1981-1982

The Holy Hour

I kneel and wait in silence
As one by one the people slip away
Into the night
The quiet and empty bodies
Kiss the ground before they pray
Kiss the ground
And slip away…

I sit and listen dreamlessly
A promise of salvation makes me stay
Then look at your face
And feel my heart pushed in
As all around the children play
The games they tired of yesterday
They play

I stand and hear my voice
Cry out
A wordless scream at ancient power
It breaks against stone
I softly leave you crying…

I cannot hold what you devour
The sacrifice of penance
In the holy hour

Primary

The innocence of sleeping children
Dressed in white
And slowly dreaming
Stops all time
I slow my steps and start to blur
So many years have filled my heart
I never thought I’d say those words

The further we go
And older we grow
The more we know
The less we show

The very first time I saw your face
I thought of a song
And quickly changed the tune
The very first time I touched your skin
I thought of a story
And rushed to reach the end
Too soon

Oh remember
Please
Don’t change

And so the fall came
Thirteen years
A shiny ring
And how I could forget your name
The air no longer in my throat
Another perfect lie is choked
But it always feels the same

So they close together
Dressed in red and yellow
Innocent forever
Sleeping children in their blue soft rooms
Still dream…

Other Voices

Whisper your name in an empty room
You brush past my skin
As soft as fur
Taking hold
I taste your scent
Distant noises
Other voices
Pounding in my broken head
Commit the sin
Commit yourself
And all the other voices said
Change your mind
You’re always wrong

Come around at Christmas
I really have to see you
Smile at me slyly
Another festive compromise
But I live with desertion
And eight million people
Distant noises
Other voices
Pulsing in my swinging arms
Caress the sound
So many dead
And all the other voices said
Change your mind
You’re always wrong

All Cats Are Grey

I never thought that I would find myself
In bed amongst the stones
The columns are all men
Begging to crush me
No shapes sail on the dark deep lakes
And no flags wave me home

In the caves
All cats are grey
In the caves
The textures coat my skin
In the death cell
A single note
Rings on and on and on…

The Funeral Party

Two pale figures
Ache in silence
Timeless
In the quiet ground
Side by side
In age and sadness

I watched
And acted wordlessly
As piece by piece
You performed your story
Moving through an unknown past
Dancing at the funeral party

Memories of children’s’ dreams
Lie lifeless
Fading
Lifeless
Hand in hand with fear and shadows
Crying at the funeral party

I heard a song
And turned away
As piece by piece
You performed your story
Noiselessly across the floor
Dancing at the funeral party

Doubt

Stop my flight to fight
And die
And take a stand to change my life
So savage with red desperation
I clench my hands
You draw your claws
A hidden rage consumes my heart
As fuelled by years of wasted time
I close my eyes
And tense myself
And screaming
Throw myself in fury over the edge
And into your blood

Tear at flesh
And rip at skin
And smash at doubt
I have to break you
Fury drives my vicious blows
I see you fall but still I strike you
Again and again
Your body falls
The movement is sharp and clear and pure
And gone
I stop and kneel beside you
Drained of everything but pain

Screaming throw myself in fury
Over the edge and into your blood

Kiss you once and see you writhe
Hold you close and hear you cry
Kiss your eyes and finish your life
Finish your life

Again and again
Your body falls
The movement is sharp and clear and pure
And gone
I stop and kneel beside you
Knowing I’ll murder you again tonight

The Drowning Man

She stands twelve feet above the flood
She stares
Alone
Across the water

The loneliness grows and slowly
Fills her frozen body
Sliding downwards

One by one her senses die
The memories fade
And leave her eyes
Still seeing worlds that never were
And one by one the bright birds leave her…

Starting at the violent sound
She tries to turn
But final
Noiseless
Slips and strikes her soft dark head
The water bows
Receives her
And drowns her at its ease…

I would have left the world all bleeding
Could I only help you love
The fleeting shapes
So many years ago
So young and beautiful and brave

Everything was true
It couldn’t be a story…
I wish it was all true
I wish it couldn’t be a story

The words all left me
Lifeless
Hoping
Breathing like the drowning man

Oh Fucshia!
You leave me
Breathing like the drowning man
Breathing like the drowning man

