Believe me
Believe me
Believe me
Believe me
Believe me
Believe me
I came to warn you
Believe me
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
Believe me
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
Believe me
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
Believe me
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
Believe me
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
Believe me
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
Believe me
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
Believe me
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
Believe me
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
Believe me
I came to warn you
I came to warn you
Believe me
Out where the river broke
The bloodwood and the desert oak
Holden wrecks and boiling diesels
Steam in forty five degrees
The time has come
To say fairs fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share
The time has come
A facts a fact
It belongs to them
Lets give it back
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep when our beds are burning
Four wheels scare the cockatoos
From kintore east to yuendemu
The western desert lives and breathes
In forty five degrees
(live - on scream in blue
The time has come
A facts a fact
It belongs to us all
This light doesn't hide in a bushel anymore,
But I don't know what you could use it for.
I've got the courage and I've got the same fear,
So gather round now and watch me disappear.
Been a smokey, been on fire,
I'm on terms with immolation,
Don't try to pull me from the pyre,
It's too late for liberation.
I wonder what I would've made of other features,
Given all my kinds of appetite.
Here my lords come claiming up their leases,
If I'm gonna move I got to travel light.
To the reaches, to the never never,
Anywhere where they can't find me,
I'm invisible, I'm in hiding, all my troubles are left behind me.
O my soul's a condiment, spread it far and wide,
Little taste on a lot of tongue, makes a body tired,
It's a little like dousing a burning flag with a pail of oily water -
I've studied brown and I've been known to gather wool,
I won't refuse a little piece of sky pie,
But when I see you with your beaker half full
I think I'm drinking with the wrong guy.
Should I fly a coop, will I swim the soup,
Will I make it through another year here?
I've been lonely before, on that broken shore,
There's no better place to up and disappear.
O my soul's a condiment, spread it far and wide,
Little taste on a lot of tongue, makes a body tired,
It's a little like dousing a burning flag with a pail of oily water -
Said the flaming puddle.
Daddys take it on the chin, there's no need to fight,
Mother's hem the brood and gather in, here comes the night,
You might step outside of the stream, fall through the hole,
Be far from all that living set you forth to do.
Xanadu now, Babylonia, anywhere where nobody owns ya,
O how my great liberal heart labours,
With the piss in my rivers and gall,
Before gleaming ceremonial sabres,
Who falls on them falls for us all...
Every night I pick the locks
On that white Victorian box,
Every night I pick the locks and the gaolers say...
Some nights when I look through her window,
And she seems an old lover to me,
There peeling off her black nylon knee highs
And yielding her breast to the sea...
Every night I pick the locks
On that white Victorian box,
But there's nobody home in her telephone bones.
I've kissed the green gem of the east coast, drunk the tropical fizz of
the north,
Played the far flung sand castles ate at by the Indian,
Froze in the broken off port,
To my blue collar sprawl out the blue stony wall,
Where the weather don't bother and the sea don't recall,
Sometimes it's a dead man as wide as he's tall by a blue blooded matron, and under her shawl
Every night I pick the locks on that white Victorian box...
I find buttons and bones, tiny soldiers, toy trains and murder...
Autumn leaves are flying, (each a baby's brittle boat),
The season's dying, (winter's mottled pigeon throat),
Sings the coo-cool air.
The old sun's pale and rising, (write it down in yr little note),
He's pale and rising, (fold it up yr little note),
Waning, pale in the air.
Autumn leaves are flying, (time to find yr winter coat),
To cease from crying
Are you lit from the inside, is that why your teeth are bright?
You smile as the sun sets on the window, and the car fills up with light,
Make a smile tulip, don't think of me as something that's passed,
I am not written in the book, but I intend to last...
And as the sun comes up you know it's really going down,
You only framed it incorrectly, now you cannot turn it round,
If there's enough of us here left, then we'll drive it into town,
And when we pass the field of tulips, then I'll put the knuckle down...
Don't frown tulip,
Make a smile,
Don't frown tulip,
You know it's all worthwhile...
There were lions by the roadside, I was driving with my Father,
Through a dream of French forests, and all was warmth and solace,
And all said He is with us, but always sad and serious,
Standing outside in the garden, pained and peerless...
Don't frown tulip
Make a smile
Don't frown tulip
You know it's all worthwhile...
Make a smile at the end of your tether,
This was never gonna last forever...
The woods all were peopled with daughters and sons,
The teeming uncounted and unchosen ones,
Who don't dance anymore, they just move around in bubbles,
And nobody notices nobody's troubles,
Nobody notices nobody's troubles...
Don't frown tulip
Make a smile,
Don't frown tulip,
You know it's all worthwhile...
Make a smile at the end of your tether,
This was never gonna last forever,
We will adjust to this new condition of living like a man with his entrails now out him not in
After certain techniques of torture accustoms himself to a new condition of living...train.
Thoughtful godless men find god in them at the age of twenty-five
but in a year death gains favor and they think themselves the more alive,
You'll find them in the loose caboose where the pills are kept and the stupid juice,
This one has a sleeping wheel, this one has a willing noose
- Onward and on to the ends of love, pricked vanity, habit and ruse.
Onward and on to a premature silence where death finds too much use.
Fifteen year old whores in training, eyes a'batting,
arms a'flailing, skin aflame, this fire-fanning express,
If you're on board amazement follows fear and rounded by dismay
it takes the corner into the day after today which is a father's sorrow
- Onward and on to the ends of meanness where kindness is the means of the earth.
Onward and on, awakening finds us too sensual beings from birth -
("I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry lady, I am sorry, I'm sorry lady...I'm sorry")...train.
Pods of wealthy blonde gobbets with red-rind eyes
getting pecked at by the heroin sparrows of the western skies,
It may be married to the tracks but this train flies and it's taking no passengers.
"We'll stand on his hand, that's how you pin your man,
we'll smash him from Preston to Epworth!"
Onward and on to the ends of reason where malice is the means of the earth.
Onward and on, this strange-wrought bird, onwards and over the black coffee earth,
Onward and on, this laughing train to the ends of its low, low mirth...
Where the media make it with the media whores,
Lady Time minces man-meat with her contract claws
for a barbecue with the veterans of the talkback wars
in the outback palace...of one John Laws.
O we will adjust to this new condition of living
like a sailor with his hands tied behind his back
imprisoned after sailing into foreign waters, unawares,
accustoms himself to a new condition of living.
But a shadow falls between this hurtling intent and its realisation
for its government is rotten and therefore its civilisation
Here on the hill above the settlement, the buildings are talking,
A tower to a terrace says the word's on the street, the dead are walking
The brows are arched of the mews across the street,
By a pale ochre light are made out heavy reliefs,
Where all your dreams are borrowed all your senses are thieves,
And Ned Kelly won't ride past your window despite the freeze on your disbelief,
Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down,
Thin Captain Crackers bowling naked through the centre of the town,
The sun won't bake his blue skin brown, he's been too long underground.
"I see," said a blind builder to his deaf daughter
as he picked up his hammer and saw,
"if blood is thicker than water
why'd you dress in the dress that you wore’"
The blind are drawn by a blank curiosity
(Don't bring 'em up),
Drawn on mirrors where windows used to be
(if you can't put 'em down),
Some people might say "My desire's not the captain of me!"
And Red Barry might fly from his pedestal at night to spook the
university
O tailor my bones what need new clothes but the lower half loves
what the upper half loathes, I could get around like an intellectual I
suppose, wearing the highs with the lows,
But I’d sooner sing these doleful drones by barcoo dog and
lagerphones, but my hand don’t write when a feather it holds, it hangs like a wren with its neck wrung, as did the bells in my quasi commode where I have to shift my head to see where my pillow go’d, some mornings I wake up by the side of the road,
Bringing it up for the gutter,
After putting it down for the crowd’
I said I would arrive in the capital’
After chuckin’ outside the St. Augustines purple parish hall’
Don’t bring ‘em up if you can’t put ‘em down,
There's something at the bottom of the black pool,
I daren't dredge it up not while the weather's still cool,
It's a feathered thing, its origins are mixed and untrue,
Once a straw-body, now a lamb-picker, now a clove in a black brew...
I think of the peacocks of the gorge
and I think of the gryphons they kept in the Tower Zoo,
The unexpected water swept all before it
as it rushed on terrible through -
And left them all dead, and spread through the park,
amid the myriad mangles of the coming dark -
of the shadow of a loon, the howl from a bloody craw,
Those strange interruptions don't scare me anymore,
Since all the while the weather was cool
I stood at the crumbling edge of the black pool.
Perhaps a pigeon fell off its stool,
I have drowned a conscience or two,
There are palm trees and clouds and the under-sides of drowned blues,
and sometimes the faces of people I think I knew...
