Peter Hammill

I was thinking about thinking But it really didn't get me very far, So I thought I'd throw a Tarot, But I only got the Priestess and the Star. There's a shadow cast between the future and the past; The room and I agree to buy some time... The cards don't tell...

In my youth, I played at trains: now all steam is gone. In my dreams, brief shelter from the rain, I try to catch the fireglow... With Dinky Toys, I thought that I was Stirling, With cricket bat, I saw myself as Peter May; Now, with all these images returning,...

On Tuesdays, she used to do yoga While I'd sit and watch the box In a vegetable way, But always ready to say To myself that I was an artist, Implying that she was not. It's funny the way that self-pity Can take over from self-esteem - Well, I was the prince o...

As surely as the countdown begins our time is not our own already there's the breath of the wind which bleaches bare the bones of the deadlines we set, of the jokes we don't get and forgetfulness that furrows the brow... no I'll never find a better time to be...

Yes, questions Coming up on the autocue And I'm open to suggestion But can I say the same for you? So lost in the forest of pronouns That I can't see the wood for the trees... Got to face up to the showdown Between you, me and him, which is we? Strange langua...

Passage assured On the good ship Goodbye... Dare I raise up my eyes To stare into the rigging? (Preparing to go/come home...) All we could have done We're at pains to explain But all our might in the main Is only empty promise Unfulfilled at last Still no-on...

He'd like you to call him lucky, The original self-made man; No sense of wide-screen vision, No gender strangeness he can understand. Roll on the old, old story, You can call it original sin; Yeah, stamp that one in his passport, Paste it and colour it in. C...

Sometimes it's very scary here, sometimes it's very sad, Sometimes I think I'll disappear; betimes I think I have. There's a line snaking down my mirror, Splintered glass distorts my face And though the light is strong and strange It can't illuminate the...

A motor-bike in Afrika, Yeah, he's riding the white line, Oblivious of snakes stretched out across the way like trip-wire, Shouting "The road is mine!" Tracing the line of the Skeleton Coast, Ghost riders from the Sud-West: The original Angels of Death...

A perfect date to hesitate, I hope it won't be too long. You're a sucker for the punch And the telegraph bells are ringing; Now it's coming to the crunch As you stumble on the Jaffa Gate. I think you know how it happens on the stage When the heavenly c...

A Ritual Mask Upon the wall Furnishes his surroundings And he thinks that's all. The Ritual Mask, Its power still strong, A memento of his travels, That he got for a song. He got it for a song. He got it for a song. It was the song of the centuries...

Disconnect, This circuit's broken, The juice is drained, The body weak and the head is bowed. I suspect What stays unspoken Will prove to be a truer word Than any we shout out loud, Chests puffed up proud. Oh, life's so cheap that there's no doubt Yo...

Out of joint, out of true, out of love, out of the blue, out of order, out of orbit, out of control, out of touch, out of line, out of sync and out of time, out of gas, out of tread, out of road. Out of date, out of stock, out of use - out, out dammed spot! Yo...

This meeting is a coincidence Which deserves a second look: We've seen the chapter of accidents Become the longest in the book. I see your face in the picture for better or worse, All power to the accident! Oh, the sweetest is the one I'm holding in my...

[The Chorus] The chorus has often an unenviable role to play, Often a distasteful task to perform; Summoned as witness to uncounted crime, She's the silent accomplice of all, Then she turns and comments on the action. She hears... observes, but must ne...

[Montresor] That must be the house. There is no other within many miles. But surely not... It's just an empty shell, Devoid of life; A sterile outcrop of stone amid the mire. But there can be no doubt, this is the house! And yet it looks so dark, so f...

[The Voices Of The House] House. Wet Vaults. Caissons. We breathe... Undercroft. Abutments. Stones. Wood. Breathe... Buttresses. Bressumers. Spandrels. We Breathe... Columns and Pillars. Shafts. Arches. Capitals. Breathe... We breathe. We are waiting....

[Roderick Usher] I shun the light, Creep in the gloom like a toad, a white worm, Tortured by the faintest gleam of sun. I hear... Oh God, if you could only know the things I hear! I hear the lake sucking at the walls, I hear bats breathing I hear the...

[Montresor] Oh, my poor dear friend, You must see you are not well. I've read of this before, I think it's called Hyperaesthesis. I'm no doctor, but it's clear Your nerves have gone to pieces. You need to get away, You need a holiday, You need a chan...

[Usher / Montresor] I didn't mean to interrupt... Montresor, you came! Did you think I'd ignore your letter? Montresor, you're here! Come let me help you with your coat. Sit down and rest yourself. Oh, it's so good to see you here! Now tell me all you...

[Roderick Usher] The lady sleeps. oh, may her sleep Which is enduring so be deep! Heaven hold her in its sacred keep! This chamber changed for one more holy, This bed for one of melancholy. I pray to God that she may lie Forever with unopened eye Whil...

[Montresor] Stop, Madeline, look at me! My god, man, what is wrong with her? [Usher] Yes, it's right you should know, She is dying! I have not dared to speak of it. A chronic catalepsy had drained her of her youth. I have watched her waste away and...

[Madeline] Carriages at seven I shall wear the flower he gave me It's so cold here Deep beneath the lapping water... The water The water My love Head against his shoulder, 'cross the lawn I hear the music... Silent blackness, In the lake I'm sinkin...

[Montresor] So that is Usher's idea of a doctor! That wretched mountebank can't help them. I confront madness face to face! And whatever it's cause, it lies within this place I breathe an atmosphere of sorrow; An alien despair makes my courage fail, Like...

[The Herbalist] Good evening, sir. And you must be the friend of Mister Usher. I'm so pleased to meet you, sir, But have little time to spare For knowledge such as mine is wanted everywhere. In poor dwellings, yes, but some as great as Usher's. My card....

[Usher / Montresor] Yes, she does not know it yet; Perhaps for the best So sure she will recover And so full of life full of life Full of life, My brave my brave Madeline Madeline This House devours her So take her from this place Preparing the final...

[Madeline] That must be Montresor... Good morning! Oh, how lovely to see you - Since Roderick told me you were coming I have been so excited. Now you are here, all will be well once more. I was not here last night to greet you, You must think me ill-ma...

[Montresor & Madeline] As we walk so we tread On the words left unsaid I can't say them no matter how hard I try We chatter on, then the moment's gone, The one for which I've hoped And I've prayed and I've planned. Stop the clock's advance! I need...

[Usher] There will be no rot! No rot in Usher! We have lived with thunder, And with thunder shall we fall! [Montresor] I cannot make you come but hear what I say. Send Madeline with me to some healthy place. [Usher] No rot! No rot in Usher! We have liv...

[Chorus] Late that evening the Lady Madeline Again succumbed to the power Of her dark afflictions. Her brother and her friend sat by her And Montresor, although familiar with many Of the gross and wonderful Phenomena of morbid flesh Marvelled at the de...

[Chorus] Three endless days of bitter grief passed And Montresor abandoned any attempt to cheer his friend. Then came a sudden change in Usher's Demeanour, whose significance he was soon to comprehend. Now Usher stands for hour on hour With head inclined...

[Usher] Yes, I hear it! Yes, I have heard it Long, long - many minutes, many hours, But I dared not speak: I tell you I dared not speak. No more cant from you, You thick-skinned obtuse fool, damn your compassion! For now I say you will hear the wicked t...

[Usher / Montresor / Chorus / Voices Of The House] No, what a House Monstrous thought! We Now the punishment breath! Is finished. The evil that House You said is done we are! She was dead... cannot be We You watched undone. could not Her dying! It's o...

[The Voices of the House] Beams buttresses plaster copings We We Corbels bressumers quoins chimney- breath are Joists arches wainscot shafts We rise Usher Kin-posts piers stairs parapets Ridge-ribs spandrels banister pediments Struts columns cusps mansar...

In the greenest of our valleys By good angels tenanted Once a fair and stately palace - Radiant palace - reared its head. In the monarch, Thought's dominion Like a jewel it stood there. Never seraph spread a pinion Over fabric half so fair. Wanderers i...