Faith

Catch me if I fall
I’m losing hold
I can’t just carry on this way
And every time
I turn away
Lose another blind game
The idea of perfection holds me…
Suddenly I see you change
Everything at once
The same
But the mountain never moves…

Rape me like a child
Christened in blood
Painted like an unknown saint
There’s nothing left but hope…
Your voice is dead
And old
And always empty
Trust in me through closing years
Perfect moments wait…
If only we could stay
Please
Say the right words
Or cry like the stone white clown
And stand
Lost forever in a happy crowd…

No one lifts their hands
No one lifts their eyes
Justified with empty words
The party just gets better and better…

I went away alone
With nothing left
But faith

Charlotte Sometimes

All the faces
All the voices blur
Change to one face
Change to one voice
Prepare yourself for bed
The light seems bright
And glares on white walls
All the sounds of
Charlotte sometimes
Into the night with
Charlotte sometimes

Night after night she lay alone in bed
Her eyes so open to the dark
The streets all looked so strange
They seemed so far away
But Charlotte did not cry

The people seemed so close
Playing expressionless games
The people seemed
So close
So many
Other names…

Sometimes I’m dreaming
Where all the other people dance
Sometimes I’m dreaming
Charlotte sometimes
Sometimes I’m dreaming
Expressionless the trance
Sometimes I’m dreaming
So many different names
Sometimes I’m dreaming
The sounds all stay the same
Sometimes I’m dreaming
She hopes to open shadowed eyes
On a different world
Come to me
Scared princess
Charlotte sometimes

On that bleak track
(See the sun is gone again)
The tears were pouring down her face
She was crying and crying for a girl
Who died so many years before…

Sometimes I dream
Where all the other people dance
Sometimes I dream
Charlotte sometimes
Sometimes I dream
The sounds all stay the same
Sometimes I’m dreaming
There are so many different names
Sometimes I dream
Sometimes I dream…

Charlotte sometimes crying for herself
Charlotte sometimes dreams a wall around herself
But it’s always with love
With so much love it looks like
Everything else
Of Charlotte sometimes
So far away
Glass sealed and pretty
Charlotte sometimes

Splintered in her Head

Shape is still
Asleep
With the toys
As tall as men
The pictures in the hallway
Turning inside
Whispers
Unseen
Jumping against the sky
Slipping away
He looks
For the last time…

One Hundred Years

It doesn’t matter if we all die
Ambition in the back of a black car
In a high building there is so much to do
Going home time
A story on the radio…

Something small falls out of your mouth
And we laugh
A prayer for something better
A prayer
For something better
Please love me
Meet my mother…
But the fear takes hold
Creeping up the stairs in the dark
Waiting for the death blow

Stroking your hair as the patriots are shot
Fighting for freedom on the television
Sharing the world with slaughtered pigs
Have we got everything?
She struggles to get away…

The pain
And the creeping feeling
A little black haired girl
Waiting for Saturday
The death of her father pushing her
Pushing her white face into the mirror
Aching inside me
And turn me round
Just like the old days
Just like the old days

Caressing an old man
And painting a lifeless face
Just a piece of new meat in a clean room
The soldiers close in under a yellow moon
All shadows and deliverance
Under a black flag
A hundred years of blood
Crimson
The ribbon tightens round my throat
I open my mouth
And my head bursts open
A sound like a tiger thrashing in the water
Thrashing in the water
Over and over
We die one after the other
Over and over
We die one after the other after the other…

It feels like a hundred years
One hundred years…

A Short Term Effect

Movement
No movement
Just a falling bird
Cold as it hits the bleeding ground
He lived and died…
Catch sight
Cover me with earth
Draped in black
Static
White sound

A day without substance
A change of thought
An atmosphere that rots with time
Colours that flicker in water
A short term effect

Scream!
As she tries to push him over
Helpless and sick
With teeth of madness
Jump jump dance and sing
Sideways across the desert
A charcoal face
Bites my hand
Time is sweet
Derange and disengage everything

A day without substance
A change of thought
The atmosphere rots with time
Colours that flicker in water
A short term effect

An echo
And a stranger’s hand
A short term effect
An echo
And a stranger’s hand
A short term effect