I know at one time this thing flew,
I have sunk an ambition or two,
Now when I think to drink, then I wonder with who,
I pretend that I'm sitting in the booth with you -
O what a fuckin' sentence, what a fuckin' noise,
I don't know these girls, I don't trust these boys,
And over there in the corner, there hangs a strange bird,
Sings a strange song but it won't be heard,
A song to enquire whither went the milk money
While the darling babes of Toorak were a'yowling for their honey.
Let's walk up this hill, let's go walking up this hill,
The sun is in the middle of the sky, the grass is yellow from being dry,
There's music, there's you, many others here and I,
Up the hill then, up where those holy lodestones lie -
How suddenly still, and though the wind blow,
From here we will never leave or go,
And but for a will, and but for companions,
we might go tumbling home below,
To a place at the table, to gamble and settle,
make the words “amiable” and “able”
of resting assured, in the breast of that bird,
that I sure did not suffer a fool,
Since all the while the weather was cool
There is no such place, o yes I have seen it too
Just a little different from how you do,
A river winding blue among the dunes and a marble bed
A sun that doesn't set but settles.
There is no such place.
If I lower mine to yours would you kiss me on the face?
If you're looking for an unmarked place,
There is no such place -
Blasted in appearance and a composite of fearful minutes
Frozen in the waking instant
Longing, things I long for,
Peaceful nights, strangers at the door,
O come in, come in,
You've been here before.
There is no such place, so perhaps we have a reason
For our long and falling face,
Above all it would be warm but we would keep our heads all
Clear as Winter, storms would be a sight to make us shiver
But without the chill
Of thinking all is hither-thither -
Longing, Things I long for,
Peaceful nights, strangers at the door,
O come in, come through the door,
You've been here before,
You've been here before
There is no such place, o yes I have seen it too
Just a little different from how you do,
A house upon a hill with no windows
Just a can upon the sill
To catch your tears
The golden sun is ever gentle in the valley of Making
Where it’s the middle of the autumn when it isn’t high Spring
There are men of many colors and women of all races
Wearing white, white linen and smiles on their faces
Blue rose………………
There are roses ‘round the edges of the grand property
The words: ‘labor, ardor, languor’ are its lovely trinity
When you see just how they dress and how they speak and act, too
All you’ll want to do is dress up in their white linen, too
Blue rose and drew the curtain back on the morning
And you said holly-hey, and with a teary tilt
For you were rudely made and shoddy built
Between the thumb and the forefinger, barely pressed
He hoists his trouser leg, she lifts her dress
Oh, these men of many colors in their creamy white suits
With their different colored hands they dig in the soil for the roots
Of the dreamy conversation that the slender women make
As they sip from slender glasses by the vineyard lake
Blue rose and drew the curtain back on the morning
Blue rose and every little thing was gilt and suffering no more
If you could see the people laughing and not hear the sound it makes
Then you could keep the good opinion that the tone of voice takes
If you could see the people laughing and not hear the sound it makes
It goes…………………………
There’s a woman there among them who with red, red eyes
Says you haven’t been a’working hard enough on your lies
The golden sun is ever gentle and one lie follows another in
The only way to get there is by singing, brother, singing
There are women of all races, men in white, white linen
And the only way to get there is to sing sister, sing sister, sing
And draw the curtain back on the morning
Blue rose and every little thing was gilt and suffering no more
Blue rose and drew the curtain back on the morning
Where the wars were not for wearing, the ghettoes never got
To each lonely, lonely person their own shovel, their own plot
Have you ever heard a rattle way on down when people sigh
Pity the boy in front of me
He was only 16,
Lifted up my axe then down,
Split his head like a cord of wood.
Not for me the huon pine,
Not for me the ankle iron,
A'resting in the rope'll do me fine.
So they sent me down to Bellerive,
Strung me up to my relief,
I was just a petty thief
Of no account, no import.
Send my love to my sister
In the Female Factory,
Remind her of the day when we drank wine.
May a slant of winter light
Break upon my stone before the night
Ushers in the chill,
I have no sight, I have no sight.
But did they pave the streets of Hobart town?
Lop the old wood forests down?
For the press of King and Crown,
For honey? Milk and honey?
This is a song, not like the other ones,
secret and selfish and somewhat hollow.
In the middle of this song there seemed to grown another
Of indeterminate length and origin.
To populate a people's song, first you must do something wrong,
If you've never been infirm you can never be strong.
Prune your rose bushes, Djamila, (Glenn)
Or you'll never see your home again.
Country and city, kingdom of the well, of the unwell,
You dwell in them both like a ghost -
When old King George said to my long dead kin
"Ten summers and winters in Arthur will do you in"
He cut out his heart and he buried the sin there in England.
Prune your rose bushes Luis, (Glenn)
Oh they'll grow up again,
There may still be a next year, who knows?
If you're lonely take a drink, there are better things to think,
Think on ancient cities, sunsets and girls in Spring.
You needed a song, I needed one too,
So keep listening
FOR MY OFFER TO YOU
Take it with good grace and humour too
First came the golden age
When there was no need of proof,
When lions ate flowers and your house
Didn't need a roof.
Then came the silver days
When a boy saw himself for the first time
In the reflection of a blade
Then he saw the way
To populate a people's song.
First he must do something wrong.
If you've never heard the music you never will
Prune your rose bushes Billy and Toby. (Glenn)
So they'll soon grow up again,
There may still be a next year, who knows?
If you're lonely, take a drink,
There are better things to think
Think on ancient cities, sunsets and girls in Spring.
Because all the tears that you mend,
They will open up again.
And weren't you suppose to call your friends this evening?
It rained all night the day I left.
The weather it was fine,
Well it tastes like a Sunday,
There should be music in the front room,
and the markets a'milling
with the people in the afternoon.
And there's a question to be asked
if you're drinking alone,
It's what horse were you thrown from
which riderless goes on?
O it must have been a near thing,
But no novelty to you,
all the trains and the buses and the cinemas too,
Breaking down, the bloody town,
all reared up like a snake,
For goodness sake don't touch it
or you'll never wake up...
His father misses him,
His mother misses him,
His lady dreams of kissing him,
Bring the sun back,
Bring the sun back,
It's been dark, now it's cold,
When the night falls,
Bring the sun back,
Bring the sun back,
It's a blackbird, he's in the belly.
Well it's cold, it's cold, it's cold, it's cold,
But you've a rood over your head
and a comfortable bed,
Now I'll be better, I'll be true,
doing things like I ought to,
If this bird lands in the black lands
of Tulla when it's due...
His father misses him,
His mother misses him,
His lady dreams of kissing him,
Bring the sun back,
Bring the sun back,
It's been dark, now it's cold,
When the night falls,
Bring the sun back,
Bring the sun back,
It's a blackbird, he's in the belly,
It's a blackbird, he's in the belly,
The night's a blackbird,
How sweet it is to be loved by you,
And taking your medicine,
And feeling individual,
And audio-visual,
You see I'm hearing everything you see,
And seeing everything, you hear
To every idea a shelf,
To my wings a great heap of dust,
They were only ever buds anyway,
Only ever gonna get in the way,
To my screen a new project,
A new model fear.
I'm going to the Mothball,
And speeding like a pinstripe,
And never has it felt so right,
See I'm rolling like an eight ball,
And never has it felt so right,
I'm going to the Mothball,
And on the music goes
I feel like Thomas Edison,
A thousand lights going off in my head.
How sweet it is to be an apple in the eye,
And coming in worm-wise,
And feeding on your greatest fear,
Masquerading as a new love,
When by turn we all turn and turn in,
And the worm begets a butterfly.
Live your life in just one day
Live your life smooth.
I'm going to the Mothball,
And speeding like a pinstripe,
And never has it felt so right,
See I'm rolling like an eight ball,
And never has it felt so right,
I'm going to the Mothball
And on the music goes
I feel like the Persian Gulf
What's wrong, sad Prince?
The body is soft, the heart is cold,
You were tongue-in' for danger, but danger bites back,
It only lays down for the reckless and you weren't never bold
- Think of all you'd never do...
Now it sits next to you on the bus, it joins you in the elevator,
Nothing good is kept for later,
You should never have let it through to the Keepa.
In old Brazil there is a breach upon the earth they call "The Sigh",
where the gods all hang their washing out to dry,
where strange birds fly, and giants go to die,
I heard you went there for the quiet,
Well I wasn't asking why
- It was all that you could do...
Now it sits next to you on the bus, it joins you in the elevator,
Nothing good is kept for later,
You should never have let it through to the Keepa.
In the afternoon a weary sun beats a pallor too soon
about the broken tooth hell-mouth of your room,
You slide into a sleep, O to dreaming of a sweet talk,
To wilt beneath a whisper - "No regrets sad Prince"
- Not for all you'll never do...
Now it sits next to you on the bus, it joins you in the elevator,
Nothing good is kept for later,
This honey month I'm telling you don't go turning your radio on,
A one and a two, should I talk to you, like the others do?