He made a bit of money, that's something you might like to know.... He'll be drinking in the cafe on the corner after the show. He's been so many people, he wore them all like poisoned vests, still playing the soliloquy from Hamlet close to his chest. Where...

I stretch my hands, clutch vacant laughter in silence and sweet, sweet pain; without demand, but with a longing for what will never come again. I smell your perfume on the sheets in the morning: it lingers like the patterns on the window after rain, a past th...

I stand on the tallest building And stare down at the grey runway And the tail-smoke of the Boeing jet That's taking you so far away. Believe me, I don't want you to leave me; Look in my eyes and you'll see them Filled with pain. Imagine just how sad I...

When you told me that you loved me I had no reason to doubt it So I went about my life in such a selfish way And never really thought about it. Oh do I have to let go? Oh I had my chance and I've blown it, 'cause I loved you so much all these years And...

Fried up the brain With rhetorical questions Dictionary games And conundrums ear to ear. When we say what we think Do we think what we're saying's Missing a link, Inconsistent in idea? (in internal stage whispers Wordless the script Getting lost in...

All the words in the world Wouldn't make you stay this evening; Though I scrabble around for any I can say, So hard to take our leave, So hard to stop believing. I guess we know this silence well enough, And you'll be going by and by; I'm scared that a...

All the tiredness that you've held in waiting, In abeyance, Now comes rushing in. Floods the bloodstream, burrows in the brainstem, Grinds down bone-deep, The exhaustion's stored from way back when. All the tiredness you've postponed forever, Buried tr...

Always and a day We swore in common vow That tomorrow we would stay The same as now, The same as now. In every future verb We deny our own "Until"; This the promise that we serve - We have time to kill: I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I wil...

'll met, ill starred, the sweat, the scars, The back seat of the car, caught up in the sex, The ties that bind, his thoughts, her mind, Why something doesn't connect... The rush, the drool, his push, her pull, The slushy gender pool, survive and protect. Ill m...

I can't think of anything I did or was doing, I can't seem to get a hold on what's come to pass, Here with half a mind on something else And half a finger in the glass, Since you ask. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be going: In the end every journ...

Always we're too young to understand that life is neither cruel nor fair, at random or well-planned. So we stride along the shoreline while our footprints in the sand are washed away and then say "Can I begin again?" But where you come from's who you'v...

Here's a sensation I wouldn't trade - Pinpoint in the onrush, Dancing to the rhythm of the wiper blades. Up ahead on the autobahn Headlights like a lava stream; Up ahead in the distance is where we're going, Where we will have been. Back in the motor,...

Wir fahren - was konnte schoner sein - Lichtpunkt in der Brandung. Scheibenwischerrhythmus ladt zum Tanzen ein, Lichterketten der Autobahn, Lavaheller Gegenwind. Immer bleibt in der Ferne, was wir sein werden, Je gewesen sind. Wieder im Wagen, nichts w...

So here we are, alone - Our children have grown up and moved away. Living their own lives, they say... It all seems very strange to me. I don't understand their ways: Our children amaze me all the time And I often wonder why they make me feel So sad an...

Words upon words Stack the tower of Babel Brick on brick on straw on clay But a whispering stirs And the structure's unstable When all the scaffold's stripped away. We're ever quick to aver That we are ready and able But we can't say what's coming, com...

And when you feel you can't go on what kind of laurels do you look to? Sometimes we get what we want, sometimes we take a good hook too. Once you thought you were so strong...some young pretender came and shook you. Now there's a lesson to be learned: we must...

Been alone so long that I've forgotten what it's like to feel somebody next to me and hear her breathing peacefully when I wake up at night. Been alone so long that I've forgotten what to say - if I meet somebody who might easily resemble you I smile...

You're helpless, entranced by the magical Touch of her skin against yours, adrift - What else is there but this? It feels so sweet To fall asleep Beside the one you love. Remember this fireside, this quiet room, Embers now flickering their last, like g...

When I began I was full of altruistic dreams, believed in princes and princesses, kings and queens - now I find they're all human inside, all bitterness and pride, so why shouldn't I be like that too? It seems that I've forgotten all I tried so hard to learn;...

I've got something to say, And it ain't the usual sort of sob-story That you hear every day. I've got something to ask, And I know that now's the time, Now all the rooms of the party are dark. Proffer me the candy, Yes, I understand is fine; Blow anoth...

Here's the edge, This is the moment When all the fear floods in apace. Time to clear my head, My demeanour emboldened, Of trepidation betray no trace. Time to put on my bravest face. Quite the nine-stone weakling, Who am I trying to kid That I can ca...

The visitors find the children gone from school: Aged relatives sling their guns across the desks... There'll be no break-time for them unless They talk about tomorrow As though it's already on its way. Amen, oh yes, they're Waiting for the breakthrough,...

Let's begin at the top: There's no reason to think that this will ever stop, So let's go back and start again; In this finite uncertainty we'll circle round and then Sail a craft of self-conviction Across tomorrow-never-knows Where the surface stays unru...

Oh, spit it out, there's no way we'll see eye to eye - My simple truth is your warped confusion; As off different planets we spin eccentric jive. I don't remember what I said I don't think you do either. Slippery of tongue though you claim my speech may...

When you're fingered by self-doubt, my dear, No-one is innocent or guilty. Chained, your reaction when you're on the spot: The flower of faith is wilting. But if there's something that you've left behind There'll be something else upcoming... Make what y...

Look at the candle, as its life is bought, As the wick just rolls over and dies; Look at the wax-drops as they cease from their goal And the game they were playing loses its joy And the youth which they played in runs away. How long will you be gone? Fl...

I don't know, can't you see I'm just passing through, fast as you - Don't ask me. Careering out of control Disappearing down the black hole, Careering - the white man's soul Stands stark naked in the floodlight glare, Stands stark raving on the strap....

Celebrity kissing, this has got to stop; Yeah, they're swarming like flies, They're like bees around the honeypot. Celebrity kissing, will it never end? Well, you know and I know this is only pretence... You give it all you've got in radiance on the podium, M...

I found myself lying on the balcony, Stripling terror, naked to the bone; The secret asteroid jungle nearly done for me - I saw it all just a moment ago. I know I'd better watch out For the Central Hotel... I'm not going back. Repetition, superstition,...

I don't know quite what's happening And my eyes don't see too clear; All I know is I need you here, If only to shield me from the mood of the world And hold me and say it doesn't matter; But I'm like a child whose dreams are shattered. Crowding round me...

I got no sense of danger, When I met her at first, Though with hindsight's cold certainty I was always a target. From the very start She'd been training her sights on me. I only later discovered To her family and friends She'd refer to me constantly...

There's no getting back to how it started And the next few pages are uncharted, There's no secret passage, no speedy getaway - What do you say now? We could talk about this in a calmer state But if we wait it won't get any easier. So we're damned if we do and...

She likes to keep God out of church, especially when she prays: all in its place, all safely stored for some rogation day.... the paradox is so apparent, the sense absurd, but all too real; the nonsense is arrant but she just wants to feel comfortable. A poun...

Behind the smile of confidence Somewhere you'll find the wanted man Blank-faced and wary of conversation with himself. Around the ring of confidence They're dancing to a different tune; The others seem so confident, Why don't you take a leaf from the sto...

You can repeat it as often as you like, The story won't ring true. You've been inventing a cocktail of confections No-one believes but you. Contradictory fictions together form a track: Once the words have been spoken they're out And you can't take them...

It's impossible to trace These words in carbon paper trail For just as Zeno's arrow flies the snake is eating its tail. And in contradictory style The soldier and the steer attend Around the mark of the five hundred all in charge of a friend. "The Cret...

"I don't know, somehow our wires got crossed: you've been mistaking me for someone who never gave a toss. Life's too short for me to rewrite this page out of pig ignorance into all the useless wisdom of age. Something I said off the cuff, without thinking, ha...

You turn out the lights and sit alone, Trying to pretend that it's anguish, Start at the ring of a telephone, Throw down all your food at the banquet, Keep a close eye on all you own, While leaving it all to languish... Is this what makes you happy? Is...

Well, Tommy woke that morning With a headfull of rocks And Sylvia was in shock. The story they'd been faking Had frozen on their lips And fallen through the brush of fingertips And though they packed their bags, Ready for the road, The curtains and the bedroom...

