S/T lyrics
Dark Hole
To My Mistress On The Moonshine Borne
Enter Black Tom
Where Ya Gonna Run When The Judgement Falls
I Am a Poor, Wandering Boy
Long Days
Trowel and Era lyrics
Abandoned Factories
The Father
The Marigold
Watching the Bay
A Sailor Song
All True Love Is Happiness
In The Icy Beds
Dark Hole is open
The daylight grieves
Dressed with a shadow
That never leaves
Weak winds of Autumn
And Spring collide
A war of equals
On every side
It’s the same thing, only different
Amid destruction
The slate wiped clean
There is no suction
No in-between
One way is Chaos
Reborn each day
The other Beauty
Wrapped in decay
All this time we were misusing
And the options, worse for choosing
Take a stand
Before it’s all losing
Oh! Killer conscience
How can I win?
When I evade you
You fill my head again
But I have refuge
A golden ground
Where tender answers
Succor holy sound
Jade vibrations, dulcet, glowing
In my garden, foxglove growing
Hollyhock & high times
Are flowing
High times
Are flowing
•
To my mistress on the moonshine borne,
when will I next see your fair shape?
Will you come and of the future warn
or let the present pervade?
You left your book of codes...
and so a second look, I stole
Hard to make out that much
I have the taste, but not the touch
Troubled fumble of a foot misplaced -
loveliest, deadliest fall!
Fleeting memories of a dream disgraced
are pain enough to recall.
And swaddled in remorse,
I let the magic run its course
to open up my eyes, let my letters
Crystallize – spell out what’s in store
(it’s so hard to close the door).
In the end, these split infinitives
convey the point just as well:
the holiday that Folly gives
has twice the lessons to tell.
Reset the compass marks,
When north is south and light is dark
Longing for your return
There’s so much that I must unlearn
Before I’m young again,
Or the universe says, “When.”
•
Where ya gonna run when the judgement falls
If ya got mirrors up & down yer halls?
Slide out through the parlour floor
Make yer way home through
The shady moor
Sure as the Sun,
That day’s gonna have to come
Clouds of confusion
Forecast illusion
Ah, what’s the use
In tryin?
Puttin yerself in that moment of pretend
Wishin like hell that it didn’t have to end
Maybe there’s Eternal Return
But if it came again, would it help ya to learn?
Try as ya might, don’t say
Ya ain’t been warned
Clouds of confusion
Forecast illusion
Ah, what’s the use
In tryin?
It’s hard – yes, I know, it’s hard
To be caught between a meter & a yard
Well, it’s hard, baby
Baby, it’s hard
You gotta lay yer bet
Before ya play yer card
Watchin the hands tick their way back round
Tryin yer best to make back yer ground
Don’t get lost in false regrets
Cause ya know ya loved all those
Sins of the flesh
Own up to yerself –
It’s the least that you can do
Clouds of confusion
Forecast illusion
Ah, what’s the use
In tryin?
It’s hard – yes, I know, it’s hard
To be caught between a meter & a yard
Well, it’s hard, baby
Baby, it’s hard
Ya gotta lay yer bet
Before ya play yer card
Ya gotta lay yer bet
Before ya play yer card
•
Enter Black Tom with his head in a knot
From the things he forgot that were his
For the keeping
Amphetamine breakfast sits hot
For the next guest, over the fire,
Narcotic and steeping
Hatching his plans, Thomas fixes
The drams of the sweet, evil poison
That is his revenge
Lost in the greed of his sallow misdeed
There's no way to hear the sounds off on the ledge
Atone! Atone!
Cry the bells at three
Struggling to sing through
The black industry
Clouding the sky with the breath of despair
Let go from a killer who's soul is laid bare
As each day passes, he fills
Still more glasses, for each man he plans
To send down to the grave
Those who he's murdered, he knows,
Were deserved - the ones he yet will
Are nobody's to save
Atone! Atone!
Cry the bells at six
Fighting against that which
Fate cannot fix
Shrouded by thoughts
Of a conscience no more,
Onward they ring, heralding what's in store
Once, he was such a happy young man
Went for the grail; watched it all fail
Learned the lessons that everyone must:
Hopes turned to dust
He gave in to lust, and lost his track
That's when our bright Tom turned to black
And now there's just no turning back
All through the night he receives his
Invitees, playing the judge and
The hangman in one
Can't hear his heart, loading
Corpses on carts, in the strands of his
Fantasy's triumphal song
Atone! Atone!