Get yr knees up beneath the bar,
I'm leaving now but I won't go far...
This honey month I'm telling you don't go turning your radio on,
And this honey month, with the wine on your breath, and singing the same stolen song,
I want you to know,
I want you to know,
What you don't want to know.
Beneath the revving of a car,
The evensong of the abattoir...
Moo, you bloody choir,
Moo and lo, lo and moan.
Moo, you huddled choir,
Moo and lo,
How the night arrives with a blow.
This honey month I'm telling you don't go turning your radio on,
And this honey month, already married enough, and wondering where it went wrong,
I'll make you come,
I'll make you go,
What do the men say
To the women when they lay down at night.
All naked of arms from the old imagined fight?
And how do the women hear?
In kind and in likeness of light -
"In kindness you needn't and neither do I,
we are both of us capable of flight",
And as if to give proof
She jumped through the hole in the roof.
What did the condemned say
To the blessed when they met on the path?
"O you take the low road and I'll take the high for a laugh,
(but if I'm laughing now it's because I've a gentle heart)",
And because it was true
He slipped through the hole in the roof.
La la la la,
La la la la la la...
From above your head a thing can be read that you're thinking...
What the secretaries sing and the CEO's bark in the bars -
What do the dead say
To the ones who still think they're alive?
"With your heads all on backwards
You can't see in front for what near behind you lies"
"Well show us some help then,
Above your head let it flicker the light,
These ones that I'm with
Have not learned to forgive your necessary alibis -
When they made you love money,
And the poor prophet's stock,
When they poisoned the watersheds
And fashioned our arrowheads
From the deep forbidden rock.
O but did you see what people do?
And when you saw it you did it too,
Now all your children are twice the size of you,
and they come in at night through
The hole in your roof
The hole in your roof
The hole in your roof
Here sits a once good gardener, pale as a shadow of a doubt,
Once a happy dweller of a garden good, once a sleepy sinner,
Once cast out
To the sea where the crossy-eyed maids murmur low, "do you see, do you see
Where the doubts cross his shadow?"
Drowned and amoral, I pollinate the coral and reek of the deep
Where I've tended the water weed -
I was once your good gardener, sing to bring on Spring,
I know where your good grass grows,
I know what your boyfriend knows,
I was your good gardener.
I saw twilight car waxers, corpulent dog walkers, clean canny couples on the sunset strip,
From a tower forty miles to the east of Augusta saw a plague on the Indian
A'coming on a windship,
You were in the garden when the wind swept up and took the foul words from your mouth
Now you know what your sarcasm really really means
It's the tearing with your teeth of the flesh from the bones of your brother -
Kill the shrub to fertilise the flower,
Did I hear you saying that the form doesn't matter?
Well form into matter, the matter is forever, but only in a good garden
Black rock bound in the Brighton bowl where the seas of desolation roll,
Where you're borne and borne and borne in again to the pebble-feather shore of forgotten friends
Think how you can't see the science without seeing first the self,
But then nobody thinks of growing somebody else,
And how the sun , hungry sun, holds the withered withered world,
So why shouldn't I kiss the beautiful girl?
When I was her good gardener.
Sing of the Summer sham,
O see them grow tall, see them in their rot, see them go to seed in the cemetery plot
I was your good gardener
Sing to bring on Spring
O ice of Winter would crackle and splinter with my love in everything
Ice of Winter would crackle and splinter with my love in everything
I was your good gardener...
The sea is stark and lovely, and it scares me to the point of rapture
I was your good gardener, of some good stature
The sea is stark and lovely, and it scares me to the point of rapture
Well our dogs get along, but have you noticed how easy
evil dialogues of ours come out of wanting,
for so long, an easy laughter, to feel guilty for some -
Throw us in the oven where the angels fly,
They still need to eat
She's clean, she keeps a clean house, she can cook alright,
But I no longer have meat
In the middle of the field at the height of the eclipse,
when all that we could see were the fiery whips
of that hot-headed god, hot-headed god and wild,
perpetually running from his wife and child
- I was born in the bottom of a boat,
Of glass between the sea and me
Upward from the floor they'd float,
Bodies from the drowning dream
What do you make in the furnace of your chest?
The same as she makes in the locket of her breast.
Here's where the buds in the coal-chocked tomb go hard,
clear and deadly and never ever bloom
- There were fifty-four people in the back of a truck,
They were only sleeping
When we come to pick them up,
Safe within our keeping
Sixty-eight bullets for my wife and I,
They will never be satisfied
Strength and purpose fringed by fire,
Fire I was born in the bottom of a boat,
Of glass between the sea and me
Upward from the floor they'd float,
There's a place I've been told, and when I grow old I may go there,
I've been told that my family's bones may lie under the snow there,
And with my little bag, and with my little dog,
Who sleeps on my chest when he can't find a hole in a log,
And when I go, my dog will know to leave his old fellow and find a new pillow, far from the chill of the cold acre.
Now there's a Hillydale here and a Lilydale there where there's joy in the living, in voices that ring in the air
I'd stay there but sooner or later I'd have to go, where I don't know,
but when a dog knows it's on him he doesn't ask why he just goes,
And when I go my bones will know, to pick up and follow the wagon that rolls on the cold acre...
My heart is a cold acre, in my chest is a cold acre,
I don't grow any good anymore though I've seeded my soul with
all kinds of love, that it aches so...
Though I wake from them mouthing they leave me not able to talk,
These dreams are not nightmares but realms I've been choosing to walk,
With my little bag, and with my little dog,
Who rests on my stomach and barks at the oncoming fog,
O but when I go, with my lot in tow,
Like a vampire carry my piece of the earth to the place of my death from the plots of my birth...
My heart is a cold acre, in my chest is a cold acre,
I know any good anymore from the bad except there's one that you have and one that you had,
O grow, grow, grow, grow, grow,
And plant me in the only place I know,
Duty, who's your master?
Who gave you fingers?
Who gave you to me?
And why do we always dream of disaster
When we pay our dues to disaster with some loyalty?
And when its work is done, and we ought to just pick up and run, we
sleep in the place we have slept for so long
So long, for so long, so long in the place we should run from.
And when I, when I have forgotten, when I have forgotten me how to
stand and sing,
I will raise up, raise one finger, one finger of the truth that wears no
ring,
And when its work is done, and the stitch of my smile has come
undone, I'll tell you why I wore it for so long
And I wasn't so drunk that I didn't hear you dreaming,
All seized up and wretched and baying blue hell at the ceiling of the room we're always dying to leave.. alright.
Duty, who's your master?
Who gave you fingers?
Who gave you to me?
And why are we always dreaming of disaster
When we live our lives so careless and so comfortably?
O but underneath this song, I can hear another song, it tells me I'm
not wrong to stay so long
Honey goes candy in the condiment cupboard,
Unwax it. unplug it,
What you discover in August nights,
Like children walled in and papers drawn up for life -
That kind of truth you can't crack with a knife.
Smoke from the wood fire, unholy spires,
And can you surmise from which well you have drawn you courage, it stings your eyes
What you saw when she stood in the yard and she let him undress her -
What happened next you have failed to understand.
What happened then as he took her by the hand...
Little lights are burning bright in you
Little lights are burning bright in you
Orphan leaves of arrested trees divide the street from the gutter
As the sunset shudders at the prospect or night
On the children malled in and mauling their brethren and like -
That kind of truth is a needle and a knife.
That kind of truth is a needle and a knife...
And you little lights are burning bright in you
And you little lights are burning bright in you
And you little lights are burning bright in you
O, fraudulent mirror, oh, rank rainbow toad
I'd break apart too, if I knowed what you knowed
I'd fall from the wall, I'd leap from the road
You take cover in the clover, you don't shoulder the load
Wagner and wife, drama and strife
Their syphilitic friend Dionysus is wise not to ask
"Where's Sunstroke House?"
Where's a crow on the far fence? Where's a mill by the pond?
Pale with horror, I saw you when your bird flew
Now who in the whole low world has been kind to you?
Save for a kindly, ugly few
Don't read it, don't watch it, don't do what they do
From the wind in the winter, no mercy, no quarter
From the summer no mercy, and little goes well
That's where you'll live, that's where you'll live
Till a gale rips ya sail, till a will kills ya mill
Where have you been, my heat, my shadow?
How well did you like the song?
I filled it so full of nonsense and unrule
You feel like there's something forgotten or fell
Pale with horror I saw you when your bird flew
Now who in the whole low world has been kind to you?
Save for a kindly, ugly few
Don't read it, don't watch it, don't do what they do
Pink lipped bub, golden haired sitting
Portraits of withering roots
Pretty diversions, pointless excursions
You are the queen of a dust bowl,
Ex to a crier in a town of ashes,
This is what happens when a great love crashes.