Ich liebte Larm, Den Atem-Strom; Larm hob die Leere auf, Die Erdenschwere auf. Der Larm reisst die Tapete glatt von der Wand, Der Larm durchbricht das Mauerwerk wie ein Elefant, Der Schall auf Messers Schneide, die Welle, die nicht bricht, Und es pumpe...

Kaninchenstarre vor dem Schlangenblick, Scheinwerferschock zum Erblinden, Verschreckt und ungeschutzt, Mich dauert dein Geschick, Ich lass nichts unversucht, dich zu finden. Unsre Namen steh'n in Sternenschrift, Urlaute, die sich entzunden: Du traust k...

Er wunscht sich, du nennst ihn glucklich: Der Original-Self-Made-Mann. Kein Sinn fur Horizonte, Fur alles, was er nicht vereinnahmen kann. Wieder die alte Geschichte, Und ihr Name muss Erbsunde sein. Ja, stempel so seinen Ausweis, Klebe und farbe das e...

Die Prominenz kusst sich, wie verbraucht das ist: Eine Schmeissfliegenbrut Summt und schwarmt rings um den eignen Mist. Die Prominenz kusst sich, endet das denn niess Denn du weisst und ich weiss, das ist nichts als chi-chi: Du schmilzt fur uns dahin, du...

Folg den Instruktionen, Probleme ersten Grads. Ja, wir warten auf ein update, Sowas wie die Neuerfindung unsres Rads. Wer macht die Welt so schwer verstandlichss Wer hat das Kennwort ausradiertss Die Stirn in Falten, nichts bleibt beim Alten, Der Kopf g...

Was it only my imagination or were we once agreed, in full accord, that we would meet in time for reconciliation, for the scratching of old debts and the settling of old scores? Once upon a time you think you’ll live forever - only goes to show, in truth, tha...

You don't have to say a thing, the silence is sweet; we've been together today in a way we might never repeat. Oh, your head on the pillow, the distance in your eyes - already you might be rehearsing the word ''Goodbye". When the evening comes of this perfect...

"I know you haven't got the thread of the story so far. Just throw your luggage into the back of the car. We'll drive around until you think I've gone too far but you can't go home, no, there's no way home. You haven't lost the plot but there's detail you lack...

We play games and every move Is noted down as a subsequent cause And effectively chains our freedom and will to live; We settle in to simple survival, Hanging on our pleasures grimly... We must never let them go. Our prison walls are slowly built, Ston...

My heart flew in my mouth The moment that your eyes locked mine. I blurted something out Along these lines: We're earthbound But we all long for flight... My heart's worn on my sleeve: I'd offer all I could contrive If only you'd believe You flood my...

My friends, I never really thought you'd go, But, then, we know that's the way it happens here. Now time is like cat's cradle in my hands: I gather up the strands much too slowly. The refugees are gone...they take their separate paths, Obliterate the pas...

Best to say nothing at all, No shot from the hip; You might say something appalling, A confidence tripped off the tongue. Better to keep the mouth zipped, Your silence preserved. Go through the night with your lips sealed, For truth is best served by di...

The lady was in waiting For whatever story might unfold Anticipating that somehow base metal would turn into gold Yeh, she was always looking for a brighter spot, Eager to tap into the motherlode At the edge of the road. A world of separation, Treasuri...

Memory extends its empire, Holds the frame but blurs the line. Some other time invades the sense, A moment caught and lost, second sight. Suddenly I feel you near me, Worlds away and close as this. One stolen kiss upon my lips And the moment slips away...

She's here now, perfume coiled like a thuggie scarf - Such a powerful drug to make you so naked and clean. And you want to tell her So much to disclose This idea you've got to sell her A new set of empress's clothes. Who was that woman in the masquerade...

Hunched in the corner of the dressing-room, Trying to get back to the real... Uh-oh, here they come, ready for their meal: Energy Vampires, crawling out of the wall, They want to steal my vitality, They want to drink it all. This guy says that he wrote...

To live, to be alive and to consider The plane that shapes the smooth out of the rough... When every expectation is delivered Will that be enough? This alone will have to be enough. Not that but this, Not why but how, Not if but when, Not soon but now...

Flat on my back, I can feel myself falling Into a singular state of mind; As if through a fog, I can hear someone calling. I know I'm cutting it fine, Thinking that maybe it's time to cross the line. The last thing I need's any outside assistance; Whate...

Everyone you hold takes a piece of you away; Everyone you know pricks the image of the human clay And everybody's laughing - The joke goes mouth to mouth and slips away. Everyone you hold leaves you something of themself; Everyone you told spreads your s...

Check the honesty of what's on offer, True detective or a fake fakir? All the evidence is circumstantial - As mud the evidence is clear. Paranormal the investigation - Where do things go when they disappear? All the evidence has been trumped up... As mu...

Hope by and by, hope by and by - Motes in the eye, portcullis is shut... A skull isn't much Of a c-c-castle to live in When I know that the change is going to come, The change has got to come. Explosions in the brain attest to it. Evolution down the dr...

With my face drained of colour And my brain of blood, Like Billy Budd I'm lashed to the grating. With senses growing duller And with quaking heart I make a start At temperature equating And my lungs suck useless air. Like paraplegic dancers In forma...

Each moment is precious Those that I spend with you are a prize - I count myself lucky just being alive While you're in my eyes. Seeing's believing and I believe in you I can't conceal it, just what I feel for you. Seeing's believing, I know that you'll...

Streets half-familiar that I once called home... The breath of phantoms now fogs the light; The skin I shuffled strangely outgrown. Fallen, the city of night Lost geographics of mortar and lime Formed the arena for fight or flight; All's buried under th...

I see What isn't there and what might be: All the pages falling open. Out of my grasp The future floods my fingers: The blood that binds the bone For us a given, unforgiving known. (All I've known unknowing) Although I'm stumbling onward on the words...

"If I close my eyes I can pretend The best is still before me, the worst is at an end. Time for goodbyes to the audiences that adored me; They never realised Just how much I came to despise all their eagerness." Famous last words, Made in jest, overhear...

Alone beneath a foreign sky I wonder Could I be any further flung than this? Against the winds which cast me to this distant shoreline I can still blow a kiss To fly off in migration, heading homeward With all my thoughts upon the wing to you. Though all...

Bleifuss druckt das GTi Cabriolet Zu der Villa in der Sonne von Sudfrankreich. Halt den Kopf schief, Baby, Sing fur ihn das alte Lied. In Ewigkeit bist du sein, Und du bist immer sein Favorit. Schneller Vorlauf auf dem flimmernden Urlaubsfilm: Du brauc...

And they said "They shall all be fed, All the weak and powerless shall be comforted..." The Church's arms are open to embrace its orphans But this unholy priest's an earthly sod With his cock thrust casually through his vestments Behind the screen of the...

Time has come between us: In the passing months I've felt you slip away As your words and mine came like nursery rhymes Till there was nothing left to say. Distance came between us long ago, As our memories faded away... Over the miles I ceased to smile...

He casts himself as an adventurer, All foot on floor and hell for leather; She never told him what he meant to her - Perhaps that's for the better. She's never clearly seen dividing lines Between real life and parts she's chosen, Confuses character and r...

There's a smokescreen on the horizon, Fireships under sail tonight... Here's the Armada of Souls, Here's the flotilla from God knows where: From gopher-wood to the last of the ironclads In common concert they send up the flares. While we turn and turn a...

[I). Flying Blind] I always forget how crazy things are So sometimes it catches me off my guard When they make sense. The line on the road trail the arrow in the sky, I search for the mote in my brother's eye Beneath the pence... A time of blunt instru...

Everything clumsy slow-motion, I look for the source. Buildings loom up like icebergs On collision course. I don't want to go in there, I just want to be alone, Unpick the stitches of time In London In the no-go zone. I've been kicking around like a...

Where are all the joys of yesterday? Where, now, is the happiness and laughter that we shared? Gone, like our childhood dreams, aspirations and beliefs; time is a thief, and he ravages our gardens, stripping saplings, felling trees, trampling on our flowers, s...

