The Attrition Of Reason  1984

Day I Was Born

The Redoubt Of Light

Fall over backwards
I'm paying to play this, tonight
Herr Schrapnel was right
When he said he could cut it
I've all the pieces
They're at home
My head was blended by a bomb
I can see everything
But all at once
I'll see you at the fun fair

If I could show you
There was something wrong
Then I think you knew it all along
I've a fatal attraction to you

I despise everything you do
You bowl me over
Spin me round
Make sure my head never touches the ground
I'll see you at the fun fair

You're a meal to me
I could eat you
Straight out of the tin
I'm a hallucination
There's no way to know
If I'm here for real
Straight trousers for a straight leg
My head is all in bits instead
You're an understatement
Fall over backwards

You're a bond to me
You're a subtle twist
And you don't exist
I'm a strange relation
I can walk all night
And I won't come nearer
I'm in two minds for the ideal
And which is closer
My pretty little vegan?

I'll see you at the fun fair

You Will Remember Nothing

How long have you been dead?
A week
What have they done with your body?
In the water
Who dropped your body in the water?
Sailors
Did many people die?
Oh, yes
What do you feel?
Can you see anything?

Cold and green, the voice said
Cold and green, it said to me
Cold and green, she said

It's cold and green in my grave

Hours ago, I died tonight
She sits slumped
I look at the chair
We once both were sitting there

We left it there
Dead in a chair
So we could all move forward
Moving forward

What did you die of?
Old age
Can you see anything?
Blue
Feel anything?
Happy

Lexos esuf natulos ist zo
Dranst int lexos tempos mark
There is too much time
Between to remember

Just feel tired, very tired and sore
Finding it hard to breathe
Hot and cold, I have got to get better
Mother, go away
Go away

Beast Of Burden (Take A Walk)

I got up
Stood up
Took a walk
Past the carpet
Past the wall
Through the door
Into the hall
Afraid of the animal

A boy ran screaming to the car
The father looked on from afar
A woman pulled her child aside
I nearly died

I sat down
Lay down
Heard a sound
I swam around
On the wall
On the door
Into the hall
Afraid of the animal

I met a priest without a head
I met two missionaries, now they're dead
I met Christ at a crossroad
I nearly died there

Behind Innocence, Lies

Time
Time is as fast as you make it
Tick
Click
Watch the pictures gliding by

Hi
Hello
I want
I want to talk

I've seen the film
It was fine

And lo!
Out of the darkness
There came one book
And with a sigh you couldn't hear
It opened its pages

You couldn't see where the book stopped
And it didn't seem to have a beginning
It just was and is
And will be

Some stopped and started to read the words
But a few looked along the way the words pointed
And started to walk

The Decline

My garden is quiet
The dead are alive
They're hurting for feeling
Their heads touch the ceiling

The glass is all broken
The landscape is wasted
The passion devoured
It's nearly the hour

The sky is collapsing
The walls are so tall
The ground is all twisted
I'm eating my sister

The colour is reddening
I can't go to bed again
I saw you flicker on a picture
I saw you attacking a man
In Vietnam
The hour of decline

Prayer For The Head

How do you feel?
Are your nightmares for real?

Here are the rules then
"Don't walk on the grass"
Pray for a lighthouse
Pray for a path

You paint the back of your head
Red
Deadhead

She's a loner
She lives by herself
She's a loner
She couldn't be helped

Solicitor. Stone
All the rest is in black and white

"I saw seventeen bulls at the back of beyond
In a field, I didn't respond"
Look that up in your book!

I lost my face
Lose yours, lose yours
I'm gender (neuter)
Of course

Pornography is for broken hearts
With a sense of humour

Pray for the head
Pray for the head

The Next Day

And the next day
I felt something
Which I'd never felt before

I was talking to a man
I was talking to
He said he was Jehovah
But he could be you
I told him that I knew him
But he didn't know me
He looked into my eyes
And said that he agreed

The next day
What a surprise
The next day
What a surprise

Now I'm with the woman
With the white face on
She said she knew a secret
And she's keeping one
I asked her if I knew her
And she said maybe
She said she was my mother
She could be my lover

This is the voice of God speaking
I won't attempt to hide it or anything
I got worn-out shoes and a jacket for dancing
I'm the original sinner in just about anything

The smoke cleared
I think I'd had a cigarette
He was smoking at a teepee
He couldn't really see me

What a surprise
When he looked at my eyes
I was passing
I was leaving
Oh, it couldn't be
It couldn't be
Said he knew how it felt
And it couldn't be helped

The next day
My lover

The next day
This is the voice
The next day
This is the voice

I won't attempt
To hide this thing
This is the voice
Of original sin

Across The Divide

I'm sick again
Back of my throat
Wrench my hopes
With every blow

My colour's fading
Your black/white screen descending
I'm slipping slowly
Towards your cold ways

I'm sad again deep down here
My outside's curling
Living someone's life
Dreaming someone's dreams

Breathing across the eye divide
Clutch in frenzy
Living someone's life
Dreaming someone's dreams
Breathing across the eye divide

Crippled by your life
With a wheelchair of a mind
Reflections in a glass pane
In a blue fire of a tired soul, of hate

Someday, I'll lose you
And with you, your fears
Withered hopes and warm salt tears
So crowd around and pay the due
Ounce of blood, brain, flesh, eye

Reflections

I am a mirror
Not ordinary
I am here to send you strength
To show your darkest fears

You hold my body to see yourself
In naked lights
Dark silhouettes crystallize at bedtime
I give myself totally so you may see your dreams

I ask nothing more than to let me love
Without walls, without words
Without thought, without lies
To take me in and breathe my mind

That is really yours, my friend
In reversed relief, you see your face
Deep within my eyes
And so you stare transfixed

All the good and bad, all the passing years
Gelled within fine webs of light
Surrounding the space between
Within and through
And what you do, you do with what you will