Carnation hill

Maybe its colour of the red red rose
And maybe its the colour of the nation
Maybe its the colour of the road that goes
Maybe its time for vacation

Well I'm walking down the street in a certain pose
Raising my flag of damnation
Whoever told you that, he surely knows
There's only one road to salvation

Maybe its the colour of the dog at night
Maybe its the frost in the early morning bite
Maybe its the snow goose, maybe its the crow
Or maybe it just something I ought to know

Of Life and Death

I've seen you in the corner store
Next to the margarine
You were reciting Nietzsche's words
And the supreme human being
However the universal soldier
At the check out
Dropped his genes
Into the checkout girl's draw
And told her she was
Out of this scene
The director walked in all upperty
And wanted to settle a score
The producer had fallen in with the wrong sort
Of onions
And was known as 'cucumber obscene'
He said I'm not having this sort of carry on
In my show
You can go now,
But don't forget the blow
You owe me
Out back behind the bins
But he left under shadows of booms
Through the emergency exit
Behind a stack of magazines

Some time later the director
Was sitting in his chair
Interviewing a new actor
For the role of Fred Astair
So you say you can dance?
Well show me
Bring out the fast hearts
Lay your cards on the table
And the actor turned aces of faces
In his eyes
Black clubs made his boots
Diamonds stolen from skies
Sparkled over the spades of his shoes
And she knew
He had played his cards right

The next night
She was out there waiting for him
Ginger Rogers
In her costume
Of flowers in bloom
And colours like shrapnel
Splayed across the room
When she lifted her skirt hem
And swished like a balloon
All head and shoulder
and traction knee
All break a leg at the universal sodiers
Waiting in the quay
All sailors must love her space jamboree
And suck at their lamposts
Where she sings in the rain

It wasn't for love of money
That he stayed
You see the job was a good one
His days were arranged
And every brick of time numbered
Like in pyramids of the pharaohs
Egyptian mummies loved
To see their Cleopatre
And fathers and mothers all become
Strange when you think you don't
Their ancient histories
Yet it never comes out except when its laundered
No not the dirty money
The dirty mummy, silly
That's what I mean
And they reveal their mysteries
Inside a false magazine

We are Little Britain

Give me your answer
The bee is buzzing the rings are fastened
To the belt
The bells jingle
Like a thousand questions
That I've already answered before
Such silly dances these folk give
Without wanting to be twee
We British can't make a serious suggestion
Or connection with tradition
Which hasn't already been mocked
Or flogged to death on a debating floor
But over in Europe,
The individual is filled with somekind of power
Invested with some awe
By us British
Except the ones who are trying to rip them off
Make money from their children in summer schools

They have this otherness value that shields them
Like a shawl, a cloak of invisibility
If not of impenetrability
Which means everything they say has this extra weight
Even the everyday utterances
Even some cultural reference to a folk tradition
Is revered
But not in Britain,
Not about British traditions
Now let's be fair we mean the English
Scottish traditions have this cloak of protection
As do the Welsh and don't mention the Irish
But mention the English and it is quaint
Or silly or small and provincial
Though fiercely defended in the village
In the towns and cities they laugh and sneer
At such exhibitions of little england
Those little threads that tie
communities together
if that itself is not a clichéd or kitch concept

Spring time in the smoke

All the sexless numbskulls are trying to trip me up
In the forests of the evening and at the hour of the dusk
The candles they are leaning through the shadows of the tusk
And swallows tell their meaning in the narrows of the musk
Between the roof tops and the ceiling
Where they are all layed up
I think therefore I migrate,
I'm an immigrant of the brain
There are only seasons in the neural networks of the south
And the river flows with the blood of change
From its source right to its mouth
So silent, cold and unchanged
beneath the Danube rolls untouched

Can you clear a heart hole
Let the gold flow in its space
But no its full of pennies
And your heart strings are tied in knots
Nothing plays on the harp, the lute
The dulcet tones are strangely strained
And its all on waiting for the winter throes
Out in the fields of rain

Prometheus bound

Why did you go and do that to me
Can't you see how I'm pinned here
Alone to this tree?
Pegasus wings and Achilles' heel
Agamemnon brain, Prometheus knows how I feel
I discovered fire but now thess rocks are my rails
And I'm sinking fast the raven's pecking my entrails

Who should know my cast, who should?
Who has made my mould but some God
And then when I try creation
Well destruction is my reward
Who knows how I feel? But Perseus's sword
Made to cut the head off Medusas of the seas
And fire spitting serpents and slay dragons in the leas
Who but the Argonauts, or Ulysses
Strapped to the mast to resist the Sirens' Soliloques
So tempting an Island, an island I can't resist
An island of misfortune where my own ruin must persist
Hold me back from destruction
Hold me away from desire
And Like Prometheus before me
Tell me never to play with fire

Cleopatre and I

Now you are Cleopatre and I
I am Anthony
And the things that we see in each other
Are like Asp milk, so cloudy
We neither know the other
And yet both are in love with the love
The jar has been spilt over
And the river runs red with blood

Below There are no disguises
You wear your empress' gown
And I throw over my shoulder
The mane of a lion I pulled down

The African sun is rising
And the sand gets in my eyes
There is another storm on the the horizon
And it will be upon us by the sunrise

Everywhere

It is like you are over there
And I am over here
Come over here, from over there
There's a distance I can't see through
And my eyes, they are closed
But my mind is blinking in surprise
come over her, from over there
help me to open my eyes

And I don't feel its very fair
That I only deal in lies
In every pack the card I pull from
Behind your ear, like they
Were growing there
Come over here from over there
Show me that sleight of hand
Make my queens disappear
Come on before I go blind
Come over here from over there
Help me to reshuffle my mind

I've been on a losing streak
The gold is there I believe in what I speak
There is a vein running a thousand miles long
Under mountains from New York to Saigon
And I have to tap its source
Find out the strong from the weak
Do I need to bring you here by force?
Should I just let the river run its course
Come over here from over there
Let me feel you everywhere