Cry the bells at nine
Echoing grace as they chase
After Time
Falling on deaf ears, always to sin;
Penitent, resonant, lost in the wind
•
I am a poor, wandering boy
I have known laughter,
I have known joy;
But that don’t mean I ain’t seen
pain & sorrow
Don’t matter where I wake up,
gonna take up for some brand new place
tomorrow.
I am a curious lad
Don’t care for morals,
not for good or for bad
Rather wake up dead than
not be led by passion
Don’t care for systems,
cogs or pistons, or
the slavery of fashion.
But in every spot
I find I’m not
as happy as I thought
that I would be.
You are a city to me –
Barren & lonesome, no
there’s not much to see,
across the fence from
innocence & wonder
So many folks, they put their souls
down in your hole, & all you do
is plunder.
But in every spot
I find I’m not
as happy as I thought
that I would be.
Time is a harsh lord indeed
Scramble to live, gather
all that you need
It take some strength
to leave the bench & join the fray
Look to the future,
stitch & suture my web as
I make my way.
But in every spot
I find I’m not
as happy as I thought
that I would be.
•
Long days are here again, arising from
The crowd in all its teeming
With sweetly sighing leafy rays
Of a medallion proudly beaming
Long nights eclipse the way
Things keep their secrets hid from earthly knowing
The moonlight trips the day, it slips away
And sheds its skin like
Something darker growing
These changes of the same are playing,
Taut and taunting, on my solace
That the path of vain Excess leads
Nonetheless to Wisdom’s palace
There are no accidents, just fleeting fads
And empty trends repeating
What message does it send? Too late
To make amends when you are
Faced with such defeating
Rise from your dream of stone
See how all the shadows are thrown
Cast by puppets, dancing alone
And some will pass away, while others
Trade their curses of awaking
The hypnogogic silt is built from
Silent verses of mistaking
Only a fool would live within
The highest pitch of the soul’s resonance
Only a fanciful fanatic
Could withstand the panic
That there is no recompense
Rise from your dream of stone
See how all the shadows are thrown
Cast by puppets, dancing alone
Alone
Abandoned factories are ghostly mirrored minds
Their corners tuck away all clarity
Deep within grey areas, and lost between the lines
Lie clouded crystal shards of memory
Ah - it only goes to show -
Sometimes, you're better off not knowing
Library eyes that catalog Deletion's war
On where & when & all that should remain
Still confuse how best to choose the sickness or the cure
When either one is bound to bring you pain
Ah - it only goes to show -
Sometimes, you're better off not knowing
And to arise from the mephitic din & hue
A stagnant statuary of the fright
That we feel when it's revealed there's nothing more to do
To hide from what we find within the light
Ah - it only goes to show -
Sometimes, you're better off not knowing
•
The father, tearing past the tape & gasping,
stunned, he runs agape to find his daughter
slaughtered, lying there
How would he know his life could rend
the way the snow rips through the air
& sends its sons to wed the earth in white reverse?
The public eye defies the sullen, private sky
with shuttered snaps & claps of apetures
that threaten to convey
Those who have come & gone &
Death's macabre phenomenon, immortalizing
those who never chose their final way
Soon... to peace... and release.
The mother draped over a hollow window
pane & framed by blown-out hopes of travel
through her sandy, antique streets
How could she think her life would end
the way the clink of change descends
& disappears into the fare box from her hand?
Ordinary horror faulted in the press
yet also thus exalted by the sick redress
of loot to grab the scoop
The picture taker makes the moment
of the taken life's despondent & unwanted
limpid acrobatics live
Soon... to peace... and release.
To all the children of this age (who know no boundaries
to the cage that once contained and kept us all away from stares)
A troubled moral to this fable can be found, and it is this:
that to observe is to accept an equal share.
•
The marigold stretches up into the sun
Its journey begun toward hereafter
Tender roots pine for a trip of their own
Struggling alone against laughter
She must live a life past her flower'd innocence
The earth's radiance can't sustain her
Shivers as quivers of arrows unshot
But likely as not, she'll remain there
Have you heard the news?