Tonight you let me see you,
For the first time, in a long time,
For the first time, in a time
Without the fear of going blind,
without the fear of going blind...
In a den of quitters in a hall of hosts,
Between worn out waltzes and wedding toasts
I heard a man confess that what he struggles with most
is the freedom for so long.
Without a strong enough voice to tell him what's wrong,
Without a will, without a prayer, without a passionate song to sing...
Our favourite sons, our polished metal guns,
Plagues, mermaids, setting suns
Our favourite sons, our polished metal guns,
Plagues, mermaids, setting suns
Well all by and by and all through and through,
this is the only thing that comes back to you,
how you banged her on a cannon in a World War Two park in Gundagai,
O come on guy, O come on, you were born red-eyed and screaming,
You mother was beaming, she trembled,
and dabbed your eyes with mercury and rained on you the blessings three.
You were a babe of Spring now what's it going to be.
Sunshine
Our favourite songs, our polished metal guns.
Plagues, mermaids, setting suns
Our favourite sons, our polished metal guns,
Plagues, mermaids, setting suns
Upon all brave new breeds of old disease
on rotten roots of family trees,
on sold out universities,
Some go high and very low,
None too different or the same you know,
I know cos I've seen them come and go.
When summer comes the valley hums with medicine trucks on
the sidewalks, laid out those hands could be holy
Stranger, stranger, hard earned familiar,
I've got no jokes,
And you hit me up for more than just my shrapnel and smokes.
Some go high and very low, no two different or the same you know,
I know cos I've seen them come and go
Stranger, stranger, strange you should be listening like a river to
the end of my curdled song,
Nobody knows what madness could come along.
Now if you see a being borne into a trap you free it,
They know kindness when they see it,
Stranger Strange would it come if you could call it?
Some go high and very low,
none too different or the same you know,
I know cos I?ve seen them come and go.
It's quiet now, the streets are silent,
When music out of the arms of community flies
Stranger Strange I knew I knew you,
Now the bug lights in the bank imbue you
With eyes like decals and a voice like an iron file.
Stranger strange, though the earth be an anvil,
I'm not waiting for the hammer to fall,
The pillar, peak and palm that makes you dream
O the sun is your alarm, the church that's leaving
Come to Bahamas, to 1971
When you weren't even the grain of an idea
Carpentaria, the midnight seeming longer than we are
Carp are dreaming of sunsets in the casbah
And the world is repeating phrases in a broken down car
In your film noir, on a highway to a star
Waking in the dusty gate
Of men who never arrive, and never really seem to be
Though I can fix the car, and I can drive a thousand miles to find out where you are
And ask you "Have I really arrived?"
Cast me down a glance at the top, close my eyes
And I'll love you 'til you tell me to stop breathing
Pretty face, human race
Oh yeah, I know
Say, how much for those words?
That's a fifty cent novel on the ecstacy of surds
Seems such a horrible waste when you could buy grass for the yard
Pottery wheels and broken heels are not gonna get very far into these words
That's a fifty cent novel on the ecstacy of surds
Seems such a horrible waste when you could buy grass for the yard
Pottery wheels and broken heels are not gonna get very far into these words
Waking in the dusty gate
Of men who never arrive, and never really seem to be
Though I can fix the car, and I can drive a thousand miles to find out where you are
And ask you "Have I really arrived?"
Cast me down a glance at the top, close my eyes
And I'll love you 'til you tell me to stop breathing
Pretty face, human race
Oh yeah, I know
You met for your mortar traces, your fifty cent shoelaces
I'm high on your pulitzer now...
Oh you can never ever be, no you can never ever be
The one that got us through the burning sun like you thought you would
Ask me "Have I really arrived?"
Cast me down a glance at the top, close my eyes
And I'll love you 'til you tell me to stop
To stop breathing
I'll kiss you when I know I should not
Close your eyes and I'll love you 'til you tell me to stop
To stop...
O cast me down a glance at the top, close my eyes
And I'll love you 'til you tell me to stop
To stop breathing
And I'll kiss you when I know I should not
Close your eyes and I'll love you 'til you tell me to stop
To stop
Stop breathing
Stop breathing
Pretty face, human race
In the chest of a dealer hammers
And smelts a foul charge
As he smoothes sour cream from his moll's pony
And metes her an unholy barrage
(O, the living is hard)
Of a rank Summer Saturday here
Drunk on domestic beer
The burnt English girls bray like mares
The men leer like snakes
O, there's no faith in this article, baby
No truth and no lie, lie, lie, lie
I woke up one morning and it lay there beside me
It wasn't for me to ask why
But to reason with a dry mouth and a half-open eye
Some people weren't born to dance
While others are halted mid-step to the beat
Of a song in the key of chance
Make one sickening body
Born of a base urge and a high mind
And make it swing like a witch
Wealthy young men, hale tall timber
Who dally in the Spring time then steady in the Winter
While over the river, with needles for teeth
The spindle and stick men, apportioned a grief
Take to drink and drown, drown
O, the stories I love and the stories I hate
The city horses are tired, give them something to drink
Take the weight of the wagon from off of their shoulders
And the iron from their feet
At the top of the morning, top, top, top of the street
Is a look when you look, look, look
Look into somebody's eyes and you meet
Is a look when you look, look, look, look into somebody's eyes
And you know that they'd just as soon kill you as smile
There's no faith in this article baby
No truth and lie, lie, lie, lie
I woke up one morning and it lay there beside me
It wasn't for me to ask why
But to reason with a dry mouth and a half-open eye
Some people weren't born to dance
While others are halted mid-step to the beat
When I asked about your poor bodies,
"Were the murderous too?"
You said "It had many bearings
Upon the likes of me and you"
So we buried them to neck height
And we kicked off all their heads
Funny little questions, better left, better never, ever said
So I asked about your dead mother
"Was she beautiful too?"
"Just a little bit warmer,
Than the likes of me and you"
Well I'm no F. Scott Fitgerald
But I know a champagne birth
So she had many (?)
And she delivered you your word
I asked if you were lonely
you said it didn't matter
these are old emotions,
We need to bury them and leave them
Move on to something new
We need to bury them and leave them
But I can't leave even you
So if it's making everybody happy
Writing songs about shit
Well I know i'm not supposed to be serious about it, but I'm serious about it
But I don't wanna fight no battle
And I don't want to feel love a first time
But if the stuff comes better when I'm on my own
Then I'll make it so I'm on my own
You asked me if I'm lonely
But I guess it doesn't matter
It's an old emotion
I need to bury them and leave them all
Find last romantic year
And I grow ol-ol-ol-ol-ol-old
You were the first time that year
But then I tremble at the sight of you
All the things that fortify me
Are all the things that petrify you
So you bury them and leave them
And I take them off of you
I only asked if you were lonely
And you said it didn't matter
These are old emotions
We need to bury them and leave them
Move on to something new
We need to bury them and leave them
Little bodies in the backyard
We need to bury them and leave them
Just an ordinary day, I knew that autumn was on it's way,
I could see by the gilt of the clouds, the burnish on the bay,
A ring of effusia settled on the city like a vision of the future
Before the scales fell away,
A vision of the future looking more than just okay,
A good feeling
Yes, just a good feeling
And it only happens now and then -
Out of the mouth of a black dog,
Out of the terrors of 3 am,
Out of the dark and whispering fen,
I was blind then I could see, now I'm blind again.
So I hollered up to Jill,
"Come down from the mountain, your ears are 'a burning,
My speech is a fountain, it's been another long year
But you know I'm not counting,
I dreamed you like you dreamed me,
O the bomb dreamed the fuse and the drowner dreamed the sea",
What a strange feeling...
Yes, it's a strange feeling
And it only happens now and then -
Out of the mouth of a black dog,
Out of the terrors of 3 am,
Out of the dark and whispering fen,
I was blind then I could see, now I'm blind again.
Most of the Aegean Sea rushes into my bedroom and glitters for me,
The hills of Gallipoli all throw up their bones for my industry,
So I build from the charnel the ale house,
I build from the tomb a palace of dreams,
That old barren rockface got silver seams for a miner of middling means,
Singing poems of dissolution and schemes -
My penny whistles, lo!
Now I summon up Jack, sat up on the hill,
The wrong kind of music, the wrong kind of pill,
Impotent as a potato but still pleading "Give it up Mary,
But not by degrees..."
A portrait of Jack, a study in sin, well I knew of myself before I knew of him,
Now even I couldn't tell ya just who it is asking
"Give it up Mary, but not by degrees,
Give it up Mary, your virtue, please..."
Into the mouth of a black dog - I go
Into the terrors of 3 am - I go
Into the dark and whispering fen - I go
I was blind then blind again
Into the mouth of a black dog - I go
Into the terrors of 3 am - I go
Into the dark and whispering fen - I go
O what beast has my name on it's snaggle tooth,
And eternal slobber for my finishing youth?
