When love comes to call

Your hands are up against the wall
The seconds pass but they never fall
A grain of sand can be a cannon ball
The speeding bullet leaves no trace at all
And you think you might cross the line
But your'e still just a clock wasting time

They line you up in the noon day sun
Stand you there and point the gun
Ask you son if there's somebody you wanna call
And you look up into the blazing sky
And beg your father please tell me why
I am made to suffer the indignities of grace
And you think that you might cross the line
That mercy might walk by, or show her face
But you know like a clock you're just wasting time
Cos we're all just standing up against the wall

Can there be an Eden where all our thoughts stand still?
That little forest path on the edge of the hill
That place in which time and love are held in suspension
Like the clock had stopped and we were held in detention
It happened to me once, then it happened the other way around
A friend hurt me, now I've hurt a friend
And how do we know just what we will do?
When love comes to call, when love comes to call?

I was walking in the forest of good intent
And thought I spied a deer so towards her I lent
I shot my arrow, it hit her heart and down she did fall
How do we know what we'll do
When love comes  to call?

Fire your burning arrows, ye gods, ye gods
Some of you play with our hearts
Like you play the fish with your bait and rods
Some of you toss the coin, some roll the dice
But its all the same in the final flame
When your hearts turn to ice

I thought I saw you in a dream, your
Grass snakes out numbered me
We dug them out, did they return?
All I know is how hot the arrows burn
When love comes to call
When love comes to call

Good Bye Vienna

Well its goodbye Vienna

And so long Saigon

Hello Honolulu

And my love is long gone

Ten thousand miles

On the blade of a knife

But it never cut me once

Not like my life

I shot through the country

And into the yard

And at the back of the city

My head hit down hard

Well its ten thousand borders

That I need to cross

But just one line between us

That decides a win or a loss

And I don’t like to gamble

With my heart in that way

Its already a shamble,

like a needle in the hay

I’ve lost my bearing

Somewhere on your map

And you’re out of my hearing

As you sit on my lap

There’s a wild unknown country

Where I must go

And so its out of the city

And on with the show

Where do those rails run?

Cold iron, cold iron
Where do these rails run?
Into the cold heart of the country
Into the hearts of everyone

Cold iron in my soul
A sliver of shrapnel
Just the last part
Of the bullet in my heart
Where you shot me

Cold iron, cold iron
Come to take my cares away
From the cold, cold morning
Of the railway

Cold iron in the north wind
Cold iron to the west
All I see are cold iron people
Wearing their chain mail vests

Come lay down your sleepers
Come lay them to rest
Cold iron creepers
Like vipers leaving the nest

Up past the scrub-land
Of the good intention
Out to the bone white trees
Into the frozen hands
Of a cold morning's breeze
Too cold to carry pretension

Some rails lead nowhere
Some tracks are dead
Some are like wild hair
Growing on a homeless man's head

Some sleepers are just rotten
They never find a bed
They can sleep no longer-they've forgotten
How to rest their heads

But the cold iron will remains
Even if their rails
Will carry no more trains

Their intention has been hammered down
By nine inch nails
Coffin ground, coffin ground
I can hear that coughin' sound
From the heart and lungs on fire
Smoke pours out from Hell's choir

Coffin ground where they lay their iron
Across the world, made their bed to lie on
Where are those rails running?
The devil knows and his cunning
Where have them rails run?
From hell below to heaven's sun

Let you go

I'm sorry I never meant to go
Down the streets against love's flow
Where people always fight
The sons of darkness
The daughters of light
To the towers of despair
I never meant to meet you there
I never meant to climb their stair

Just to find you
Just looking for you
I never meant to die for you
To seek you, or lie for you
In the pond of regret
Where we ponder and reflect
We are just tear drops
causing a ripple effect
Twisting beauty out of shape
Making pain in the neck nape

But slowly the image that was perfect
Has gone, its shattered like an ice lake
With the cracks in its surface
I began to lose your face
In the memories I make

I'm sorry I never meant to let you go
In the river's turbid flow
I never meant to let you drown
Or let you down
Now you're the queen
And I'm the clown

The War of the Roses

You give them away

A petal a day

A piece of your heart

For you own peace of mind

The Queen of hearts turned down her thumb

The ax fell, what's done is done

Another dead head

In the rose garden of her soul

The white and the red

They fight in your bed

And prick your sides with their thorn

It was more truth than lies

That tore at your pride

And it hurt just like being born

Oh please tell me why

When all loves may die

Must the War of the Roses rage on?

They cut up their soldiers

In a paper chain

And send them marching into the fray

Again, and again

But you just give them away

A petal a day

A paper heart inside a paper cup

No use screwing up

Those love letters you never sent

Just to scribble them again to vent

Your frustrations on the situation

It is impermeable, like a fish tank

You can’t get out

And everyone just watches you

Swimming around and about

With no particular purpose

No definite scheme

Just a clown in a circus

Or a boat adrift in a stream

No one said life was a bed of Roses

You made your bed now lie in it

We all wear the thorny crown

Each have our crosses to bear

There must come a night

Between the white and red light

When you have to decide to pick a side

So please tell me why

When all love may die

Must the War of the Roses

Rage on?

Women on a train

Women on a train
Like snakes on plane
Biting like vipers, shaking their mane
Drinking their vodkas in the quiet zone
The quiet zone, you did hear me right
"Quiet Zone" - "To RELAX" I want to shout
But they party on, toasting cheering
Not that I'm a killjoy
I just enjoy the peace and quiet
And I felt my employ
Hard enough this last month
To buy it

Therefore we had right on our side
Didn't we? We did!
And that is why I sidled up ta
The ticket conductor
To explain what the sign forbid
And point out their errant
rule breaking
As if some truant kid

In my mind they were due a detention
And I was the rat who dobbed them in
For my part I don't regret it,
They spoiled our journey
With their raving, bad behaving,
Their mock yawning
As if to show others respect were boring
And so they deserved their comeuppance
And receive a dose they did
Although a gentle but firm reprimand
At the hand of the conductor / the train God
Who gave them a scolding showed them the iron rod

Their eyes flickered in unnerving vengeful certainty
Seeking out their accuser / me
The atmosphere quietened to a whisper
Of the forked tongues of snakes hissing
Behind their teeth

The joke was on them in the end
And we alighted from the car
The trail of their wounding scar
Across their backs
Yet what conceited creatures were they

Pangs

I have pangs of sadness
Pangs of regret
Temporary things I cannot forget
Fleeting as sea gulls
Across summer skies
Like islands in the river
That rise then subside

I have pangs like shoulders
I shrug
Pangs like ripples
In an otherwise smooth rug
Pangs I want to iron out
Pangs that will not flatten
That want to shout

There are bitter fruit
That will not ripen
That hang on low branches of my gut
So low they brush the ground
Where weevils turn, worms are found
And the apples turn brown

Pangs like shattered glass in my soul
Like glass slippers I stole
But could not give back
Pangs of a dance
Where my feet were flat
And the music stopped
And when I got off
There were no more pangs
After that