Four pails of water and a bagfull of salts. That is all we are, that is all a man comprises, chemicals alone, with no spirit, soul or ghost - nothing so bizarre. No amount of faith disguises what is true is what we fear the most Nothing can survive s...

Why wait for life to happen, When right before our eyes Blind fate unwraps its patterns? I just said "See you soon". My piano was in tune When you walked out of the room. It felt like any normal Friday. At concert pitch, 440 The pressure's many tons;...

This is not the final call, And this is not a ghostly guide And these are not the words for which we've waited; Still we're glued to the headsets While the world's collapsed outside... Is it all really over now? It doesn't matter if no-one else will hear...

Butterflies on the wheel Of a world that turns unyieldingly... Every fragile beating wing Moves the motor of the thing, Oh, Gaia! Butterflies stir a breeze And the ripples flow unceasingly: Far away the cyclones swirl. It's a whole, connected world....

Schmetterling auf dem Rad Einer Welt, die unaufhaltsam kreist: Jeder zarte Flugelschlag Antriebskraft fur Nacht und Tag, O Gaia! Schmetterling, hauchst ins Licht, Kleine Welle, die stets weiter weist: Weit entfernt wachst ein Zyklon. Eine Welt, in Kom...

Mannheim: rainy Saturday with no money nor friend... Only Tequila can end the boredom. Try to reach London for a pocket of hope; We're children, we grope in the dark. Hugh spends his last Mark on coffee and cheese... I feel just like a refugee... Rathaus...

The air is thin, the air is thin, the Top of the World Club’s what we’re in. How thin the air, how thin the air, the Top of the World Club isn’t there. With easy grace they crawl across the shadow-shifting city sky, an aerial flotilla, the ghosts of planes pa...

There's no time for dull regrets No-one underwrites your debts. No satisfaction guaranteed, But this much I believe We make the lives we lead. Best foot forward, face the day As the moment slips away Like a whisper on the wind; The tide turns as it br...

Halfway between the zoo and the temple of your Art... but what do you do with this motion of the heart? Who'll be looking for you when it all falls apart? Oh, but what do you do, and where do you start when people are the glue, when it all falls apar...

Some call me SATAN others have me GOD Some name me NEMO...I am unborn. Some speak of me in anagrams, Some grieve upon my wrath... The ones who give me service I grant my scorn. My words are 'Too late', 'Never', 'Impossible', and 'Gone'; My home is in t...

Besieged in the battlements of Babylon, Still looking for a hat-peg you can hang your head upon - Now you've found a place you think is Avalon: You can talk to anyone here. You can throw your arms around your nearest neighbour And the smiling ones'll tell...

We bite off our tongues While chewing the fat; Though the fire in our lungs is celestial Our delivery falls flat. Would a time come to be silent? Oh, we never spoke of that. We talked out of turn In the school of hard knocks; Although willing to learn...

He'll be young forever if he keeps this up... So the bedroom playboy's never going to grow up. The heart is a secret garden To which there are no short cuts. Only green young fingers make the garden bloom; For the serious young man now is always too soon...

All men are born equal at the moment they arrive: Check the limbs and senses we require to survive. But some come deaf and dumb and blinded, Some have damage to their brains; Parents constantly reminded That they'll never play the normal children's games....

How was it that we first met? I forget, all I know is you Looked happy. We walked around and talked a while; In your smile I found that I Was happy. I want to tell you, It seems the thing to do, I want to show I truly care. Now at every time we mee...

Fuelled by alcohol, Shooting out words like a rocket, Like a prophet out of Babylon Method acting the absurd... Shoot me those highballs Till I'm lit up like I'm plugged in a socket; Lock me eyeball to eyeball, Let's not bother with the words. Oh, brin...

Here it comes up on the screen, The propaganda of the military-industrial machine. By now we find there's little choice: When our masters tell us "smile" we rejoice. With the nuclear shield safely in place We're assured of the survival of the human race....

Hair in the gate, let's take a minute To find out where this character's lost his way... Unless I'm much mistaken I'm at the limit Of what I can and can't say. Something untoward seems to be occurring, The best that I can do is play along For much as I...

This is no time to hesitate, The line slips into overload; The mixture too thick, The touch too close to the motherlode. Time - there's so little time To do anything that's not useless... You tried for a little while To hide your face from the future....

Foot down in the GTi Cabriolet To the villa in the South of France For vacation; Keep your head down, baby, Keep your hair in golden curls And you will always be his, And you will always be his best girl. Fast forward on the handycam video; Top that tan up,...

(Here's the old man and his not-so-childlike bride; Here's the humbling of us all, delusion never dies; Here's the story: anyone can fall at any time at all. We're born to be fools in life.) I was the king of the mountain, I had everything that money cou...

I once wrote some poems of stillness and silence, Standing by rivers of reflected light; My thoughts were on being loved and yet unloved, too - I surrendered to the warmth of the night. And now I feel like dying, And if the water were still here, It woul...

Trapped like a rabbit by the future glare, onrushing headlights that blind you, a frightened runaway, at least you know I care, I will seek, I will search, I will find you. We are written in the star-crossed sky, the spirit music reminds you... you can run an...

You must be crazy to stay here, and I'll be crazy when you go; though there's so much I want to tell you all the words come out too slow. I've been locked in my problems, you seemed prepared to wait... now that I know I'm going to lose you all the words...

And if language explodes In our faces like shrapnel All self-defence is blown away. In the end this reasoning's sound: How can we be found If we're lost for words? Oh, still in the search for the words... I've said my piece, I'll take my leave now,...

Already there’s no case for special pleading, no points to score, no blow by blow. I look around the room that we’ll be leaving. Even while you’re here beside me I already know I miss you so. How soon we make our move towards hereafter where we will reap wha...

Strange to behold Is the stone of this wall Broken by fate. The strongholds are bursten, The work of giants decaying; The roofs are fallen, The towers are tottering, Mouldering palaces roofless, Weather-marked masonry shattering. Shelters time-scarre...

Pack your bags, we're leaving Earth, where hate is seething, Nothing's worth believing. There's no time, make up your mind! Imperial Zeppelin... Quick, the engines are turning, Cabin lights are burning, Now there's no returning. We'll have love a mile...

With the sense of anticipation burning on his skin And the train of consequences running at full throttle, Before the touch, before the kiss, This moment just before their history begins, He'd give anything to put this in a bottle. No sense of time, no s...

Dance the dance Dance the dance Till show time The show goes on. Dance the dance Dance the dance In slow time If that's what you want. Dance the dance In the back of the car Dance the dance In the cocktail bar Till show time let it ride. Dance...

I promise you, I won't leave a clue: no tell-tale remark, no print from my shoe. Still a steady trail to the water's edge - I will keep my pledge to the end; I intend to go free No more rushing around, no more travelling chess; I guess I'd better sit dow...

Sweetheart, I want to hold back nothing, Sweetheart, I want to give my all. Roll on the feminine side, The lion lies down with the lamb. Beneath the male surface, The chaos merchant, we're all half-human: Understand only love's not blind, Only love sur...

Follow the instructions, The envelope is sealed: We're waiting on an update, Something like the reinvention of the wheel. Who made the world so complicated? Who made the watchword wait and see? I wake myself up, shake myself up, Take myself apart but st...

The youth are voting with their feet, Such a shame that the dance-beat gets so complicated. Pretty, pretty it seems... On second glance, the look is overrated. In the hot-house there's a magic potion, Timeless motion... Now and again now lasts forever;...

This is more than merely wrong, as sin on sin's grotesquely piled. Don't look so surprised when you find yourself reviled. Don't look to me for comfort in your trial - the girl was just a child. Uttering remorse with weasel words and shameless guile... it was...

Drawing back the curtains, Sluggish city daylight in the afternoon... Here's that special silence, Just before you walk out of the hotel room. Each time we're so close I assume That we'll never be again. Oh, how long can we pretend That we're just good...

Lob der Masse, Triumph der Kasse, Alles schlingt im Trog den Einheitsbrei. Die Regale entblossen Hardware Mit dem letzten luxuriosen Schrei. Die Duftabteilung hat Make-up-Ladies, Die seh'n zum Verwechseln wirklich aus; Kompakte Lifestylepackung, Also ko...

