Clocking off

Catch the two o'clock train

The station stands but we are walking

It will be back again

No stalking

Like a tiger in the long grass

Marauding passersby

Passengers

The tiger of time watching

Each second like a tigers tooth biting

Each minute like a claw, clawing

Each hour like a jaw on bone gnawing

Rolling us over and over, skin flail, caterwauling

Hear time stops

In a relative way at the station

Mr light beam gets off

Several decade before Mrs Sound barrier

Breaks shore in her steamer

Though her waves continue to ripple on the water

Mr light beam has left his particles to scatter

And in a quantum cafe the waitress

Is trying to untangle her reality

She's stirring the protons and neutrons together

In an atomic latte

Mixing in electrons

And a scattering of gluons

She tops it off

With a smattering of quarks

And just when she is serving it to

Mr Schrödinger in a hat

Who keeps appearing and disappearing

At the table over her shoulder
Asking for more milk
For his cat

Time's gravitational wormhole

Opens up to an alternative reality

Where many parallel waitresses

Are having similar experiences

But in a way that would make you

Question their validity

And I sit there sipping my coffee
Thinking of all the pieces
That fit together
Because they have to
Fall apart because
They want that
And I look at my watch
And realize my train
Will soon depart
I return the time piece
To my breast pocket
And it ticks a little
out of time
Above the beating
Of my heart

I digress, and I should

As life is a digression

Or is it a regression

Into an infinity of mirrored doors

Never mind, behind one

A prize surely awaits

And we are all winners

In the cosmic game show

Known as reality

And here is your host

Mr Reality TV

On times past

I must be guilty of something
To be up at this hour
Like stealing the silver ware
Or stealing from the Gods
Their fire power
I must be
So bind me in irons
Leave me in dungeons of despair
I have no hope of a better tomorrow
Each passion is like a cage
Of care

Each love is like a tide in the dawning of the moon
Swallowed by a whale
I'll sail back to you soon
But not before Jonah
Has done God!s bidding
Not before the guests have been
Welcomed to our wedding

There was a time like a memory of a lane
Like an autumnal sequence
Where brown leaves fall like rain
And they feel so real
Wet with laughter
Drenched in pain
In the innocence of belonging
To that time again

I cast down my manhood
Lost in memory
I am running through the fields
Of a childhood fantasy
And it all seems so close
It is so hard to bear
That such love as these were
Our rights as children
Have everywhere

Mine were no different, though luckier than many
To be growing up in the countryside
Needing little more than a penny
Nothing to live or die for
Just the being in its essence
That was the quintessential part
Of its innocence

If I come back from that long stupor
That reverie of a time long past
Now my eyes are wet

My heart weaker
But to forget
Is only temporary
Like a kind of sleep
When perhaps where a person
Really lives
Is in his memory

Faces in the glass

I broke her heart
it'd never been broken before -
like a glass vase
I shattered the visage
I broke her eyes
And they shed tears
I broke my own face
For a thousand years
Since Helen of Troy
I never thought I would love again
And again this heart is a toy
To play with in the rain

Manana, manana

The mud is in the water,
But its getting clearer
The more you know
The less the river seems to flow


The more you know the stiller
Seems the water
The deeper seems
The thoughts of her
to whom I used to go

The more the river flows
The faster all the dreams
The bigger in the the microscope
Of un-imagined things

Then I step back from the bank
And see the fishermen throw
Their lines in a flank
They're all trying to catch
The impossible

All the muddy waters of tomorrow
Don't you know
What they say in old Spanyol?
Manana, manana
Let tomorrow look after
Itself

I know I've seen your face before

I've seen your face some place before
In some theatre maybe or city store
No now I remember you stood at my door
I knew I'd see your face before

I've seen your face some place before
You've got the kind I'd remember
Like a mocking bird
Calling out your name to me
But its something I ignored
I knew I'd seen your face before

I've seen your face some place before
Was it on a poster for ghosts
Was it nailed to a wanted post
Did it set ships a sail to Greece's shore?
I knew I'd see your face before

Was it in Paris?
Was it in Spring?
Now you seem embarrassed
Oh dear was it a fling?
Did we love in the moonlight
Under the Cyprus trees did we sing?
Oh tell, me tell me who you are?

