Kilometers from nowhere on a
scented avenue -
Lined with poppy girls.
I didn't stop, stop to
say hello.
Curious vendors - waving bric-a-brac -
Looked me over -
Thought it best, best that I should go.
Don't wake me: I'm
falling.
Slow spiral into morning.
I waited tables - I was
tipped in roubles.
Wine to water
Was the best that I could do.
Wild office parties split the silence.
Loaves and fishes at an
empty table laid for two.
Don't wake me: I'm falling.
Slow spiral
into morning.
Who's out there? Can't hear you.
Ears covered -
early warning.
Alarm bells ringing.
Time to make my peace with the
dreary day.
Spiral, spiral, spiral.
Down the spiral, spinning madly.
Gathering momentum
On a disneyesque adventure ride.
I fly in
colours from richer palettes.
Famous artists running scared as worlds
as worlds collide.
Don't wake me: I'm falling.
Slow spiral into morning.
Who's out there? Can't hear you.
Ears covered - early warning.
Alarm bells ringing.
Time to
make my peace with the dreary day.
Spiral, spiral, spiral.
It's a wide world out there
So much wider than imagined
I can't quite put my finger on the
pulse
Of your heart softly beating
Just beneath the raw silk sheen
That reflects the tints of autumn from the hills.
So punch my
name.
And in case you wonder -
I'll be yours - yours, dot com.
Executive accommodation
Bland but nonetheless appealing
Waiters discretely at your back and call
Place the tall sun-down
potion
Lightly by your velvet elbow
While you compose a message on
the wall.
So punch my name.
And in case you wonder -
I'll be
yours - yours, dot com.
With your handmade leather valise
Packed and ready, ready waiting
Showered and dressed down lightly
for the heat
Give a clue; leave a kind word
Hint as to a
destination
A domain where our cyber-souls might meet.
So punch my
name.
And in case you wonder -
I'll be yours - yours, dot
com.
Stormy-eyed on the edge of dawn:
nose pressed against the triple glaze.
Floor to ceiling, wall to
wall,
silent traffic streams both ways.
Along the fussy freeway
drivers
dream of sunday barbecues.
Of a sudden, seems I can barely
face my self: no face to lose.
Call the bosses. Call supervisors.
Won't be in today to work for you.
E-mail that girl who's working
nights.
She can dress down for this wind and rain.
Leave her new
Korean compact:
let some cabbie take the strain.
Take a shower.
Take big espresso.
Take to the hills, and take a view.
Little
black dress stretching over
hard crystal peaks: soft valleys too.
Call the bosses. Call for nurses.
Unfit today to work for you.
No wet excuses. Absent without leave.
I'll be her dayshift
driver: exotic engineer.
Stormy-eyed on the edge of night:
(December, eastern time: late afternoon.)
Atlantic City tight
behind.
Trump Casino calls pontoon.
Gristle-burger, frazzled fries
end this romantic interlude.
Tomorrow morning's sweet awakening
could hardly prove to be as rude.
Make the journey. Make amends.
Work some hasty overtime in lieu.
No wet excuses. Absent
without leave.
I was her dayshift driver: exotic engineer.
I review my past through wicked
windows framed in silver
and hung in toughened glass, upon my face,
around and over.
Now and then: memories of men who loved me.
No
stolen kiss - could match their march on hot coals for me.
I have
walked a line both faint and narrow, hard to follow.
Caught up in
circumstance. Harsh truth for history to mellow.
Through my eyes:
loyalties and obligation
magnified. Obedience: the better fellow.
Better not remember me. Don't miss my passing.
Fierce winter
fails to ruffle my icy sleep.
We never quite vanish. No wet soft
surrender.
Still waiting: bad blood running in close families.
I
laughed like any child - although you might find that strange
and
christmas was my favourite holiday.
Christmas was my favourite
holiday.
I am not alone in seeing the world through wicked windows
while others hide likewise behind this vulnerable squinting.
It's
in the stare: it's in the silent scrutinizing.
Strip you bare: I offer
you no more disguising.
Better not remember me. Don't miss my
passing.
Fierce winter fails to ruffle my icy sleep.
We never
quite vanish. No wet soft surrender.