You don't remember all the things I've done; you never catch the careful words I choose; your present will not admit my patient efforts... it's a labour of love I offer to you. Unselfishness, does that hold the space between us? A helplessness, a nothing-left...

There you are, in the air, you start at the stillness and the motion. Where you are, are you scared and far from the source of the secret seam? There you are, unaware of where you've been... There you are, is that where you are, on the square and come...

Like a shot from the barrel of a smoking gun he's not, Still he aims for adoration. On the spot where the kettle has been called black by the pot He awaits his true vocation. You're so hot, eggs are frying where you walk upon the street, What you got is t...

Once spoken, Words perfume the air Like woodsmoke, like a breath of self that's no longer there. Such confidence, Such half-baked truth... The sound of distant voices mocks the hubris of youth. 

Wear your hair like Veronica Lake And he says you look ever so pretty As he brushes the tear from your cheek almost tenderly... Soon he'll be home. Falling in love was your first mistake, With a heart that held no trace of pity. As you look in the mirro...

Logorrhea Independent of the brain Not a moment to reflect Only time to wick up the gain What was he thinking of and Why did he dream he could convey a bright idea? While his tongue was wagging He forgot to use the space between his ears. Logodaedalus...

I just can't see why you can't see what I mean, But I can't make things any plainer, The words get in the way - Is that quite what I mean? If not now, then certainly sooner or later We've got a problem with communication - Look, I scrabble with my hands...

(Even the wolf can learn, Even the sheep can turn, Even the frog become at last the prince.) No more imagined insults And no more bloated pride - I'll see you at the wedding, I'll see you on the other side And I'll hold my peace forever But I'll hold...

Unchain me from this lunatic Before he drags me to my knees; I'd have to be some kind of Houdini To unpick knots like these. While I was sleeping half a lifetime away Someone moved the scenery, All my blocks went astray. So I awoke uneasy And, as I sp...

In Bromine Chambers there can be no mercy, no bitter flagellation for your sins; no forgiveness and no sackcloth can cease the dance of ashes on the wind. Too late now for a wish to change all wishing; too late to change, to breathe, to grow. Too late...

Every loss a legacy every gain ill-gotten, the golden apples on the tree are all potentially rotten. Pluck the fruit and bear no mind, so the poison bloom advances - the hand that clasps too tight will never grasp its chances. All the things that you've got wi...

Meanwhile, my mother, Waiting for what? I don't know... The recall of a favourite memory, Or perhaps for a painful one to go? She doesn't let that much show. Meanwhile, above her head All my monologues flows. "What's that you're saying, dear?" Wading...

God lives in the cathedral, Or so the Archbishop states... All fealty to the Church, All power to the state! Gold keys to the cathedral, They go with the bishop's cowl; He lives a spiritual life of material wealth. Are things so very different now? O...

If I'm the mirror and you're the image then what's the secret between the two, these 'me's and 'you's, how many can there be? Oh, I don't mind all that around the place, as long as you keep it well away from me. I've begun to regret that we ever met between th...

Jericho's strange, throbbing with life at its heart - People are drawn together, simultaneously torn apart... Foundations are shattered in the city Inside the barricaded doors; Hiding behind their walls, lonely as night falls, Maybe the people are waiting...

(Gets Tense) The current affair gets to be my business I heard the news on the radio The sun on earth... what is this? Is that the way that the crazy goes? Attention tuned to the satellites, looking down for an overview. In the chapel of space we are acolytes...

It was nothing, it came from nowhere at all, It was a casual remark, not a curtain-call. Late for breakfast - black coffee, brandy-laced... That look on your face. I'll remember last night; I'll look out for the signs; You were caught in the light Time...

In my time I've told a lie of two. I've been a deceiver, but believe me what I now say is true. There's no other way I can express what I'm thinking of: You're my favourite, you're the one that I love. It's a one-horse race, still I'm ready to place my bet. I'...

Searching for diamonds in the sulphur mine, leaning on props that are rotten, hoping for anything, looking for a sign that I am not forgotten; lost in a labyrinth of future mystery, tracing my steps, all mistaken, trusting to everything, praying it can be that...

I've been hanging around, waiting for my chance To tell you what I think about the music that's gone down To which you madly danced - frankly, you know that it stinks. I'm gonna scream, gonna shout, gonna play my guitar Until your body's rigid and you see...

She was waxed up to face the camera like butter wouldn't melt In the back room Agencies hammered out a deal: points on the pelt. In the airlessly frenzied atmosphere she was the mistress of misrule, Seeming careless of everything except her look, cooler tha...

He had worked on this for years Since they know they'd be childless: To hybridise a thornless And deep-scented damask rose. She was always by his side In the lengthening shadows... This case is closed. Ena Harkness, Constance Spry, Emily Grey, Margare...

(Bar & Grill) It's a private club, so exclusive that the membership is one, you can walk right in, can be sure your face is always welcome here. Drink up your fill: this is the Narcissus bar & grill so you can do what you will to reveal who you are. Y...

She wants to be your new pen-pal, Wants to regale you with some confidences. You might consider there'll be consequences to address When all the fences break down. She wants to be your new neighbour, She doesn't care much about conventional boundaries A...

At the dead of night, I woke with the sense that my dreams were escaping, all uncannily unspoken like words at the tip of a foreign tongue... As for language, I have none to express quite what strangeness overwhelms me: something's changed and something tells...

So if it's just so then where is it now when I find the moment uncertain? Broken water pail - no moon in the water, try to hold it now. So I want to hold on reflection's all gone, no ego - so. Broken water pail - no moon in the water, try to ho...

Look out through your dark hair, tell me the colour of your eyes when they're cool; look out through the dark ages and tell me what's covert, transfixing you. Oh, you're nobody's business, oh, you're nobody's business and the patterns of your life are suddenl...

In Germany, his days finally caught him; I won't insult his memory with long-distance grief. Tears and wakes weren't his style: not him, not for Keith. He'd have laughed in my face if he saw it get mournful, he'd pull me up short and say "Life carries on...

There are so many questions, there are so many doubts - this is auto suggestion your spirit is giving out. If I offered my reasons would you give me a break? Now it's all open season, no sense of give and take. You see I'm not the man I was.... But if I'm no...

Consternation out of the box As the conversation runs onto the rocks; In full expectation nothing comes as a shock. It's all plain sailing in the dry dock; It's all downhill from here, in the rubble, taking stock... With no sense of feeling nothing comes...

In the here and now... Between sensation at the nerve-ends And arrival of information at the cortex Time elapses So, you see, each time we touch We did so in the past Now, lover, Slicing through time in a perfect curve Due for a moment of energy Somehow we'll...

Between coma and consciousness no hard and fast line, No chance to vote on the motioning eye. A mystical vision or a fall from grace, The chase in slow motion through alien space? I don't know what to make of the dream-time: It seems as though I'm me, but...

Im Weiher silbert das Wasser, Gespeist aus dunklem Grund, du glanzt und schweigst Und Engelsflugel streifen Deinen Mund. Ich schwor' bei der Bibel, Bei Himmel, Holle, Welt und Gluck, Ich konnt' ertrinken in dem Strudel In deinem Blick. Geheimgesicht,...

Beside the pool of clear water, Fed by a secret spring, your lips are sealed, But in your body language Angels sing. I swear on the Bible, Swear on the sacred and profane I think I'm drowning in the vortex Your eyes contain. Your secret face, Show me...

Pruf die Ehrlichkeit der Angebote, Freund und Helfer oder Bosewichtss Alles lasst sich irgendwie beweisen - Genaues weiss man eben nicht, Genaues weiss man eben nicht. Ubersinnlich ist die Untersuchung - Gibt's ein Jenseits oder gibt's das nichtss Alle...

On the surface Phosphorus gleaming; Deep down we carry on dreaming. On the surface Compass and charts checked; Deep down the currents run In a shining vortex, In a swirling vortex. On the surface Oil troubled water Sails set the seas on fire To th...

