Wish
on the moon, wish on a star
from inside a landlocked room
on the banks of a station
with a circular track
a circular train runs forward and back
never arrives, will not be possessed
i'm like that train, no station to rest
I feel your hand crossing the air
you're reaching out but I'm not there
I'm here suspended at the top of the room
just the ghost of someone killed off too soon
like some martyred hero in a hollywood war
rendered
invisible and watching his wife
and anyone
can fill their life with things they can see but they just can not touch
i don' t mind being dead but i miss you so much
Stumbling through
the archives over books and stone
old regrets of history, broken teeth and bones
one was a coy
mistress in her fine and private place
nestled with morality, locked in an embrace
I found her final testament in the ruins of that scene
locked between the teeth of the famous time machine.
Elvis
and his mama tried to buy the rights
they even called a meeting but the owner wouldn't bite
he secreted away to spread the plans out on a desk
and fine-tune the torture feature to be a touch more Kafkaesque
Elvis even joined the army thinking they might have a lead
and while he poked around, Gladys found the famous time machine.
Maybe I have read
about it in some dusty book;
the basics of its structure, a description of its look
but how do you power it? does it run on gas and oil?
or some methane soup benignly culled from common garden soil?
Rumours flew around for years that it ran on Soylent
Green -
human bodies in the belly of the famous time machine.
Later in the cemetery,
someone let it slip
that there would be a seminar in the galley of a ship
there was only one catch, as the secret was given away
the ship was set to sink with no survivors in the bay
I say: if you're going to have a tragedy, make it nice and clean
Dead men don't write songs about the famous time machine.
I met this old
man once, he sat beside me on a plane.
After a few rounds of the drink cart, he started to explain
how he'd worked on the design team, and he'd even been around
when the prototype was built and the operation went underground.
When I turned my head to ask him what the whole damn thing could mean,
he denied all knowledge of the famous time machine.
I hit the talk
show circuit in the fall of '92
and I made a lot of money selling stories as the truth.
I was only blowing smoke, but it was for the greater good
because for one shining moment, you all thought you understood.
I don't get out too much these days, I don't like to be seen
and I don't answer questions about the famous time machine.
Very clever, you
married in September;
out on the boards again by New Year's Eve.
Weathered and bleached like a roadside candy wrapper;
Away you creep, the
earth will welcome you.
If you just believe,
it will all come back to you.
it will all come back to you.
Eyes
on the star,
the devil takes the extra.
How far you are depends upon your press.
Quotients and sums of your affiliations -
Who owns the room in which you have undressed?
If you just believe,
it will all come back to you.
it will all come back to you.
Heavy and slow, you make
your blood the master.
Where did it go, the
reason that you shone?
Pale and cracked like yellowed alabaster;
smoky and thin, like Miles'
trumpet tone.
If you just believe,
it will all come back to you.
it will all come back to you
Up in the morning
wrench yourself out of the morningstar
halo
seeds shoot up into the sky
I remember you and I
holding fast and down to you in the sunshine
you denied me when I tried
to compose you
you just left
me in the trees
we never thought of what we'd be
never had to say a word
Say a word if you need
or silently agree
just take me back to the time before the first word was spoken
before the seal on the world was broken
At the revival
speak whatever you can voice without lying
and you transform into rain
when you give away, you gain
I will not deny you when you try to compose this
even as the sun is shining through this
space
I just reconstruct and lie
when I'm questioned, I just lie
never say a mumbalin'
word
Say a word if you need
or silently agree
just take me back to the time before the first word was spoken
before the seal on the world was broken
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