The Suffering of the Stream

There is a place where she will always be;
Where the blossom snows between the cankered trees.
Holding his sour breath, he knows she's there
Watching the torrent as it flows.

Watching her soft white dress, it flows.
In the innocent breezes, smoothed by the stones
Watching her cold white dress, it floats...

He could see his love like a long forgotten dream.
He could see his love veiled beneath the stream.
He could see his love grow pallid,
and suffer as he weeps;
His tears fall around her in oil-rainbow streaks.
He could see his own reflection cloud the stones.

There is a place where she will always be,
Where the blossom floats above her,
through the reeds,
Where cling the willow roots
His fingers reach
Searching for her lost arms to seize...

Watching her soft white dress, it flows
In the innocent breezes, Smoothed by the stones.
Watches the cold white dress, it floats.

Simple Tom and the Ghost of Jenny Bailey

The day flees the town, with a drunkard's yell...
Silence in the slaughterhouse
And the midnight bell shudders down Shambles alley,
Slamming shutters.
No, the market litter flies,
Newspaper acrobats, straw and rags
Whirl up to Tom's window...
And away.

Simple Tom looks out across the town,
Come into my shipwreck room,
Creaking beams and tilting shadows.
And the tallow-sticks burn.
High above the cobbled streets.
"Come into my Shipwreck room, Jenny Bailey."
Jenny Bailey.
Bailey...

We can see Tom's hand only, 
pulling horse-hair from the chair.
And the candle splatters--
His pupil shrinks.
His pupil grows.
"You are my ghost Jenny Bailey,
Come and dance with me...

While the whole town sleeps."

Simple Tom looks out across the town.
"Walk across the scaled roofs,
Look into my open window.  Oh, my rooftop girl.
Rats-tail hair and milky skin.
Glinting in the weathervanes...
Jenny Bailey
Jenny Bailey
Jenny Bailey."

The House of the Heart

You stand beneath the racing sky;
You don't know why you came to 
the house of the heart.

You sit amongst the withered flowers
by the dry fountains,
You look at the barren world around
The house of the heart.

The lichen covered courtyard lions
Stand restlessly beside you,
The great door it swings...
The house of the heart.

"Remote and scarlet,"
say the lions.
Vivid visions shatter down the spiral stairs
Promises and perfection,
Solitude and despair.

You hear the tempest beauty sigh.
You don't know how you came to
the house of the heart.

The house of the heart.

This Ship in Trouble

The sails are torn;
We know only darkness and fear.

Lost eyes are searching,
searching still.

Oh, this endless storm...
Searching still.

Count Jefferey

For he is Count Jefferey.
For he is the servant of no man.
For he casts the shadow of fear.
For he is everwhere.

For he writhes, for he kicks, for he takes,
For he leaves;
For he strides down the lime groves, but sees
only the roads in front of him.

For he has done his duty.
Hey Jefferey, you have done your duty.
Count Jefferey.
Count Jefferey.

For he destroys, for he gains, for he takes.
For he hates, and for he is the hated.
And so when he takes his prey,
He takes the Lord's touch, he counteracts the power of
darkness;
For he counteracts the devil, 
who rides so briskly about his life.

Hey Jefferey, you lack in spirit.
Hey Jefferey, you are lacking in spirit!

Count Jefferey.
Count Jefferey.
Count Jefferey.
Ahh!

For he rides, for he waits, 
open-eyed and granite faced.

What holds you from your sleep?
Is it the gold clocks, or the nightengales
you cannot hear?
Or the famine wolves outside your walls?

Count Jefferey.
And the portrait gallery's laughing.
Or is it the village baby's cry
At the nightmare of life come true?

Where do you go,
the brings you screaming with the cockerels,
Count Jefferey?

Count Jefferey.
Count Jefferey.
Count Jefferey.
Count Jefferey.

Shaletown

On the blue-green rising, falling tide.
Breathing in the pebbles,
Sighing out the salt breeze.

Chaff is blowing from the stubble fields.
Leaving the dry earth land, 
it threads the gate.
Tunnel hedges...
Old mans beard,
sticking to the wild plums,
old mans beard.
Follows the pot-holed tracks,
that lead to Shaletown.

The ox-man's soul forever turns around,
and ploughs the subbled field.
Caught in the lonely mile
between the roads to Shaletown.
He watches the chaff leave his dry brown eye,
and swing over rose-hip stile
to Shaletown.

Under bronze-red sunset cobweb clouds.
Dipping to the shadows,
dancing through the dead trees...
Over carts that stuggle up the hills
Sticking into the sweat and blistered hands.

Nailed sacks flap...
From blackened walls.
Flailing arms to welcome,
from blackened walls.
Into the groaning heart of Shaletown.

The ox-man turns and walks into the wind,
towards the ceaseless sea,
ploughing the lonely mile
as chaff settles in Shaletown.
The machines they groan, and the hammers they pound
As night falls on Shaletown.
The chaff settles....
In Shaletown.

The Sandstone Man

The sandstone man.
I feel my head fall to the ground...
gaping mouth and broken crown
Oh, the sandstone man.
Through the bramble snakes,
that scratched away my face,
I see the clouds like blossom round the moon.
The sandstone man, nobody knows where I am.

I could utter my name to you
From my nettle grave.
The sandstone man.

The rain erodes my crest, 
my hands into my chest.
The sandstone man, nobody knows who I am.
But you know I am close to you...
I watch the tree grow tall and fall,
I saw you riding down the rainy lanes
in November.
The Sandstone man.
You have forgotten who I am.

The honeysuckle twists across my breast, 
and I am happy.
I see the stunted willow by the frozen stream,
and the frost, as far as the eye can see.

But you have forgotten who I am.

Sometimes the sky is full of birds...
But, mostly, it is empty.

From the Silver Frost

The Millpond Years

As the voice beneath the millpond sings,
From her past the lost June days are woken.
And the wind across the gorse slopes call...
Through the years, where the darkness roars.
Until with whirl-pool panic heart she looks
Out of the looking glass, and sees her standing
by her side.

Closes her cold, grey eyes.

Blurred, hurried bliss, and the smell of space, 
Vanish through fires.
Oh, save me from the softness of your skin.
I can see you in the millpond years
Quietly singing.

And her voice across the millpond sings...
Slow falling days and afternoons.
Watching each other in the quiet looking glass.
While the geese ripple above the moors
The leaves turned and vanished, with the storms.
And falling through each others' eyes,
This tortured paradise.

Her emerald dress, and the ivory sheets.
Like delicate muscles,
Sleepwalking through shapes that razor blind,
But, I can still see you in the millpond years
Quietly singing...
I can see you there...

Needle Street

Time blows past the house like a spy, 
and wrinkles in;
Peels the walls and cracks the paint.
Time blows through the house...
Where the old woman spins ash white out of her
hearth, where the thread flies,
from the wheel she spins.

Rising with the steam, it falls with the soot
settles in the cobwebs
Down Needle Street.
Down Needle Street, the hammers beat,
and the power-looms clatter throught the night to her door,
to her door, through the night,
down Needle Street.

Time enters her house with the flies,
and the wrecking wind, pulls the pictures from the walls.
Time blows through her house.
Like the choking weeds.
Thread winds out of her mind,
and the dust flies, and the wheel it spins.

Rising with the steam,
it falls with the soot
settles in the cobwebs,
Down Needle Street.
Down Needle Street, the hammers beat.
and the power-looms clatter, through the night, to her door,
through her door, down Needle...
Down Needle Street.

L'Unica Strada