I wish that I remembered better. You've grown so fast before my very eyes. The woman that you're now becoming suddenly takes me by surprise. I thought that there'd be time and tide a-plenty to grow into a proper fatherhood but underneath our feet the sands wer...

I was sitting in the dance-hall, But my mind was far away So when the usherette walked over I didn't know quite what to say. I tried to look cool But I knew that I blew it somehow. Her fishnet tights took me quite by surprise... I had to open my eyes....

That token drag on your cigarette, That well-known face in the fire, It could be someone you can't forget, Someone you've learnt to admire. And it's strange how the feeling goes; All change - down the river Ophelia goes. You're treading water, the pric...

I might as well give you all there is, I might as well take it all the way: What's gone is forgotten, and anyway Surely words alone could not wreck your day? The cake's not worth the candle, so they say... "Nothing ventured, nothing gained, no hard feelin...

I'm getting the idea, I haven't got a clue. As my fabulous career ends up dead in the gutter The stars are shining down right on cue. It's not much of a shock, it comes as no surprise That changing all the locks when the horses have bolted Is a useless ex...

This one's authentic, Son of a gun, A soundtrack from China In the universal tongue... The world is our oyster To plunder at will, Though the palate is jaded By all but the thrill Of fish out of water, Life in the raw... Without understanding Of wh...

It's not that complicated, No more than a clench of fist - She want to paint her heart out, She want to tell it as she sees it is. Authority condemns her, They say to paint's a waste without a base, Some bedrock of idea. Painting by numbers doesn't add...

Oh, I'm looking for a white note To consolidate the key, Like the pilot of a night boat In a strange, uncharted sea: Palinurus, As unsure as he can be of his direction... Hell, this section's all Greek to me. There's so much I had to mention But it se...

The thought crossed my mind - How curious, why should I want so much shut-eye? Fighting the darkness and furious, Oh, but I once more fall into the song... Just the normal unconsciousness; Could that be wrong? All out into action then all down into sleep...

A system in the making, Self-healing for the blind, Sitting in the waiting-room Of the patient mind; Raging at the illness When the rage may be its cause, The purpose of the will is lost In the search for an escape clause, In the search for an escape c...

Your father has just left your mother, Gone off to live with his latest lover; She sits there, just staring. So you get back to your own flat Because the atmosphere in there Is so bad you can't bear it. And the people you were going to America with Just...

Upon Charles Bridge he's frozen in a gesture, Looks like he's waiting for a moment to arrive, Some special currency to connect him to the zeitgeist... Snakes alive! He's traipsed around the towns, the landmarks of Old Europe, Looking to link between the p...

Not the same, we are changed and we are changing still; I've been waiting for the beans to spill. If the truth be told all the plots will unfold: we've as many lives as we have friends or acquaintances, we're all only fractions of a whole. Self-belief glues to...

Across the ocean of the night You turn and look into my eyes, Burn into my life. Now the moment's magical But we keep our silence You could tell me anything you want, You could tell me all your secret wishes; Only in our eyes, only in our eyes We made...

You find you're standing alone - not so splendid, isolation. In the Green Room the talk is all of righteous indignation And you might as well have landed in some strange and distant galaxy. The rules are unspoken on the Planet Coventry. What reaction can...

The golden dream, the seat of all decorum, A satellite to match the light of Rome; Its silver children chatter in the Forum, The bath-house, and the brothels, and their homes About the latest fashions for their clothes. Across the Tyrrhenian Sea comes dri...

Won't hear a sound at Porton Down, The clear liquids keep their silence, Buried underground at Porton Down The fast form of the final violence. Quite right to be worried about the proliferation Of nuclear bombs and power stations, But there's a deterren...

Always we shout to be heard As though our voices could express The sense of sentences deferred And of lessons learned, Of storylines unfolding, Of the truths of our innocence and shame, Of life, the very breath that we are holding, Of our very names. W...

He crawled on hallowed ground without a map; He walks on hollow legs, leaving no footprint; Drifts like a ghost through the quarters of lost desire, Breathing underwater, still running through the fire. Four horsemen drive the coach of Holocaust home And...

Seems the fashion's for one-liners these days, The kind that get up everyone's nose, So much back-slapping that the vertabrae Are fatally exposed... Me, I'm pushing thirty, pulling sixteen, Though much of what's around me is dead. They got so shirty whe...

Spitting drops of rain flow down And touch my cheek, Intermingling with my tears As I silently weep. Then the fatality of life Presses close and probes in my eyes... And I'm cold and hungry tonight. These great black walls of brickwork Bow low and opp...

Here's the lost boy with the brittle smile, Plastered panstick on his face, Making himself up; for a little while All the fragments will remain in place. We are only what we manage to retrieve Out of memory (Who do you think you are?) Inside, it's hail...

If you catch me running along by the sea, With bare feet in the sand, Then you'll know I am dreaming my life out In a way you won't understand. I'm slipping right out of your mind, this I know, And I accept the fact lazily, For I must go into the next fi...

Once, all the stars in the sky were bright, Now they're red and fading And all the colours we wore, the shades that we bore Have moved. And the gold turns to red with no time for changes. Red Shift, all moving away from we. Once, constellations were hol...

We think we're fireproof, We never think that we'll get burned; We think we're fireproof, We never think, so well get burned; We think we're fireproof. Reprieve, Reprise. If he got to do it all again Would he do it over and over? In reprise, reprieve? But w...

Watch for the silent moment, only waiting to be saved. Wait for the Liemaker: he comes again And sinks his barbs through honesty: Roll him over with all possible speed! Don't let him touch you with the candle of his need Or let him be, hysterically ravagi...

I lay down beside you: I am a unicorn, you a virginal maid, And I come in laughing play But, maybe, to be saved. Peer through the backcloth: I am a character in the play. The words I slur are pre-ordained, We know them anyway. Don't change your mind,...

Schlaft nun - ein alter Tag sagt euch Kindern Adieu, Doch schon morgen trinkt ihr vom Schaum der Welt und tut euch weh, Ganz sicherlich. Was fur ein Wunder, fur ein Ratselspiel fur mich. Freunde aus eurer Zukunft liegen jetzt wie ihr, Grosse Lieben schre...

You got some shares, it's a capital venture, You hedge your bets with a gilt-edged bond, You're stretched out tight by the terms of debenture, The game is on. You got a fortune on paper, How it shines on the VDU! The simple truth is that sooner or later...

A figure by the traffic lights, Face washed out in the rain, She's here once more to make her nightly Stand for love and pain. Her story written on her face Reading between the lines; Still private in this public place She's carefully designed Her ope...

Well, it must have been here somewhere, That which the culture highly prized: The list of ancient buildings, The attitude of mind, The wisdom of the prophets, The catalogue of books... You can't get off it, You don't know where to look, You don't know...

You've never shown a trace of human frailty, No-one could ever catch you on the hop: Each post-modern take on the action Would find you already, in principle, totally hot, All self-referential commentary And a marketing man's sense of talk shop. The sha...

You know that she's got something she wants to give; Hard to tell if it's of spirit or the life she lives... Maybe somewhere between the two. Oh, the waiting to see what it is! The energy donor, looking over her shoulder, She sees it all, she sees it sli...

Turn a card, turn a page, The action sure to start, Second-stage reaction To illogical thoughts on random lines - In a Borges dream we move toward The writing of lives. Leave it out, leave it in, no edits - With a shout, with a grin I said It was a ce...

You can see in the 1st light that's graced as dawn that there's nothing in my heart but pain as I stand, facing sea, knowing that you're gone all the elements rage to explain that I should really be on my way; but there is something which ensures I must...

Wrong drink to order. Suspicion grows, Wrong situation... Oh, no-one knows where you've gone to in the pagan night And the neon reflections spread cadmium white. You came here looking for something but this wasn't it, quite. Hey, take a Polaroid, exit,...

You lay your plans, I take them as they come, I understand: we dance to different drums. It's not in any schoolbook, You're here to teach a lesson to us all... We play by different rule-books. What you say, what you do, They're such different things, whi...

It was simple, we were man and wife; something happened to change everything in life and made us fell small but we were giants nonetheless and here we are all in the family portrait. I've been sliding in a 2, 4-wheel skid: something happened to me and since t...