Level your fretting. I won't be forgetting the flush of your face
When I lifted you level to me and a wattle tree framed your body.
In whispers welling with the dope of a new Spring
You said "Kill me a dynasty or our love won't mean a thing..."
A bullet for a diamond ring.
A favour promised
A promise delivered and more to you -
It's only a war I'll be back to your shore before you know it I'm gone,
Then I'll cover you body.
And if you have to go please go lightly,
Keep it to a foxtrot whether he's a fox or not.
Keep it cold, keep all your heat for me -
I'll be needing it for when I'm cold you see?
Let your children remind you of me
Whether by another or by the ghost in me in you -
There goes my baby.
I would think of you and a palmtree would cover your body.
You - in love and war we are bound by a law,
it goes to you and then to yours to recover my body.
She bound me up and hugged me
'O how the mother loves thee'
She covered my body
In a ragged flag and bloody -
Now should you expect to see something that you hadn't seen
In somebody you'd known since you were sixteen;
If love is a bolt from the blue, then what is that bolt but a glorified screw?
and that doesn't hold nothing together
Far from these nonsense bars and their nowhere music it's making me sick
And I know it's making you sick
There's nothing there, it's like eating air
It's like drinking gin with nothing else in
That doesn't hold me together.
But for one crowded hour, you were the only one in the room
And I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin
Now I know you like your boys to take their medicine
From the bowl with a silver spoon
Run away with the dish and scale the fish by the silvery light of the moon
Who were taught from the womb to believe to the tomb
In as far as their bleeding eyes see
Is a pleasure pen, meant for them, builed and rent for them
Not for the likes of me
Not for the like of you and me
And for one crowded hour, you were the only one in the room
And I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin
Oh but the green-eyed harpy of the salt land
She takes into hers my hand
She says, "Boy I know you're lying
Oh but then, so am I,"
And to this I said "Oh well."
Well put me in a cage full of lions, I learned to speak lion
In fact I know the language well
I picked it up while I was versing myself in the languages they speak in hell
That night that silence gave birth to a baby
They took it away to her silent dismay
And they raised it to be lady
Now she can't keep her mouth shut
And for one crowded hour, you were the only one in the room
But I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin
One crowded hour, you were the only one in the room
Well I played a few songs for those bumps in the night
In fact I played this very tune
You said, "What is this six-stringed instrument but an adolescent loom?"
You don't keep me company,
You all turn out wrong,
If you are my daughters, if you are my sons,
I can only hold you inside for so long,
O song, did I lead you on?
If you are my love, well love what's wrong?
You don't keep me company for near enough long,
I can't feel or touch you, or hold you for long,
O song, are you leading me on?
Friends come in time, and then they are gone,
I know what it's like to be floating along
Without a warm body to heap your cares on,
O on and into the night.
For I have been bad now for twenty years long,
For centuries you have been pure and strong,
If you thought me a good place to stay you were wrong,
Rattle, rattle, face to the battle,
Set your jaw for the hour of war
O, once more, once more.
Pretty kitten with your poor paw to mitten,
Padding out the plan for to sentencing your man
Once more today,
Into the fray,
O but none shall pass through here
Way back when we had some friends
They kissed us merely,
Myths came often then.
Rattle, rattle, your man is an animal
Your precious loving moments resound here like omens,
You think of yesterday,
When you used to have your way,
O but none shall pass through here
Way back when we had some friends
They missed us dearly,
Kissed us often then.
O hell, hell
Can you hear it
O no it's only you
Rattle rattle, tiny and terrible,
The sounds that we make when our better parts break
Strange paradise that you're living in,
Strangers talk to you in hissing tongues, fictioning.
I've gone inside some, you don't see me none,
I don't speak with the fear you secretly like to hear.
You get stuck out past the toll chains
And your heart begins its boiling in the cavern
Of your missing shame,
You hear those flapping buds?
You got your values plucked.
Know it's the end of conviction.
You see them walk the streets in packs
Like so many chimpanzees,
Those mental amputees,
No culture only liberties.
If I could wipe them out,
Like never born nor seen,
But it's always been this way,
But I think you know what I mean.
I'm willing to go now,
I'm ready to feel no pain,
Just a sharp red rip,
Then the lights go out on my trip,
One more death in the prison.
Hear the crows speak, know the crow's tongue,
Crows don't eat their own meat, they don't brook no carry on.
So they can speak their bit the Mob, but I can't cop that kind of gob,
Babble and spit the evening long, make a right out of being always wrong.
I'm willing to go now,
I'm ready to feel no pain,
Just a short, sharp rip,
Then the lights go out on my trip,
One more death in the prison.
O for the Mobility get what the Mobility seek,
Though not one of it knows what it means,
You paint it a picture its eyes roll back,
You sing it a song it screams.
O the demise of diction,
Know it's the end of conviction,
You can't walk through the Isle of the dead
You can't lie still in the guest house bed
There's a pair of black eyes staring down at you
From the mountain top, through y'r window
The bunks are empty, your mates are gone
Breakfast lasts an hour long
O warm bread, drawn tea
The bastards'll never get to me
But somebody knows, somebody knows
Somebody always knows
Where a body goes
I were one of two, we were joined at the shoe
When we thought to make our break
So we shimmied our locks and we knocked up a box
And we rode the thing down the waterway
Now the Derwent twists and the Derwent slides
It's a moving thing with many eyes
O who'd have thought, at all or often
That vehicle would become our coffin?
So many souls, so many souls
So many souls in the water
I left me a little daughter and I left me a girl
And I left them alone in that tired old world
O where are they now?
I am one of a gang set to work on the land
A clearin' and fellin' and killin'
The best of us here has a conscience clear
And he goes about it keen and willin'
We're shooting them from the rocks
And we're shooting them in the water
And when they're runnin' we're shootin' them in the backs
And we do it without a thought or care?
So many lies, so many lies, so many lies been told
We'll none of us here grow old
Not gracefully, not peacefully in this blind old land
O Genevieve, would that I could see you growing older
With my right hand so cold 'round a colder can of Coca-Cola...
I walk through the uni, lazy campus, lazing apes under the sun
Thinking "How the fuck?", "How the fuck could she love a drowned amphibian?"
When I left her mourning naked, pleading with me "Won't you stay?"
But Movie Mondays are more important, more important on the day
It's the end of the feature, and all of my imaginaries come to life
It's an old friend, yearning badly for the things that happened just last night
So I tell him "We've got years to fill with the stupid shit we haven't done"
Tragic wagon, rickety wheeling over the cliff into the sun
Cheap freedom, there's something about you
I'm not sure what it is, but I'm beginning to doubt you
On the way to the station, running the day down
Going back to where I first reside
Yeah, going back to where I first reside
Yeah, going back to where I first reside
Hey, look - and there goes a wheelchair
It's lost it's rider, it's rider's fallen down the stairs to the ocean
And all I hear are perfect chords to come undone
Then I see her - emergent harpy from one room to the next
And we're all hungover
Everything seems like a memory to me now
And we're all hungover
Everything seems like a memory to me
And O cheap freedom, there's something about you
I'm not sure what it is, but I'm beginning to doubt you
On the way to the station, we're running the day down
Going back to where I first reside
And O cheap freedom, there's something about you
I'm not sure what it is, but I'm beginning to doubt you
On the way to the station, while running the day down
Going back to where I first reside
Well versed I am in the taint of my birth,
my diminishing roll in this sphere
But sometimes I require a communique from the mother to make it clear.
Well England is pretty in the summer time,
Boys are beautiful until the age of nine
And certainly women begin to pine for usurping their laden fear
But after making love we hear nothing, Mother Greer
But after making love we hear nothing, Mother Greer
Tiptoe Tiptoe with me...
O no tiptoe of tiny feet make sound
or tiny heartbeat pound in our ears
waking up with the sweats and the terrors
like some fifty-five year-old corporateer
Who after making love he hears nothing, Mother Greer
Yes, after making love we hear nothing, Mother Greer
Rise, rise, rise, and tune your Pianos,
i hear the wind whistle through their teeth,
you cheating sons from your deep, your dreamless, endless, arse-facing, walking, sleep...
Well versed I am in the taint of my birth,
my diminishing roll in this sphere
But sometimes I require a communique from the mother to make it clear.
Well England is pretty in the summer time,
Boys are beautiful until the age of nine
And certainly women begin to pine for usurping their laden fear
But after making love we hear nothing, Mother Greer
Yes after making love we hear nothing, Mother Greer
Why are there so many of you over there when you can't even get over here?
After making tracks we hear nothing, Mother Greer
Rise, rise, rise, and tune your pianos,
i hear the wind whistle through their teeth,
you cheating sons of deceit while I'm breaking melodies every time i breathe...
"Well met, well met" said an old true love, "well met, well met" said he,
"I have just returned from the salt salt sea, and all for the love of thee."