The Hanging Garden

Creatures kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark again
In the hanging garden
Please don’t speak
In the hanging garden
No one sleeps

Catching haloes on the moon
Gives my hands the shapes of angels
In the heat of the night
The animals scream
In the heat of the night
Walking into a dream…

Fall fall fall fall
Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall
Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals cry
In the hanging garden

Creatures kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark again
In a hanging garden
Change the past
In a hanging garden
Wearing furs and masks…

Fall fall fall fall
Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall
Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals die
In the hanging garden

In the hanging garden

Siamese Twins

I chose an eternity of this
Like falling angels
The world disappeared
Laughing into the fire
Is it always like this?
Flesh and blood and the first kiss
The first colours
The first kiss

We writhed under a red light
Voodoo smile
Siamese twins
A girl at the window looks at me for an hour
Then everything falls apart
Broken inside me
It falls apart

The walls and the ceiling move in time
Push a blade into my hands
Slowly up the stairs
And into the room
Is it always like this?

Dancing in my pocket
Worms eat my skin
She glows and grows
With arms outstretched
Her legs around me…

In the morning I cried

Leave me to die
You won’t remember my voice
I walked away and grew old
You never talk
We never smile
I scream
You’re nothing
I don’t need you any more
You’re nothing

It fades and spins
Fades and spins…

Sing out loud
We all die!!!
Laughing into the fire…

Is it always like this?

The Figurehead

Sharp and open
Leave me alone
And sleeping less every night
As the days become heavier and weighted
Waiting
In the cold light
A noise
A scream tears my clothes as the figurines tighten
With spiders inside them
And dust on the lips of a vision of hell
I laughed in the mirror for the first time in a year

A hundred other words blind me with your purity
Like an old painted doll in the throes of dance
I think about tomorrow
Please let me sleep
As I slip down the window
Freshly squashed fly
You mean nothing
You mean nothing

I can lose myself in Chinese art and American girls
All the time
Lose me in the dark
Please do it right
Run into the night
I will lose myself tomorrow
Crimson pain
My heart explodes
My memory in a fire
And someone will listen
At least for a short while…

I can never say no to anyone but you

Too many secrets
Too many lies
Writhing with hatred
Too many secrets
Please make it good tonight…
But the same image haunts me
In sequence
In despair of time

I will never be clean again
I touched her eyes
Pressed my stained face
I will never be clean again

Touch her eyes
Press my stained face
I will never be clean again

I will never be clean again

A Strange Day

Give me your eyes
That I might see the blind man kissing my hands
The sun is humming
My head turns to dust as he plays on his knees

And the sand
And the sea grows
I close my eyes
Move slowly through drowning waves
Going away on a strange day

And I laugh as I drift in the wind
Blind
Dancing on a beach of stone
Cherish the faces as they wait for the end
A sudden hush across the water
And we’re here again…

And the sand
And the sea grows
I close my eyes
Move slowly through drowning waves
Going away
On a strange day

My head falls backs
And the walls crash down
And the sky
And the impossible
Explode
Held for one moment I remember a song
An impression of sound
Then everything is gone
Forever

A strange day…

Cold

Scarred
Your back was turned
Curled like an embryo
Take another face
You will be kissed again
I was cold as I mouthed the words
And crawled across the mirror

I wait
Await the next breath
Your name
Like ice into my heart

A shallow grave
A monument to the ruined age
Ice in my eyes
And eyes like ice don’t move
Screaming at the moon
Another past time

Your name
Like ice into my heart

Everything as cold as life
Can no one save you?
Everything
As cold as silence
And you will never say a word

Your name
Like ice into my heart

Pornography

A hand in my mouth
A life spills into the flowers
We all look so perfect
As we all fall down
In an electric glare
The old man cracks with age
She found his last picture
In the ashes of the fire
An image of the queen
Echoes round the sweating bed
Sour yellow sounds inside my head
In books
And films
And in life
And in heaven
The sound of slaughter
As your body turns

But it’s too late

One more day like today and I’ll kill you
A desire for flesh
And real blood
I’ll watch you drown in the shower
Pushing my life through your open eyes

I must fight this sickness
Find a cure
I must fight this sickness…