We can talk about it in the car; We can talk about it with the drive. Keep your eyes on the road up ahead, Don't forget what we said about staying alive. If we'd been stuck just a few hours more I'd have cracked up, I'd say. No, you never can tell when i...

There's a shiver down the spine of the body map... How come everything gets so physical? With your finger on the pulse And your head in the clouds Everything's so tactile In your private world, In your little world. Under the skin you search for paradi...

Nobody knows what she sees, no-one can get behind that warped reflection. What glossy varnish strips away protection from young girls like these? No-one admits what it means, no-one permits a gesture of contrition; how carelessly they stacked the ammunition in...

Sleep now: Another day in your young lives is done, Go to sleep now. Tomorrow brave new worlds will surely come, And trouble deep; You're such a wonder, such a mystery to me. Somewhere Your future friends are lying as you are And your lovers Right no...

I saw your picture in the Evening Standard, You were wearing your battle dress. I really must confess That I shed a silent smile for you- It had really blown my mind. I wonder, are you still so kind? Are you still so pure? There are other rhymes around...

The jokes are everywhere, The secret deal's complete - Money talks, some good advice, The politicians run like clockwork mice, All fits the masterplan. A database on the telephone And cable sunshine floods your home - So, times are good? Fat cats get...

Silently I rest in the tall green grass And look steadily upwards. Birds sing ceaselessly around me, And the blue of the sky surrounds me strangely. Out here, life is at its essence, And watches the world with innocent eyes; Far from grime, far from rus...

Somebody Bad Enough I keep your picture in the back of the book as index to my hidden pages; a secret life is where we meet and I'll not let you go. I know you think that I'm a bit of a creep but I will grow on you in stages until you recognise that we're b...

In the new hotel, on Fiesta Night, the staff are bored; Donna Ysabel dances zombie-like, the guests applaud... The color is local, the tourists are tanned, The natives are restless and everything's second-hand. Places disappear, but the names endure as al...

Oh, brighter than a thousand suns, The march towards the stars On the wheel, on the car, Off the plane, off the planet And on in the search. Yes, we pray in the dark in the Sciences' church. Upon the tree of knowledge The fruit is bitter-sweet; To the...

Stranger still in another town, How normal to sit out the dance, Eating the good meal by myself, Toasting the empty glass; And they're already setting out the next place, Already forgetting about the last. No, nothing could be less strange in entropy No...

Wash your hands clean, don’t let anybody see the dirty work. Keep those secrets locked away from sight forever, hidden safely where your darker side still runs berserk. So much stored-up resentment, all that background fallout from so long ago, it’s still her...

I'm (so stupid) Along this pilgrim's accidental progress I'd bump into the walls as like as not: It's no surprise I didn't notice when I lost the plot. I went and did something (so stupid, so dumb) Error-message ever more intensive, Red lights were burning...

Summer song in the autumn, For you didn't catch the colour of the falling leaves. So many words have been spoken Which you didn't understand and so couldn't believe. And the song that you're humming is yesterday's tune - Someone who you love is leaving yo...

To the city beat on a treacherous curve, Up upon the high wire you're observed - You live as you live, you'll get what you deserve: High life, dig those highlights, Sun City nightlife: You'll be like a moth consumed by a flame. It's a rich man's world,...

Oh, suddenly things begin to come clear in my mind As I look into the land laid bare by your eyes; E-S/M attractions are working behind my thought, I can't help my feelings, The way that my emotions are over-wrought. Good morning, sunshine! You're all a...

And every time you call me I wait to hear what favour you require of me this time... The object of your own desire, Not everything's about you, I'm not exactly hanging on your words, This audience is restive, Perhaps you've not observed Because it's me,...

When I was a child they made me read Word-daggers of quiver and squirm; Now in the stumbling dark I see I am a worm, silently fruiting your garden, My sister ,my child. Night casts ominous meanings on the purity of my soul I feel devilish leanings I'm be...

Nothing I can say, but this much I can do: if you want I'll stay and be with you. Just let the tears flood down and, yes, I can offer you tenderness. What is gone is gone, it can be no more, so we must move along and close the door. I'm not his match, this I c...

The way this narrative's unfolding I've got in way above my head, Sense I'm about to be held to account for Some things I never did, some words I never said. I can tell you're keen to hold my attention Though my concentration's starting to fade As you s...

She doesn't eat, she doesn't sleep For if she slept then she would dream about this: A place where she'd be treated with respect and sympathy. The American girl Set her sights on the old world, Thinking in the old world she'd find honesty. And so she bl...

Spring came far too early this year: May flowers blooming in February. Should I be sad for the months, Or glad for the sky? The birds don't know which way to sing and, my friends, Neither do I. Two days ago, a girl I truly thought I loved Suddenly didn't seem...

They say we are endowed with Free Will --at least that justifies our need for indecision But between our insticts and the lust to kill we bow our heads in submission They say that no man is an island but then they say our castles are our homes; it's felt the c...

Everything out of order Everything too well produced From the conjuror's hat - Let's turn on the juice To grind the cutting plane, the blade that gives an edge, To scale the mountain; to fail upon the mountain ledge. Half-way up is half-way peaking, Th...

Here we are, static in the latter half Of the twentieth century But it might as well be the Middle Ages, There'll have to be some changes But how they'll come about foxes me. I want the future now, I want to hold it in my hands; All men equal and unbowe...

It's a triumph, material triumph, Mass consumption and conformity. Down in hardware the shelves are stacked up With the latest line in luxury. The perfume counter has make-up ladies All immaculately make-believe; They sell you lifestyle package And you'...

"Is that all there is to it," he asks, "no more conjecture or controversy? Don't think I could go through it, I couldn't live with the memory. Now is the hour, it comes eventually; How great the power as it falls on me!" He's raising his sense of occasi...

Mercury's down to zero, absolute time will tell we're only over-wintering as guests in the Ice Hotel. All that we build will crumble, every empire fades; humbled, we should admit impermanence marks the man-made. Under the Ice Hotel the permafrost is stacked bu...

It was the first day of July; No wind breathed in the sky When a pin-striped suit Saw that the Institute of Mental Health was burning. He stood upon the corner Where the sun was warmer... Looking across the street, He moved the shackles on his feet As...

He prescribes the subject He proscribes outsiders His terms have a golden ring. He wants to find some order Quantifying chaos In words that all the children sing. He tabulates the lexicon Vocabulary minimised Bow down to the Jargon King. All question...

Genuflection / erection in church. Sacristy cloth / moth-eaten shroud. Secret silence / sacred secrets accumulate dust, aggravate the eye. Incautious laughter after confession. Benedictionfictional fear Hidden faces ... Grace is a name, like Chastity, l...

All the fields that you've overflown are frozen, They flow like glass down the frame in formlessness. Only the fragile fluttering of your heart still marks you chosen, Chosen to dare, your face defiant of the featureless. Your face defies the featureless,...

From the first word that I said to the last Some strange echo remains Imprinted in the walls Recorded in the vaults We talked and tunneled through But the meanings have all changed. Because of all I said You began to regard me as strange Until with so...

What I once thought was everlasting all of a sudden been and gone. It is finished, it is finished but mercy’s moving us along. What can you carry for your brother when you can’t stand up on your own? It’s hard to keep up, it’s hard to keep up, this part you ha...

Indecision and uncertainty Catch you now as they never have before... (Catch you as they never have before) How come you didn't recognise The revolving door? (The revolving door, the revolving door...) Are you gonna take sides On the chequered floor?...

After all is said and done, Not very much will have been either way: I'm a chronicler of action, I'm an actor in the play. I know the lines I have to speak, I know that I won't ever quit, corpse, or dry, But the performance gets so pointless And the day...

I loved the Noise, Electric breath; Noise filled the emptiness, Roared in the emptiness. A noise to strip the paper clean off the wall, A noise to crack the masonry like a breaking-ball, The cutting edge of sonic, the wave that never breaks And the hea...

Oh the bright young men in their tight-buttoned suits: Yeah, the light beams out from capped smiles To the shines on their lick-spittle boots, On their lick-spittle boots. Oh these sharp young sparks with their fresh rosettes - Yeah, the artful way that t...