From pole to pole I've spread my soul o'er sea to august sea,
In body, bankroll and bedded sin, I've liked to spread it thin.
I saw you in the German eye, I caught you in the head,
In hearts beset by Winter's debt, I heard you wonder why -
O why, o why do the tender sigh at first with the breath of me,
Then at my leave remember grief and clouds to fill the sky?
I'll tell you why your majesty, I'll join you in your balcony,
Your lofty arboreal grace, and in my hand your crumbling face -
It's for they know that when you go the anger does awake
And the babies that you bred will grow to armies in your wake!
That's why the tender in their few do seek to touch the heart of you,
And round the planet do oft do sing, to make a final honest ring...
For love or lack thereof, turn back - All for the love of thee!
For love, or thereof, turn back - All for the love...
"Well met, well met," the English said, and sailing set for free land,
Albeit chained and with a pent up greed, they killed a family,
And all before your pretty face, not once or twice or three.
Have men been stirred, and thick, and furred as beasts and all for thee,
And all for the love of thee
To be,
A bee, a moth.
Four wings spread for the soft last touch
Of glory sun,
Remembering blood plums and lips and lemons -
One hundred different suns
In a hundred different heavens.
Spied from a rowboat -
Stroke, nought is spoken,
Before you know it, the spell is broken,
You might wonder where you are,
Floating on the reservoir.
I have counted the notes
We landed here not many years ago
And it was not a pretty song that we composed:
La, la, la, the early bird he knows,
You hang from the cherry bough
When you're lichen yourself, and leave -
The cold cold scent of stone and mulch,
The great stone wall to stave the rush,
To think that peace might be too much,
Waiting for that giant touch...
The lake... the fir-fringed lake -
Placid and ample, birded, breezed and dappled
Through the mountain break,
Through the mountain break,
A moment take, a moment, a moment...
You might wonder where you are,
Perched up on the reservoir,
Adolf in the white hotel,
All this time we've been in hell,
You might wonder where you are,
Perched above the reservoir,
Luis of the lake retire,
Before they set the lake on fire
Before they set the lake on fire
As the cold comes to claim up
I take the air and know your pink aroma
And I should haunt your very vestibules
And hover like the smoke over Tecoma
If I could dive my hands
To the roots of your tallest trees
And it was all I ever do
And it was all I ever do
Never feed from the hand
Never beg, never stand on two feet
I see your memory is starved and smell your history
It doesn't raise an appetite
I haze the rill up with my steam, the fishes scream
The lilies dream my eyes to black
If I could sink my teeth into
The dreams of ordinary people
And it was all I ever do
And it was all I ever do
Never feed from the hand
Never beg, never stand on two feet
Now the fire's come to reap
I've got to raise you from your sleep
And speak the iron in my teeth and will
I have a memory of soul
Of trusted hand, of twining blood
I have my step there at the top of the hill
If I could hitch my hind
To the wagon of sighs you get around with
And it was all I ever do
And it was all I ever do
Never feed from the hand
Well it's my very little wonder and it's one that I will keep,
But you can take it with you if it helps you when you're trying to sleep...
and the men who are a cut above today are often not so very deep.
Young ladies of means will say "I am, I am, I am, I am, I am",
Sitting on the edges of their seats on the light rail tram,
amongst the could-a-beens, the also-rans -
It's very little wonder if you cry,
It's very little wonder you don't cry,
The birds were framed, the babies were framed, and so too the black sky.
You can't hear the ready laughter in my song,
When I was laughing all day yesterday and all night long,
till we shook off the fears, and had us both in tears,
O brother don't clean out your ears and you might be amazed
to find the secrets of the city in its alley ways,
In the bins behind the swill cafes,
amid the clean-picked chicken bones and cartilage a spirit groans,
a small heart beats and a red beak groans
"O pity, where's my little body gone?"
You'll know why, it's very little wonder you don't cry,
Don't be ashamed of a guilty little rain, and don't be ashamed,
it's just the drink, it's just the drink, it's just the drink.
One marks a place, one makes a time,
One stops a'living, one goes about a'dying...
Somebody blew their brains out in this room,
I can feel it like it happened just this afternoon,
On the wall behind some furniture there's a stain in the shape of Africa,
O fear walks tall, when it's halfway up the hill with its friend alcohol.
I could hear the heavy footsteps in his hollow halls,
Little wonder that he soon devised to rid them all in one great gushing fall,
The billion tiny devil's feet that nightly walked that bloody beat
- Hi ho, ho hum, Get yourself a gun,
Open up your heart and let the bleeders run,
Hi ho, ho hum, Move the thing along,
Open up your heart and let the bleeders run
Hi ho, ho hum, Get yourself a gun,
Open up your heart and let the bleeders run,
Hi ho, ho hum, Think about your mum,
At ten o'clock is when I rise from my grave,
And cast my eyes over the ideas that I couldn't save,
Become regret and break upon me now wave after wave,
Bid me remember what I done.
A strange appeal is in the magazine zodiac, what inspiration are the
women of the dog track, now there's a wheel and there's a well and there's a big rack,
The perfumed killers from the north,
Collect each Saturday to brood and sally forth
I don't know enough to know not to show it
Or tell it like I know more,
I'm sorry darling but your roving poet's just a bank balance troubadour,
Who can't sing the song anymore.
At ten o'clock is when you open up your apple eyes,
And drink a cup into the one of earth the other skies,
And out your mouth a tiny burst of tiny baby cries
"O where o where o where did you get into to?"
A strange appeal unto a pocket where a body lay, I saw a dream of
such a couple only yesterday,
When the one did leave the other went to war Enola Gay, she had a halo,
Was a heroine, she had a halo, was a heroine
Well I know I'm not loathe to show it, I smile like a bandsaw,
I'm sorry baby but your roving poet's just a footloose man-whore, who
can't talk the talk anymore
We're just passing through
At ten o'clock is when I rise from my grave,
And cast my eyes over the ideas that I couldn't save,
Become regret and break upon me now wave after wave,
Bid me remember what I done.
When time doesn't tear you pay a fee to make it rip,
The ditch witch, the back hoe, the bobcat, the tip,
Soil from the hillock spilling over on that solemn lip,
It covers up the cedar mirror, do you ever see your
weakness any clearer?
We were winding up the road to the site with the windows down and
the cigarettes alight, singing some rubbish about "my soul's alright",
I didn't know what I could do...
It's just you and I and some other guy forever passing through?
We're just passing through
Like a: (gall stone)
(rat through a snake)
(little rubbish through a rake)
Here comes the night.
Roll on you careless evening,
When we unite
Not a force concurs,
Not hell nor heaven,
So let it come, let it rain,
Let it burn though you and me again
In the slums without name,
and it isn't only poverty to blame.
Here comes your man.
Rolling down the street the callous field,
He puts it in your hand
And all the world is but a whilst and a milkshake.
O how can you breathe little blue?
You have hooks, you have holes in you,
In absentium and in lieu of all the things that have been promised you...
But o my sweet how incomplete you are,
in your eyes a smile so sweet
A silly soldiers scar
Splits you face from ear to ear,
You pretend that you simply cannot hear
The bells and the bombs going off in the galleria.
Here comes the night.
Roll on you careless evening,
When we unite
Not a force concurs,
Not hell nor heaven,
Let it come, let it rain
Let it burn through you and me again
In the slums without name,
And it isn't only poverty to blame -
My sweet how incomplete we are,
In their eyes am I from dust
You from my bones imparted.
And if that don't make you laugh at nature's rough replacement.
Too late in all : Here comes the night
Here comes the night
Here comes the night
Here comes the night
Scoop my brains and let my heart have action
In it's thousand million lots,
In the dumb city dawn I am senseless and drawn to the sun
As the blackbirds and the toppyknots.
And in biting down on the great foam world
What is the looming thing?
Not money, not flesh, not happiness,
But this, which makes me sing.
O scoop my brains and let my heart have action
In it's thousand million lots,
And feel the subterranean movement a fraction
And deep under ocean, the celibate rocks.
Has it borne me down?
Has it run me through?
If I give it a name do I contract it too?
More likely this thing has been growing in me,
Like I have grown in you.
Scoop my brains and let my heart have action
In it's thousand million lots,
In the dumb city dawn we dispense with the forlorn beasts
That we were in the night, grown lean on love.
A love which will pierce and callous and tumesce,
O upon the birth oath the morbid bloom
Is a child's sense of impending doom
In a womb that is ambushed,
In a womb that is ambushed.
In biting down on the great foam world,
What is the looming thing?
Not money, not flesh, not happiness,
But this, which makes me sing.