Nothing will ripen before its own time
Seasons retreat in their treasons of clime
Forever
A delicate stem in the whistling wind
With thistles that bend under nature
Betray that beneath all the beautiful hues
This is such an ill-abused creature
Have you heard the news?
Meaning is found in the soil of the earth
Gain is but loss, and riches a worthless
Illusion
Under its strain, the poor marigold's face
Cannot keep a pace or a measure
Of all the evil men trampling the weak
The lies that they love reek of treasure
Have you heard the news?
Money's just paper, and power's a word
A weapon's sole point is to make cowards heard.
•
Watching the bay, all is devotion
Everything is as it does
Glare of the day, glances the ocean
Kissing the mystical fuzz
Grey birds espy seafoam, like white wine,
Drink of the beauty in store
Ravenous tide eating the shoreline
Canceling what came before
What does anything matter?
Mere idle chatter conquers the scene
What is something, to nothing?
Skins, to the onion?
Modes, to the mean?
Lines in the sand, drawn but dissolving
No more division shall be
As it was planned, planets revolving
Fixed in their motion but free
Down at the core, our love is Eden
Simple & pure & naive
Knowledge is war, Faith is misleadin
Take what you can as you leave
What does anything matter?
Mere idle chatter conquers the scene
What is something, to nothing?
Skins, to the onion?
Modes, to the mean?
Watching the bay, nothing is moving
Everything is as it does
Rippleless lethe, always reproving
Nothing will stay as it was
What does anything matter?
Mere idle chatter conquers the scene
What's something, to nothing?
Skins, to the onion?
Modes, to the mean?
•
A Sailor Song
Return me to sender! Nobody would sign
I must meet my maker, he has the design
17 auguries laid on my planks
My ship it still stays afloat -
how can I give thanks?
I do not know which way to go,
My map has no key,
There's no wind to fill my sails,
& I, I am lost at sea.
Where is redemption? How can I fight?
Afloat on a liquid maze, no end in sight
Perverted illumining! In blackness I bask
With phantoms for shipmates,
who's help can I ask?
I do not know which way to go,
I no longer believe,
The ocean is so full of tears that all I can do
Is grieve.
Speak to me clearly, I can no more hear
I lost it with everything that I once held dear
Knots in the distance, land seems to be...
I need you to be my eyes, I can no more see
I do not know know which way to go,
My senses have strayed,
Perhaps this is all but a dream?
The land... begins... to fade.
•
All true love is happiness, & happiness is lies
Wish I didn't feel this way, but I can see it in your eyes
You're a sweep-it-under-the-rug girl
Outta sight outta mind's your world
Your thoughts fly out in code, and hijack me along the road.
Every time I see you, I get so brought down
Makes me want to move myself to another part of town
Thought you'd left me out to dry till I nearly drowned
But stuck inside your whirlpool I just got so turned aound.
You're a sweep-it-under-the-rug girl
Outta sight outta mind's your world
Your thoughts fly out in code, and hijack me along the road.
All true love is happiness & happiness is lies
Wish I didn't feel this way but I can see it in your eyes
You never do just what you say, so why you act surprised?
Crimes you kinda kept from me, I shoulda surmised
You're a sweep-it-under-the-rug girl
Outta sight outta mind's your world
Your thoughts fly out in code, and hijack me along the road
•
In the icy beds of all the newlyweds
Where passion forfeits like a child
Persimmons drop without permission,
stop affairs within the kitchen, pink & cold
Lusty chambermaids undo their corset stay
& cast their fell forms on the wall
Parting from their stations,
starting machinations
Down they stalk the dim-lit halls
There, in the darkness cold
Love & its lies are sold
Fed with a burnished spoon
Under a new moon
Back at the beginning, silent hopes of sinning
Spin their wheels of ill-intent
Vows no longer matter, lost among the clatter
Of the words misspoke, misspent
Deep among the shadows growing in the meadows
In a fit of feigned surprise
Troubled lovers meet in webs of self-deceit
With marks of shame upon their thighs
There, in the darkness cold
Love & its lies are sold
Fed with a burnished spoon
Under a new moon
Then, as the full moon finally shines its round book of design,
Each page a white ray twined, the path unwinds
Then, as the full moon finally shines, the path unwinds.