Same bad blood running in new
families.
Hey little buddies:
soft and
silky night walkers.
Dangerous species -
Tiptoe menace long grass
stalkers
on my bed:
no butter melting in your jaws.
Bonding
monster -
Lethal weapon wearing claws.
Let's go out to hunt by
numbers.
Tabby, spotted, black as coal -
Serval, Margy,
Caracal.
Moggie in the moonlight listens:
whiskered sensory
miracle.
Felis, befriend us -
Egyptian Mau - Freya's familiar.
Long in the future -
Cloned disciples, the castle guard.
Now,
let's go out and hunt by numbers
Hey little buddies:
soft and
silky night walkers.
Dangerous species -
Tiptoe menace long grass
stalkers
on my bed:
no butter melting in your jaws.
Bonding
monster -
Lethal weapon wearing claws.
Let's go out to hunt by
numbers.
(music: Martin Barre, lyrics: Ian Anderson)
Hot mango flush.
Ladies with
ice cream hair -
Gyroscopic pink neon beams -
Everybody's happy
about something.
The crowd moves like a flock of starlings:
they
switch direction as one.
Jive on the jukebox - Jack and Joker
split the night air with whoop and holler.
Faint aroma - wood
smoke, old fish,
diesel harbour, roadside mongrel,
painted man
with buttons barely
holding, bursting belly bulging.
Hot mango
flush.
Doe-eyed ragamuffin mumbling -
Scolded for some vague
infraction.
Stole a penny candy-coloured
sweetheart kiss down at
the market.
Down at the market all the world
seems to simmer:
Hot mango flush.
Hot mango flush.
Ladies with
ice cream hair -
Gyroscopic pink neon beams -
Everybody's happy
about something.
The crowd moves like a flock of starlings:
they
switch direction as one.
Jive on the jukebox - Jack and Joker
split the night air with whoop and holler.
Stole a penny candy-coloured
sweetheart kiss down at the market.
Down at the market all the
world
seems to simmer:
Hot mango flush. Hot mango
flush.
As one, wet merchants turn their
eyes towards the west.
Trade winds falter as if in dire consequence.
Freezing fish to fry, fail to materialise.
Christ-child,
blood-warm current sends to touch the skies.
El Niņo. El
Niņo.
Bathing in uncertainty, another
age
seems to wing from T.V. screens in weather rage.
Savage
retribution makes for a headline feast.
Planet-warming,
opinion-forming headless beast.
El Niņo. El Niņo.
Cold thrust
tongue extends its dark and watery touch.
Forces gather, martial stand
against the rush.
Wily child in mischief here to make his play.
Leaves toys for little sister on another day
El Niņo. El Niņo. El
Niņo. El Niņo. El Niņo. El Niņo.
Hand in the snake pit - black
mamba chase.
Head through the lion's cage - head on a plate.
Two
feet on the hot coals - last dance at the ball.
Blindfold on the
tightrope - whenever you call.
Be my slippery slider. Black Mamba
crawl over me.
Dark thoughts of the sleepless -
hung out to dry.
Slip through the bedclothes - unblinking eye.
Long tongue flickering - fixed stare grip.
Sweet venomous potion,
held to my lip.
Be my slippery slider. Black Mamba crawl over me.
A tropical whisper. A sibilant kiss.
Soft strike teasing.
Dangerous bliss.
(Instrumental - well, sort of ...)
She's catching the wind: the
gentlest of breezes.
It's a sensitive passage she's sailing -
Through stormy straits, navigates my unfathomable failings.
She
rises before me, reading me clearly.
Empty nest left pressed in the
pillow.
She can shift, she can sway
and bend like a willow.
I'm swept in the riptide, caught in a fish trap.
Gift-wrapped
in my soft self centre.
Summer sun leaves me as one who can only taste
winter.
She's a good, a good God-send: she can bend like a willow.
She bends like a willow. Oh, she bends like a willow.
With a fully armed angel to cover
me quickly.
I'm cool under enemy fire.
If I fall, she can crawl
right under the wire.
When I'm caustic and cold, she might dare to
be bold -
ease me round to her warm way of thinking:
fill me up
from the cup of love that she's drinking.
