Lizard Play

They talk about poetry, life-stories too;
he wants to know if she keeps a pet or two.
She's into lizards, she's into snakes,
he's into trauma - still got the shakes
from a lady who only talked dogs and cats
making love in the alley - she thought like that....
So he doesn't notice he's falling in
to a change in colour of chameleon skin.

And the sun beats down on the baking earth
in the land where the lizards play.
And the tongues flick out - though they want to touch
all the words get in the way.
And it's you and me and it's he and she
and it's everything I say.

Frozen vision,deaf and dumb:
still trying to work out what I've become....
I tried to reach you, I tried to score,
I shot the bolt on the open door...
the secret reaction, base metal to gold,
and all I felt was my blood froze...
I walked on water - I was wearing skis -
and now the water must dance on me.

Anyway, for all that, will you dance with me?
will you dance with me?

And the sun beats down on the baking earth
in the land where the lizards play.
And they shed their skins and at last begin
to find colours for the day.
Will you dance with me?

The Habit of the Broken Heart

You only wanted to have some fun,
you only wanted to try it;
you only wanted to be someone,
but everybody denies it. Why's it
so hard to make you listen?
Don't go and change your name:
learning to lose can be
the start of winning the game.
You're so special, such sadness seems a shame.

I know that you've got a service to catch,
I wouldn't want you to miss it,
but there's something so mismatched,
some motive inexplicit...is it
the call of the Convent?

You only wanted to find someone
or something more than pleasure;
penitence for the Chosen One
you can indulge at leisure -
by the light of the sinking sun,
don't turn your back on the treasure.
Whether or not you want to face it, you're a beautiful girl
and your lay-lady laughter has a right to be heard;
but what can I give you if you've already got the Word?

Don't go
don't start
don't take on
the Habit of the Broken Heart

The Siren Song

Laughter in the backbone,
laughter impossibly wise,
that same laughter that comes
every time I flash on that look in your eyes
which whispers of a black zone
which'll mock all my credos as lies,
where all logic is done
and time will smash every theory I devise.
And the hour-glass is shattered
only by the magic of your touch
where nothing really matter....
No, Nothing matters very much!

So the siren song runs through the ages,
and it courses through my veins like champagne;
and with all the sweet kisses of addiction
it's calling me to break my bonds again.

Future memory exploding like shrapnel,
some splinters escape on my tongue,
some of them scar comprehension...
beneath the scab they burn, but the wound becomes numbs.
And always the song draws me forward,
rejoicing in the search and the prayer,
bored with all but the mad,
the strange, the freak, the impossible dare.
Still your laugh chills my marrow
till I embrace it on my knees....
Oh, when the mast becomes a flagpole,
what becomes of me?

What becomes, oh, what becomes of me?

Last Frame

There you are, your eyes laced with secret pleasure,
saying that you're on the way to change,
devouring in inordinate measure
every diversion that's arranged.
For every appetite, a cruel attraction,
but there's a panic in your actions;
oh, I never saw you look so strange.

Fixing memory chemically,
holding time on the stop-clock,
hanging back from that last frame
just in case it didn't show you
in the way I used to know you...
I thought you'd always stay the same.
(But you won't.)

The red light, the silver, the black and the bromide;
the silence, the waiting for overview....
The past seems under-exposed, low tide,
but still the images ghost through.
And you're there in the bath,
which is all this has led to,
and I can't say your path
is a right one to choose....

But then
I only have a negative of you.

The Wave

The wave is out of reach, trailing words from the hand
only air can understand; semaphore on the shoreline,
waiting for distance to recede, unhappily imperfect
when we should be happy just to breathe.

But with each bated breath,
so present, tense,
we want to know,
we want it sure,
it don't make sense!
So I'll do mine and you do yours
but let's not trade sand and sea
for brick and cement.

The wave hits the beach, laps around abandoned clothes,
wants to share a joke with those who'll brave the breakers,
who'll break bread rather than pray while the definition-maker's
lost in the small print of the day.
The words are only pictures
that the next wave wipes away.

Cat's Eye / Yellow Fever (Running)* (Hammill / G Smith)

I'll let you know how it goes in the ninth life.

The Sphinx in the Face

I'm gonna head for the island when the summer's out,
I'm gonna do all the stuff that I can,
drink like a fish in a waterspout -
I'm a fan of the flow,
it began long ago,
I'm a man who should know
it doesn't stop.

There's so much to remember,
so much to forget:
we're all in the possession of the future tense,
but don't know it yet.
The flesh comes through the spirit,
the spirit through the flesh...
we look the Sphinx in the face for answers
and, of course, we're really not impressed.
We're caught between age and beauty,
experience and youth,
so we feel the need acutely
for any kind of Truth.

Oh, but we get copped some days,
caught between options we've failed to play,
such wasted chance.
So I join the wastrel's dance:
it has slow as well as fast movements,
and any change must be an improvement
on simply fossilising, standing still.

I got a steady vocation for the Quiet Zone,
I just can't wait for the song to be sung,
I'm still possessed by the promise of the Pleasure Dome

You're so young, you're so here,so gone,
so old, so near,so wrong,
such a drag so queer,so strong,so...
to be told.

Such a drag to be told...

Chemical World

Oh, but in the morning,
but in the morning light
will you still feel as fine,
will you still need to trade day for night?

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king;
in the country of the sheep, they call him Cyclops.
And the quality of mind is such a tenuous thing
that here you need it like a blind man needs eye drops.
Get out of that back room,
this vacuum, it attracts you, but in fact
you don't know quite what it is;
you're being sapped of everything
you once valued so highly...
Will you still feel as strong,
will you still long for weakness to come?

It's a Chemical World
..not a candidate ever fails;
though you search for the Holy Grail
you're not going to find it
in the Chemical World.

A sleeper train; you can't escape;
fast overnight...the ticker-tape.
Oh but in the morning,
but in the morning haze
will the market have turned,
will there be no more days left to trade?

It's the Chemical World
and from the moment that it's embraced
It's the Chemical World
all the diamonds turn to paste
in the Chemical World...
Yeah, you think you'll look so pretty -
it's gonna blow up in your face.

"It's just the time, so slow to pass.
It's just the drug...it doesn't last...."

The Sphinx Returns