Nailed

Check suit in the breeze
of the loosening tide
Crossing bridge McGovern
Where the greasy river slides.

Can feel the release
As I'm moving inside
Mirror valley shiver
Walking through the flickered light.

Clear bright alone
Not looking backwards
In my house of fear.

Can float in the stream
of the luminous night
Where the seas of laughter
flash beneath the city sky.

Metropolis deep
Sad and wonderous sigh
I'll love you forever
Walking through the flickered lights.

Clear bright alone
Not looking backwards
In my house of fear.

Blue Runner

It's daybreak on the hill
When I see the cranes fly high
Her grey dress hanging still
On the wall the shadows glide
Their staggered flight it bends
Across the morning sky
There's a road that takes me there.

It's daybreak on the hill
On the clear untamed horizon
The landscape like a still
Figure lies in naked silence
Take me where you go blue runner rolling by
On the road that takes me there.

Your silver soul
Through the prairies metal glow
Your silver soul
Tracks me, You're like a flame I can't hold.

When I wake I can still
Feel it in my veins like fire
As I wake I can still
Feel the same insane desire
Straighten from the bend blue runner rolling by
Every road it takes me there.

Your silver soul
Burns the further west I go
Your silver soul
Tracks me, You're like a flame I can't hold.

Your silver soul
Through the prairies metal glow
Your silver soul
Tracks me, You're like a flame I can't hold.

Rose-Marie's Leaving

When I was born
naked and free
Mama's mind went
Out of her reach
When I was born
Just you and me
Rose-Marie
I don't believe you'll leave me

And in the storms
of destiny
When the light went
You'd come to me
Then with the dawn
When I could see
Rose-Marie
I don't believe you'll leave me.

Something's wrong
It's plain to see
The way your eyes rest
Nervous on me
Everyone wants real love
Everyone wants real hatred
But nobody wants
to put their hand in the fire
Rose-Marie
I don't believe you'll leave me

I was born
with a crucifixion complex
High in the field
Under the sky
But what I see
Is what I believe
And Rose-Marie
I don't believe you'll leave me.

Rose-Marie
I don't believe you'll leave me.

The Cyclone

Through the back door
The cyclone sailed her heart
Through the house she flows
And lifts his bride from the ground
And through the trees
He clung to them both
And their twisted sheets
Don't know why she came here
But she won't take her away.
And by the vineyard wall
He caught her flaxen hair
And the cyclone paused
And stayed where he held her high
Her eyes stroked the plain
Far far away.

Through the black port
The cyclone sailed her heart
Where the bora blows
A wind that cries through the town
Across the sea
She says she won't go
In these foreign streets
And the road that came here
Is the road that takes you away.
By the station wall
She left them standing there
Her eyes stroked the plain
Far far away.

Get Critical

Never beginning, never ending days.
Days when the ceiling is so low I cannot stand
And the blunted knife presses into me.
Melting in the airless heat
The walls close in on me...
Nudging me this way and that
From one to another like nervous thunder
Thudding in my head a heart
Is beating out the boredom...
Nudging me this way and that
From one to another
Like nervous thunder,
Until I fall to claustrophobic sleep
And the ever watching walls lean over me

But when I wake I feel alone
There is nothing but a vast blank floor.
And although the walls are watching
I can never reach them.
No matter how far I walk.
I can never reach them.

Perhaps I'm hypnotised by the rhythm of walking
I don't know and I don't really care
All I want is clarity, a degree at least of clarity.
And gradually in the bright
Yellowing light there is detail,
I have to hold myself back
Because I am afraid of losing it
I cannot reach this by striking
Out wildly in the dark.

Slowly I'm aware of something
In my hand, it is another hand
And there are buildings, high-rise, tall,
Slender, monumental in the yellow light
I see the word 'firestone' and great movie
star faces.
Garage, barber shop, kiosk, multi-family dwellings,
Drugstore, sheet glass, casino, hotel bethlehem
And a wisp of my new loves thick brown hair
Brushes against my cheek
As the passing mouths of streets and
Arcades gulp in the new world rising,
This is the new world rising..

The Obvious

The figure of pawschien walking ahead of me
in the heat-haze jacket over his shoulder in the Sunday
Dockside quiet cavernous empty warehouses
blowing metal thunder
and contorting under the sun and the bay beaten
like a feline coat of steel.
He stumbles in the sand of slaters beach and turns smiling.
He's a plain guy, black hair down like a thatch
white teeth glistening black eyes smiling,
Born in the old town grew up in the streets,
know nothing of his past but have a vision of him
younger with a desperate face,
blade jumping in his hand like a snakeknife.
Don't know where that comes from.
I follow him.
His hometown was built wooden and tall and as the dusk
fell the streets became paths in a forest...
light bulbs swinging in the fluted air of aviary hill,
great cages alive with honey coloured birds and song
like the warbled sadness of a lullaby.
Walking on a thousand years of eggshells.
I take a draught of cold beer from a clouded glass
and look around the room...
Pawschien talking with brothers...the men have self-made
tatooed grids on their forearms in which there are sanskrit letters.
They tell me all that they know is the obvious and that
if I stay with them, maybe I will learn it too.
Suedehead girls with grey eyes and clear skin;
one has a crescent scar on her cheekbone,
she looks at me with an air of smiling anticipation
as though she's expecting me to recognise her at any second.
Something turns inside me like a tickling thirst...
others are watching me too, same expression,
Then look away laughing, shaking heads...it's OK,
You'll remember.
Back in the streets the scent of the human night seems
to hold me, steps muted by onion skins.
Old women sleep curled in the roots of houses,
coiled around bales and bundles of fresh herbs and babies.
Walking the wooden tunnels out of town
all I can think is.
Remember your way back here

-As in the darkness
all has vanished.
Remember your way back here.