Moths to a Wall

The pin driving into the gossamer

Thin film lieing to the wall

A moth caught in a flash of light

Tried to fight

Too late, the watching eye will steal the soul

Becoming frozen negative

Trapped in this moment forever

Pleading, burn the negatives

And free the rest, the life unknown

The possibilities I don’t yet know

 

The figures fleeing from the camera

The image fleeing from itself

The man in uniform he turns away

A second’s delay

And history will turn his life into his own death

We walk into the future

With arms and eyes stretched out wide

Pleading to be bleeding into the frame

                                      Into the image

To be fixed in time and space

                                      Into the image

Fleeing, bleeding into the image

 

Hold your guitar like a gun

See the head explode

A speeding blur trapped on the stage

See the eye explode

Cannot escape the frame, escape the image

Fixed in time and space

Bleeding to the wall

Trying to escape the image

Even as he sings

To leave behind the smell of burning wings

And pictures of the fall

Pinned, like moths to a wall

 

When We Were Mad

 

When we were mad we swallowed things

That turned us into unicorns and centaurs

Demons of the air and of the wind

We were in Heaven-Hell

But we were mad

And didn’t know

 

When we were mad we ran around

With all the other madmen, girls and boys

We killed our parents, burnt their houses

Down into the ground

Then built them up again

So sad and slow

 

We borrowed money from our fathers, and each other

And each other’s brothers, and though no-one

Had got money we thought we were kings and princes

Lived on honey, pills and lager

Said ‘Go faster’ to the driver

Who just turned around and smiled as though

He’d seen it all before and in a way

He had

But we were mad

 

And didn’t care that it had all been done before

And death was real and age would come to all of us

And bodies burn up in the night and every sunrise

Was a sight we’d never see again

And our imagination ran eternal

Life was movies, cotton candy

To be pulled apart right at the seams

With laser beams and stolen eyes

For what we thought we saw

When we were mad

 

When we were mad we thought we fell in love

But we just fell in deeper holes if only for the day

And we were juggling razor blades

But didn’t know

The blood was ours

We couldn’t feel a thing

 

When we were mad we stayed up late

For fifty days and wrote our names upon the walls

And never thought to go outside

Our cells, there was nowhere to go

The world was just a show

That we were in

 

Sanity came suddenly, just like a brick

It smashed our windows, killed some dreams

And cut us out some new ones

And we wore new clothes and swore new oaths

And rode our horses into battle

Thinking we were knights of old

And time was ordered and we had it

Sorted out this time or were we

Really just another

Fantasy it’s hard to

Recall what it’s like

Now we’re not mad…

Uncommon Man

 

We are all uncommon men

Who did not play upon the team at school

Who saw something quite different in a meadow

Than a playing field on which to win or lose

Who walked alone along a different path

Into another place where we could choose-

 

We are all uncommon men

Who could not find our home beyond the gates

Who looked for beauty in the marketplace

And felt ashamed that we had not been placed

Who took confusion as a hollow friend

And stood in darkness hearing demons wake-

 

We who love but who ask questions

We who felt that we never belonged

Who heard strange music in the classroom

And sang out of tune, but felt no wrong

We who never went to war

But never were at peace

Who never felt so useless

As when we were put to use

In causes that were so much paper and deceit-

 

We are all uncommon men

Who see an empty room we cannot leave

In offices and factories and coffee bars

We work, but in the end, do not believe

And so we play in different fields

And follow stranger gods than those who win perceive

Who feel the warm companionship of certainty

While we who dream uncommon dreams

Unsure will never be invited in

Or ever want to be, because, at last

Out here where we feel the cold

We are alive

We who choose to stay outside

Are all uncommon men

Blackberry Picking

 

Now that you’ve found your garden

Sit back in your easy chair

And light your pipe

You’ve left your city strife behind

Now all is quiet

The air is clean

The bank will help you pay your debts

And work will help you to forget

And all the paintings on your walls

And the wine stocked in the hall-

 

The sky is wide and wild and high

You walk the dog

And throw a stone

The rain it rolls across the moor

You stay indoors

And watch TV

Or visit at the village pub

The roof is thatched and low

You like a drink as you’re still young

With nowhere else to go-

 

And we walk down a narrow lane

Pick berries from the bramble while we can

Though thorns rip at our flesh

And nettles sting

The road winds on and there’s no time

To stop and pick more than a few

The sun grows lower on the fields

And shadows drag-

 

The juices running down our chins

The ice cream tubs they’re gathered in

We laugh and talk of good old times

And think it looks like rain;

Getting older

Going homeward

We will never pass this way again-

Death Bird

 

Death bird hovers

In the molten air

Heavy with silence

Death bird’s wings cast their shadow

Over milk steps and party wreckage

Cracked dawn of fishing boats

Vans and cars crawl pitifully

Towards day

Death bird waits

Holding back for only a moment

So we can clutch at hope

And sing, and make love

And make plans that will never-

Death bird finally swoops

And plucks one soul

Who does not struggle

But stares with frozen eyes

Into the grey, bleak

Never before imagined

Sky

In Heaven

 

Endless red brick suburbs

A drizzly corner shop

An abandoned factory stares, with a hundred shattered eyes

They are selling penny sweets in Heaven

 

In Heaven, it is always raining

The kettle’s always on

People sit and watch their favourite films on telly

Brewing up for the million billionth time

In Heaven, there is always something to moan about

The cricket, or the weather, or the girl who lives next door

In Heaven, there are varicose veins

Back trouble and a touch of wind

We stay indoors and all play scrabble

Finding an excuse to put the gas fire on

 

Lonely roads lead into faded cul-de-sacs

We wrap up warm and walk the dog

And buy an old newspaper from our favourite year

And catch a snatch of something sad

On someone’s far-off radio

Miss London

 

Take me out

With your eyes

Down by the river

Where the green scooters roar

And the boys they cling to you

Like fire

How long has it been

Without your love?

Laughter cracks

Like a milkbottle in

The frost cold air

Where are you waiting?

Cigarettes in Battersea

With a vagabond racer

Camden girls all look the same

You said; remember?

Sunsets on Tower Bridge

I never saw you home

Dawn on Primrose Hill

And a black plastic raincoat

And I was just thinking

How long has it been

Without your love?

The Translucence of Memory

 

Clouds stretch for miles across

The hungry buildings

Fading away into the white

Horizon of the grey-green sea

And old photos scattered on the

Table in front of me

And the wind blows through

The bedroom door swings open

The clock on the kitchen wall

People walking dogs, white vans across the park

Static on the radio

Seagulls ride the air and cry

Next Big Thing

 

I’m just living my life

Waiting for Lenny Kaye to come and lay down the guitar part

Waiting for David Bowie to come and spring me from the asylum

Waiting for the radioactive spider to come and bite me in the lab

Waiting for the blinding flash that’ll make it all make sense

Waiting till I’ve got everything I need, so I can make a start

Waiting for a stranger to ride into town, so this damn movie can begin

I’m sitting here waiting for the next big thing

Sitting here waiting for you