suit of cards integral to the human race.
Remember Jack the fearless one, the one that lit the way
Although his suit’s forgotten, Jackie never went away.
tags