How could he know so much ? How could he bear such knowledge ? How could he dare to write it in the plays ? What is it Shakespeare'd say if he came back today ? Surely he'd recognize these mortal coils. How do we carry on ? No-one knows where they fit in, no-...

Me holidays on the Southern Sands, Trying to get some fun by way of one night stands... I clocked this girl, thought I'd give her the chat - One of them Swedish blonde types And I've always fancied that. I showed her me Polaroid. She said "I like it, wi...

See the old man acting like a fool, Yeah, he's running from the ambulance. When he was a youngster he broke all the rules - Now he says that was just accident. Always had the feeling he was going to die young, So now he feels repentant; But the judge was...

Such distance to the tips of the fingers, The ganglion loom jerks inside; The body grows steadily stranger But the spirit won't be denied. That sharp halogen flash jars the eyeball, The limbs pump in overdrive; The body grows seemingly weaker But the s...

And the future spread before us like a feast, we saw clearly to the curve of the horizon, felt like everything we’d wanted was in reach, all we so eagerly awaited And the perfume on the air, oh, I could taste it.... (Decline and fall, decline and fall is comi...

So: onto the familiar top steps! In cloud-scud moonlight glow The Tower reels. I, the blind man, Feeling for a path I know... Don't you know that I'm only feeling for how to feel? Rats run. Snakes coil. Fathers Stare out at the whispering night; Rub...

I'm in command, I'm in control, I am the captain of my soul. Still, I'm uncertain in one major role... Oh, I drift through the unconscious life, Shift through the unconscious life, Lift up my unconscious eyes: Beyond all normal pain and pleasure We sho...

Away from the past, this chance is the last, We are changing completely, We are moving the feast, we are motion. I've seen you become the bride of the sun, You surrender so sweetly, Sacrificing yourself to devotion. This book is ended and I put it down,...

All humans are siblings, this is a truth that I've assumed; all fighting over the legacy of a lifelong and timeless family feud in the name of I don't know what. I don't believe in God but if I did I'd surely say there is only one Power up above us, one face r...

The stars in the heavens still shine up above me: how lovely they'd seem if you were with me but you're gone through the looking-glass and I am left to pass these nights alone. I'm lost, I'm dumb, I'm blind, I am drunk with sadness, sunk by madne...

Time for a change: I felt bad, things looked strange. Home, home on the range... Yes, it's time for a change. "Well, young man, when you grow up What do you want to be?" "Please, sir, if that's alright I'd really rather like to learn how to be me." S...

Thinking back, it seems that I Can lie beside you as I never truly did, In afterglow - No afterwords at all. Only writing love songs when it's gone and dead; Only paying words out in strings of half-forgotten sentiments... I mean... I meant... I never...

Time to burn, we could talk all the problems through... Are the promises still unbroken, do the spoken words still ring true ? Oh, and where are you ? Time to burn, wakes and weddings, celestial choirs, and while one hand shakes on the bargain see the other st...

So many years ago, I thought you were the one - Who knows when people change, surrender into strangeness, Adrift upon their lives, encompassed by the past? Who knows which one becomes the last goodbye? Don't try to tell me nothing dies. Don't try to tell...

Between the light and the shadow, out of the corner of my eye I saw your feathers all ruffled, anticipating the sky.... You've got no reason to stay, day by day your impatience has grown. I'm caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, I know. I'm reach...

Along the tracks the wires are humming In bursts of code like far-off drums. Fathering the message: Further up the line someone's shouting Down the passage of time. The corridor restrains the window, No view without the eye within. Bold upon the thresh...

He could have been so great, he could have had it all, He had it on a plate, but he threw it at the wall. And he can't know why, but he still said "yes" To the easy lie and the poisoned vest... The trappings of success. They offered him the deal (Here's...

[Spoken by Hugh Banton:] "Oh, why didn't you say, more Stevie Wonder?" "Sod the music," said the man in the suit, "I understand profit and without that, it's no use. Why don't you go away and write commercial songs; Come back in three years, that shouldn...

No thanks for the memory, no thanks at all, No way we can wipe the slate or contrive escape From the names we're called. No thanks for the memory, here it comes again, This life running on the spot, though we hide a lot With our cover names. We can no m...

I mark the high days and the holidays red-letter on the page; fast-forward into memory, prepare to be upstaged. The envelopes I push against so rapidly become a wrap to keep me safe and warm but soon enough I’ll be undone. And if, for instance, I had spent a...

Time for the unrehearsed entrance, Show a leg you can break, Down the cocktail While it's laughing at you for heaven's sake... I can't be your protector From these deliberate mistakes. Between the "can't" and the "maybe" A lifetime's hovering in the wi...

I said steady up, settle down, make way for the Idiot Boy. He's here to sell you some kind of a story; Like a stuck-up sore thumb he'll be coming on bashful and coy, All of the while pumping up his vainglory. I said give it up, slap it down, idolise the I...

Looking out forward over the prow of our long ship, Pulling our oars and listening to the foam; Helmets and sheepskins salt-damp in the sea-mist: We're going home. Aslak of Langadale, Einar Thorgeirsson, Olaf the White and Sigurd the Powerful... Lookin...

I have a vision of you, locked inside my head; it creeps upon my mind, and warms me in my bed. A vision shimering, shifting moving in false firelight; a vision of a vision, protecting me from fear at night, as the seasons roll on, and my love stays strong. I...

Here's the modern political man, for sure he's nobody's fool, Believes in media coverage as a promotional tool. Trust in him because he's got the right face; Just in case you harbour doubt Here is a slogan to tout. He's such a principled man, all heart,...

"It was always going to be like this, whatever you bring yourself To say. Why don't you point that thing the other way and telescope This tangled story? You've got the whole thing at your fingertips, Already scripted in an alien Braille, snagged up under yo...

Dear Wendy, I still believe the promises We swore upon when we were magic. This came to me as in a dream: My heart was in your hands. Wendy, do you believe in promises? The problem is the boy became a man. Wendy - mother, child, lover - everything You...

A pretty pass in the rear-view mirror, It's coming on the overtake... I've got to stop panicking, got to stay cool, Got to learn to live with my mistakes. Overdue debt to the taxman, I tried to have and eat my cake. I think I must have been crazy in ret...

What's it worth to be safe? What's the way to be sane? I can throw myself at the garden On my hands, Prune the lawn and mow the roses, But I never understand How to go To be free; In the end I only want to be me. Winter days here are mine; Still, no...

And when language corrodes All our faculties falter and blur. Nobody knows how our tongues got so swollen and furred. What truths are there left to be told When we're all lost for words? 

Money where the mouth is, pennies on the eyes. Yeah, times are hard and you find that you're in trouble But it's hard to sympathize. You talk up quite a story, you blow the bubble well. Money where the mouth is, silver-tongue the sell. Put up or shut up....

Nothing is like anything else, Everything's the same, Our progress punctuated By a series of coincidence To form a logical chain. Nothing is like everything else, Like anything you name. Pomposity unpunctured, We're approaching a velocity Of escape f...

Willie, what can I say to you To hold true in your changing life? You've come into a cruel world; Little girls can lose their way in the growing night... I hope you'll be alright. Willie, try to stay a child sometime, For as long as you feel you can lea...

Give it a bit of hard on the rudder Hot on the heels of foot to the floor; Setting your mind on one thing or the other, Do you still find you're always wanting something more? Yes, and the thing you want forever Is always the thing you can never have -...

There was something in the conversation, Ancient languages were breaking through; I was falling for infatuation - How about you? You say it's nothing special, That's just the way it is... You hit me where I live. Though I drink the cup it leaves me th...

I’d see your face on the street often times as I went on my day to day. We were never to meet but a nodding acquaintance had come our way. I never paid it much mind, always assumed I’d continue to see you there. But of the mysteries behind, all the shadows be...

Far, so far away... Surely you remember Log book pages frayed That fanned the flames of long ago, Guttered in the grate, Shadows in the embers... Look away, look for home. Voices on the air, Running with the current; Wind and tide set fair, Ship to...

Burnt the bridges, burnt the tread; The sodden syllables are turned. You can't take back what you said When you give your word.