And I find, given time, I
can bend like a willow.
She bends like a willow.
Bends like a
willow,
like a willow,
a willow.
Placing people in their
dreamscape
with fantasies of foreign fields
Lofty spires all well
appointed
In off-season special deals.
To far Alaska: down to Rio
in the Carnival
Norwegian fjords in the ever-light of Solstice call
A part of me might travel with you
in a freebie bucket seat
for one
Business First - at last, forever
Hopeless thoughts of
flying fun
Now get me out of here I cry in air rage psycho-doom
I'm only dream-arranging from the safety of my room
Pick a
place or stick a pin in
any corner of the sphere
Post me cards and
tell me nicely
Say you wish that I was here
To far Alaska:
down to Rio in the Carnival
Norwegian fjords in the ever-light of
Solstice call
Rusted and ropy.
Dog-eared
old copy.
Vintage and classic,
or just plain Jurassic:
all
words to describe me.
Relaxed in the knowledge
that happily
present
are all things to sustain me,
nurture and claim me:
roll back the mileage.
You have settled beside me.
To the
far and the wide of me.
A matter of choosing,
of finding and
losing
on the rough ride with me.
Take whisky with water,
kick stones down the gutter.
Think back to long days with
stale breath recycled in my face.
Rattling through airways -
plastic on cold trays.
Watching through windows,
deep
landscapes below
(await) another time and space.
There must
come some time
to walk through the night line.
Hands tight: heads
high.
These are the dog-ear years.
Don't turn back. Don't linger.
For God's sake keep moving.
Primitive shadows sidle
beside.
Rusted and ropy.
Dog-eared
old copy.
Vintage and classic,
or just plain Jurassic:
all
words to describe me.
Relaxed in the knowledge
that happily
present
are all things to sustain me,
nurture and claim me:
roll back the mileage.
Take whisky with water,
kick
stones down the gutter.
Think back to long days with
stale breath
recycled in my face.
Rattling through airways -
plastic on cold
trays.
Watching through windows,
deep landscapes below
(await)
another time and space.
The dog-ear years, the dog-ear years.
I count the hours: you count the
days.
Together, we count the minutes in this Passion Play.
Walk
dusty miles. And I ride that train
on a first class ticket, just to be
with you again.
Picking up tired feet. Back from a far horizon.
Cleaned up and brushed down. Dressed to look the part.
Fresh from
God's garden, I bring a gift of roses:
To stand in sweet spring water
and press them to your heart.
Like the Kipling cat, I walk alone -
Never inviting trouble, never casting the stone.
But this badge of
honour is of tarnished tin.
Light your guiding beacon to bring this
fisher in.
Picking up tired feet. Back from
a far horizon.
Cleaned up and brushed down. Dressed to look the part.
Fresh from God's garden, I bring a gift of roses:
To stand in
sweet spring water and press them to your heart.
I count the hours: you count the
days.
Together, we count the minutes in this Passion Play.
Walk
dusty miles. And I ride that train
on a first class ticket, just to be
with you again.
Picking up tired feet. Back from a far horizon.
Cleaned up and brushed down. Dressed to look the part.
Fresh from
God's garden, I bring a gift of roses:
To stand in sweet spring water
and press them to your heart.
Picking up tired feet. Back from a
far horizon.
Cleaned up and brushed down. Dressed to look the part.
Fresh from God's garden, I bring a gift of roses:
To stand in
sweet spring water and press them to your heart.
This sparkling wine is all but
empty.
Too late for trains and no taxis.
I know the feeling. Seems
all too contrived,
There was no master-plan, but the fact is:
you
must stay with me
and learn the secret language of birds.
A tentative dawn about to be
breaking
on a Rousseau garden with monkeys in hiding.
The truth of
the matter, yet to be spoken
in words on which everything,
everything's riding.
Now stay with me
and learn the secret language
of birds.
Circled by swallows
in a world
for the weary,
courted by warblers;
wicked and eloquent
trilling.
Lie in the stillness, window
cracked open.
Extended moments, hours for the taking.
Careless hair
on the pillow, a bold brushstroke.
Painted verse with a chorus, a
chorus in waiting.
Stay with me
and learn the secret language of
birds.