Not money, not flesh, not happiness,
Mother duck waddles out to the edge of father duck's house
Shakes her feathers in Harry duck's face
Harry duck gets pissed, shakes his little feathered fist
Father duck has no qualm about entering the fray
It's not solely a duck thing but entirely a fuck thing
The Yanomami Indians are knockin' at your door
When Helen of Troy gets her hands on you, boy
Before you know it, she's a siren for a nuclear war
I get so tired of saying "There's no life here, baby"
Hearing "Well at least there's no death here, either"
In the middle of the night, in the middle of the park
You can hear the possums screaming as the dogs begin to bark
There are pieces of their leashes in the silver wolverine
Pissing on the faces of the so-serene scene
And the "More police per parking lot than any other country"
Won't prevent the bloodshed 'cause the dogs are hungry here
Oh Mr. Government says -
"I wanna veto over every idea that comes from the heart"
Now that's a good start, yeah that's a good start
Stake a claim through the centre of the state - and pull out it's heart
Walking on down to the old casino
Thinking "We should maybe build a new casino"
Dressed to the 90's in my gold merino cloak
Oh everything's annoying tonight...
Now all you college boys and girls pretending to be solid boys and girls
Pretending everything is solid in the world
No it isn't - and you will find out soon
That every song that you were dancing to was never your tune
As you wait by the door for your sun-sucked lay
To slam her in the back of your graduation cabriolet
Put the Young Liberal sticker on the windshield
Pop another cherry 'neath the flag of your future seal
Wait by the door for your sun-sucked lay
To slam her in the back of your graduation cabriolet
Put the Young Liberal sticker on the windshield
Pop another cherry 'neath the flag of your future seal
Now all you college boys and girls pretending to be solid boys and girls
Pretending everything is solid in the world
No it isn't - and you will find out soon
That every song that you were marching to was never your tune
As you wait by the door for your sun-sucked lay
To slam her in the back of your graduation cabriolet
Put the Young Liberal sticker on the windshield
I didn't know you, I never knew you,
Now I'm never gonna see you again.
An acquaintance all my childhood years
I could never call you a friend.
I was afraid that I might become you,
I was afraid you might appear
As a weight upon my chest at night
And a whisper in my ear.
O the watershed I built
And wept enough that I could fill it,
So the ground beneath my feet would yield
Enough that I could heal it.
I'm gonna get it back, gonna get better,
Gonna get it fixed, gonna burn that letter,
I don't know what's coming but I'll take it,
Whatever now.
For I was born to another vocation,
I was born in another era,
I wasn't born that I should live my life
Beneath your failure and fear.
Every night the storm grew closer,
Every day the fire drew near,
When they'd meet upon this acre
And I prayed it'd up and disappear.
O the watershed I built
And wept enough that I could fill it,
So the ground beneath my feet would yield
Enough that I could heal it.
I'm gonna get it back, gonna get better,
Gonna get it fixed, gonna burn that letter,
I don't know what's coming but I'll take it,
Whatever now.
You didn't know it, you didn't see me,
As you went about your work.
I was hiding in the pantry,
I was practicing the shirk.
By the time my shoulders straightened up
And my hands were strong enough,
You couldn't lift an arm against her,
You were too ill for that kind of stuff.
O the watershed I built
And wept enough that I could fill it,
So the ground beneath my feet would yield
Enough that I could heal it.
Women don't see it when they're with the wrong fella,
Women don't see it cos you know they don't wanna
Women don't see it when they're with the wrong fella,
Women don't see it cos you know they don't wanna,
I could see it coming but I know
Lately the smoke from the burning bushes,
Has the eye and the mouth tasting ashes,
For the price we've the haze of Olympus,
Ambling by the Children's Farm,
Imitating the river's calm,
Liberated, the heart, from alarm
On this dog's day.
While it lasted the morning long,
Came the feeling of something wrong,
As you knew that it would before long,
A grave expectation,
So the hackles did raise some,
O it never stays under even on
A dog's day,
You start looking for targets for your arrows,
A bloody sheath for your eager blade,
Dark clouds for the sun to shroud
On this dog's day.
Hills become mountains, sheer cliffs beside,
Fickle elation meekly turns its tail, digs a hole and dies.
The shrill cries of battle from gamboling spawn,
Terriers come at a clip across the lawn,
The mothers' competitions, the fathers' stifled yawns
In this hazy picnic season, light beer and gentle treason.
Why would it give rise to an anger?
Could this city outdo its own languor
While tumbling bodies of children figure
As targets for your arrows,
Little marks for your seasoned eye,
Such a violence underlying this dog's day.
Why don't you dispense with your secrets,
Give your rambling blood a rest,
There must have been a light in your eyes
That you didn't see the devil in me
When he was right there inside, in my low company
That I never made an effort to hide or to get him behind
That the surface don't quake when you see me in the grip of the vice
That the earth doesn't shake shouldn't come as the biggest surprise
Seeing blind love loans a clever disguise
Another day in the dirt
Make you wonder will it ever come clean
Well, I'm not a machine but if we're gonna bury the hurt
Take your pick and your shovel and lean to the task sister, lean
Oh, how long will I go on about it though it profits me none?
But the day that I cease from my labor then the devil has won
Until that day I won't be holding my tongue
(What I wanted to say)
Is if the two of us, me and the devil, both can live in my skin
And I can keep a close eye on him, then you know that the devil won't win
The horror of departure,
The chemical disarmament,
No presence is permanent.
But people leave traces,
When they leave these places,
And I have come to depend on
Certain of your faces,
And I can't do it anymore.
The spirit of abandon,
Where the spirit is abandoned,
And the body thinks itself to soar.
But people leave traces
A spiritual departure,
Your disintegrating stature,
And well you might be scared to look
Over your shoulder,
Watch her crumble into sand,
The last woman the last man,
Swim the sea and walk the land
To leave and leave and leave and leave
People leave traces
When they leave these places,
And I have come to depend on
Certain of your faces,
But I can't do that anymore.
Where you gonna go from where you've come?
Save your face and all your grace and run, and run
Maybe to your sister's, maybe to your mother's house
Maybe lying naked on your brand new boyfriend's couch
Maybe underground where the germs won't get you
Maybe to the hills where the dominoes won't hit you when they fall
Where you gonna go when it breaks?
Where you gonna go when it petrifies the lakes?
Maybe to the circus, maybe to the movie church
Maybe build your birdhouse from this fallen yankee birch
Maybe to the ocean where the storm is raging nigh
Maybe to the desert where you can't afford to cry
Why don't you come with me?
Why don't you come with me?
Where you gonna go when I'm gone?
Will you ever understand this song? This song...
Let's go to the river, we can sink our bodies low
And I can say what I have died to say - "Ho hum, o hi, hi ho..."
Maybe clown for president, pissing in the ditch
Maybe killer culture, maybe poisoning the fish
Maybe underground where the germs won't get you
Maybe to the hills where the dominoes won't hit you
When they fall into the ocean, where the storm is raging nigh
Maybe to the desert where you can't afford to cry
Why don't you come with me, with me...?
It's too hot babe, pull the covers back,
Don't touch me babe, I don't remember ever liking that,
Don't touch me babe, roll over.
O brother, you don't know what you've got, only time flies
You've gotta do some clockwork.
Sometimes you hear the broken bell sound up on the whore's hill,
The ladies clamor for the Salvo's sale, bickering like little girls
For second hand womens' things, for countless prying mans' hands.
O working girl, you don't get round enough, it's like yr daddy says
You gotta do some clockwork.
(in a berth of the port wharf the song of the penitent sailor upon
what stage? A slab in the gut of a Japanese whaler a material blue
and tailored and time is a tailor both brief and slow.)
Now I can hear the broken bell,
Now I can hear the clockwork,
It has me reaching for the hidden rail,
It has me listening for the song bird,
But I hear it very minor,
But I hear it very minor
O singer, I don't believe your song, or your lying lines,
O singer, I don't believe your song, or your lying lines
You've gotta do some clockwork:
The Pneuma, Cecilian, the Metzler, Angelus, Virtuos, Apollo, Paragon, Minerva, Stella
Clockwork, all clockwork.
O but I didn't write this song with a machine,
Shining city on the plain
No more sorrow, no more pain
City of rescue, I don't know
Is that where all good people go?
If that's where all good people go
Leave me here, I tell you, no
All good people in one place?
Nary there an honest face
The seer and the imbecile there in the garden meet
What comes about as they nut it out there in the bower seat
One of them picks the others brain, the other picks his feet
The city enters into night, the day is fleet
Well, I already know how to walk the line
I already know how to read the signs
I've been in the business of pleasing somebody
All of the fucking time, so now I'm gonna run
Wealthy city by the sea
Got no room for people like me
Can't see half what they can see
City of rescue by the
Semen and ovum there in the oven meet
What comes about I have my doubt in that infernal heat
It's not a billionth miracle that's brought up to the teat
If it's sucking for the rest of its life and never free
All alone outside of the city
I don't even have it now
With the burning rain of someone's pity
Pattering on my brow
It's a long, long way to rescue
I didn't say goodbye to you
Or make an empty gesture too
Though many people showed me how
Well, I already know how to walk the line
I already know how to read the sign
I've been in the business of pleasing somebody
All of the fucking time so now I'm gonna run
I don't know what I've been told
I don't know what I've been told
I don't know what I've been told
Century son, you're such a nervous one
When just the wind in the trees could set your trembling knees to tremble
Well are you doing okay? "O ask me on a better day -
You've asked me on a bad"
Days of debauchery and days of divorce
Will have his history come striving with a terrible force to break you
And what about the starlight on your head?