When something reminds me
But I know not of who
Like the lip of a sandal
That a dog might chew
Like some piece of rag
That one discards
I'm trying to remember but it seems so hard
You're on the tip of my tongue
You're a vision out of place
Like on the edge of the horizon
The dawn of your bright face
But I have not the hands
To hold your burning sun
The stars are so myriad
Like out of a million you're the one

Just lay your lines down
Like experience in the sand
Draw up the ground water
From the depths of memories found
Some twinkle in your eye
Reminds me of someone I knew
But am I the one you found
Or did I find you?

Memories fade, they fall in the parade
But I want to remember you
I won't let you fall into shade
Now the sun has shone upon all that you've done
I can see it in your eyes
You've still got things to come
I can trace in your smile
The hard work of the Nile
That runs beneath the surface of your skin
Just tell me is your style
In your heart or your guile
Now tell me are you sure?
I knew I'd seen your face before

Scatter my ashes in the Danube

Scatter my ashes in the Danube
And I'll be there to follow you
Beneath the sky of blue

Scatter my ashes in the Danube
All the funeral guests
In their best black dress
Beneath a sky of blue

Scatter my ashes in the Danube
Let them mix
With the twigs and the sticks
From the nests of the crows that flew

Scatter my ashes in the Danube
And I won't come and bother you no more
I'll be too tied up with lapping at the shore
And if you want to forget me
Then be sure
Not to leave on the bank my shoes

Scatter my ashes in the Danube
Where the firework flashes
And greasy hands pass cashes
All covered by the waters that flow

Scatter my ashes in the Danube
Where the waters mask a multitude
Of sins
And if you have to ask then you
Won't be let in
To the Danube river party today

Scatter my ashes in the Danube
Let them join with the bodies
That flow to the Black sea
Just tip up the urn and forget about me
Like they do, like they do
With everybody
Beneath the sky of blue

In flashes

I see you in flashes like in the storm
Like blood surges that keep me warm
I see you in flashes through the rain
Lightening crashes through my brain

I see you in flashes through the years
Some days like nights, some nights are clear
Some final thunder crashing fears
But I see you in flashes through my tears

There is no name for this flame
Anonymous giver of great fame
The love that lasts a thousand years
The love that laughs all through the tears

The love that jokes, but jokes in vain
When the last laugh leaves you out in the rain
The love that rules from some high up throne
The pearls of wisdom turned tears of stone

Come step down to the mortal plain
Where Angels tread, you're not alone
I see them clear through my window pane
Just like the flashes through the rain

The well of life, the Liverpool
Where the liver birds sit on a ducking stool
The sounds escape, the fury fuels
Another tape around another fool

And deep down mercy draws its fill
From the lake of glory
And destiny's hill
We tell its story
We tell it still
Til morning is hoary
Til the frost it chills

I put my life in your hands
We walk along the wet sands
Our foot prints leave their soul mark
Like signs of life, flashes in the dark

The speed of love, the speed of light
The root of God over men who fight
Angels gather on yonder hill
Can we count how many
The lightening strikes will kill
How many shall live
How many shall die
The power to give
Falls from heaven's sky
It falls not heavy on hoary heads
It falls equal on cowards, clowns and crowns
Its quality like an elixir
Gives a second chance
To the man in the mirror

Seen in flashes of a hope unknown
The rain spoken in splashes on a telephone
The line goes dead
But I hang on
Even in my head
I know my heart lives on

We reconnect when she picks up
After the storm inside the coffee cup
After the night has cooled the drinks
The moon does rise as the sun it sinks

Way across the ocean her image I glean
In flashes the moon like a ship I've seen
Rising up into a foreign sky
But so familiar like a kind of spy

The thunder bolt is in my hand
The power I hold I can't understand
I am no God I'm just a man
No golden calf, lion nor a lamb
Do I throw the dice, leave it up to fate
Am I too early give or to late to try?
Do I let her live or do I let her die?