It took a million light years to reach you
But you complain that it's cold and damp
Well didn't anybody teach you?
The place you used to live, did easily forgive
But with every quickly passing day that place is gonna pass away
Forget it
Forget it
Century son, you're such a nervous one
When just the wind in the trees could set your trembling knees to tremble
Days of debauchery and days of divorce
Will have his history come striving with a terrible force to break you
Tripping a horse, it takes your file in the courts
And makes you bitter like you thought you'd never be
Well what about the starlight on your head?
It took a million light years to reach you
But you complain that it's cold and damp
Well didn't anybody teach you?
And what about the starlight on your head?
It took a million light years to reach you
But you complain that it's cold and damp
Well didn't anybody teach you?
The place you used to hide
And the little friends that wept at your confide
To lie and lie and lie and lie, the century will testify
That all your days out in the sun amount to nought and nil and none
We're cancer to you, century son
Century son
They married, a dandy and a back alley tough
On the foreshore while kids in the needling rough
Stayed low, in and laid till they'd had enough
Of the somersaulting hot roll of revolting September
By thickets beneath the hot halo above
The plague bodies bathed in their talentless love
It's hot in the town with its back to the sea
O darling, don't put your veil over me
From thinking a life was about them
When, long, they were the thorn in its side
The hard men got plucked and by measures were gone
At pride it plucked and out, out it pried
Where's the shame in a gentle man?
Stand him next to me
It's hot in the town with its back to the sea
O darling, don't put your veil over me
Honey, we'll go without, honey, grow old and thin
I love you like I love my own skin
From thinking a life was about them but stranger
The soft women lowed and came in and were in
To swoon, "O welcome hot united sailor"
Welcome from unsteady decks and from danger
Did you see a new sun in the sky?
The sun is blood and blood is a lie
It's hot in the town with its back to the sea
O darling, don't put your veil over me
Honey, we'll go without, honey grow old and thin
I love you like I love my own skin
O my bonny lies over the ocean
My bonny grows old and thin
Your issue may walk among fine moral spires,
But if they went up somebody else built them,
Your store is a small one, your goods have no buyers,
Your parents are raising your children.
O I could have told you the vices won't hold you warm in a coil where you lay,
But high up they hang you, seized by the temple,
And bid you obey and obey
A heinous, heinous law
Of an endless, endless love
That governs your poor heart
In its velvety chambers, where fellows foul met
Engage in exchanges,
Whose ends are to put out your lights,
Who know from the inside you won't put up a fight
To a heinous, heinous law
It's winter in my bedroom, I stir the broken spring,
And I have in my head to go crawling,
When the hounds come around I go to the bottle
Like every wet shadow before me.
Now are you angry at me 'cos I'm no longer free?
I don't sound it or say it or feel it.
O but out on the street somebody told me
It happens to everyone.
So I don't blame you, it's my foot in my shoe,
And I seem to have easily filled it,
While the thing in my charge, whether tiny or large,
I fear I may slowly have killed it,
Blind to the charms
Of the Toecutter Arms,
My labor to the east by knit and by darn,
Looking for the world like a whelp at sea,
The discoverer's cottage had a light on for me,
I would lie on the porch and let the penny drop easily...
Duly, duly disabled,
Truly, truly lost.
When I woke up it was dark,
Lying on my side in the Parliament park,
Puking up my pay in the gerbera bed,
I could see the premiers talking
Hear the husbands in the garden
Stalking, looking for rough love...
Duly, duly disabled,
Truly, truly lost,
Beneath the blanket of the coverlet,
Beneath the blanket of the morn.
On my Exford legs, on my Exford walk,
Bury my brains in my Exford talk,
Til there's nothing I wouldn't do
I dreamt, I got a snakebite
Just a dream but upon waking up
My head felt light
My arm felt tight
Where the serpent struck
A mark so faintly
There upon me
With very little warning the end
And if you think that
I'm becoming the worst I can become
You've got another thing coming, baby
I've a few tricks up my dirty white sleeve
Run, run, run, run, run
Run, run, run, run, run
I see that you've got well made hands
You're well put together
You smell like apples
Taste like the sea
And in your nature, a full set of vigors
I have a vision of you ripely
Hanging from the tree
Swinging in the orchard breeze
And though nobody wants a part of the ritual
You could at least keep me an honest vigil
And if you see me rising up through the floor
With unblinking eyes
Run, run, run, run, run
Run, run, run, run, run
I lie awake tonight
It's weight upon my chest
Smell of the well upon the unwell
Voice from the dark water, I don't recognize it
There's a thing that I must do
A question I should ask
Who are you? Why do you come for me?
Who are you? Why do you come for me?
Who are you? Why do you come for me?
Oh, nobody wants a part of the ritual
You could at least keep me an honest vigil
And if you see me coming out the door
With a bloody hand
Run, run, run, run, run
And if you see me rising up through the floor
With unblinking eyes
Run, run, run, run, run
Run, run, run, run, run
Over the airwaves tonight,
Sailing by love's lonely light,
Isn't it blue, or isn't it brighter than
The pilot of a domestic flight
Under this low, lonely light
I might be still in sight,
You were a girl, now you're a wife
Do not these memories stir you
From your long & peaceful night's
Sleep in perfection
Asleep in Perfection
A soul's misdirection, directed at you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Waiting for summer to come,
You wear a rainbow on
And outside your window something grows
In your garden, is it content
That's not what I need tonight,
Maybe I do not think right,
Or maybe I lack that insight
That only the numb or the peaceful might
Sleep in perfection,
Asleep in Perfection
A soul's misdirection, directed at you
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Over the airwaves tonight,
Sailing by love's lonely light,
Isn't it blue, or is it the sight of you
Set to fall
Asleep in perfection
Asleep in perfection
Asleep in perfection
Asleep in perfection
A soul's misdirection, directed at you
The children of this cold coast
Are throwing themselves off cliffs,
We know that they don't want to
But memory insists -
Memories of water,
Fantasies of fins,
So be off baby seal.
Swim little fish...
Under mackerel sun, you're unnatural
O how, how do they breathe?
And whales hear whales
When love comes down there,
But also from miles
Hear pain and there fear.
Pinned by the water pins,
Stuck by the ships,
Mild the bay seems,
Mild in the mist...
Under mackerel sun, you're unnatural.
O how, how do they breathe?
On days when the bay breaks,
And gales gut the shore,
They come up from the water's edge,
And they appear young no more -
White haired, widowed, and what they would have been.
Children at eternal play.
A Tuesday night in Winter, holed up in the city of ravens,
The owls in the hills hoo-hooing and eyeing off the field mice down in the cold grey centre,
Addle Brains lining up with the dead for the soup spoon,
Addle Brains and the legions of the passed for the bread bag,
Ladle the soup, pass the rolls,
Addle Brains and the many not here and loose souls.
One might fly off to the blank heavens and the lead high halls,
O the hungry sky aches for blokes without folks and bulges with the bearers of palls.
Addle Brains would drink for four days and no eats,
and sleep in the glens of botanical parks, and on the humped bus shelter seats,
Where it's cold, where it's cold.
One morning I woke up in a room in the nation's heart,
and couldn't think for the life of me what I was doing, or where to start,
or what rehearsal was required, I was so sad and tired.
What does a bird want with money?
Was he made this way?
Do you have to earn the right to find all of this funny?
Nothing's funny today.
Addle Brains mixes his powders with his fateful blues,
and the wide-eyed bubs of the Parliament couldn't give a hoot, or even two.
All it takes, it takes, is a kind look and a word, a word,
Some pretty eyes and skin, from your fine family you were given to win,
and spill it over into the basin of common sin,
just a drop, a drop of the stuff that makes us kin
All my debt to you
All my pleasure in pain
Dimwit I was, Dimmer I'll be
Dim all the lights and we'll see what we see
I am music, a song made for playing
These dumb little notes
Wounds in my back Speaks silent all night
of the coming attack
Brutes with no vigour
and towns with no past whose founders, whose fingers forever
Come round here all the time
You don't know what you're saying
I know it's in the ...
Never in the playing
around there all the time
You don't know what you're saying
I know it's in the ...
Never in the playing
All my debt to you
All my pleasure in pain
Three hundred nights like three hundred walls
Must rise between my love and me
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