The Tell-Tale Hound
Squatting on the map like a big black stain
Was a dirty old town where it always rained,
Where there ain’t no cars and there ain’t no trains,
It’s enough to drive a man insane.
But the one little thing that kept me there
Was a pretty young woman with auburn hair,
Locked in a loft at the top of some stairs
I dreamt some day I’d take her away from there.
She was born with more than original sin
And raised in shame at a Holiday Inn
I stood at her window shouting let me in,
She opened up the shutter with a bottle of gin
And said “Boy Boy lower your voice
My dog can’t sleep with all this noise
You see this beast sitting at my feet?
My daddy left him to keep a watch on me.”
So home I ran to hatch a plan
I’d lull that dog to sleep if I can
And take that girl by her lilly white hands
And show her the kind of a man I am.
Every day I’d play a new lullaby,
I’d sing all evening and I’d sing all night
But nothing would close that damned dog’s eyes,
He’d laugh as my love intensified.
“Boy you’ve got to do better than that,
That dog’s treating you like a flesh doormat.
Quit playing around like a big pussy cat,
I won’t wait forever and that’s a fact.”
So I scaled the wall and I swam the moat,
I found the dog and I slit his throat,
I threw him in the water to see if he’d float
But he sank right down with a bubble and a croak.
I tapped on her window and she let me in,
“It’s about time I started living in sin”
I looked at her face and I saw her grin,
She said “Boy you don’t know the trouble you’re in.
You freed me from that hideous hound
But you’ll find it’s harder to put him down.”
I looked at the floor and saw a puddle by the door
I smelt wet dog and I felt his paw… on my shoulder.
So I ran and ran
Running as fast as I can,
I’ve been running as long as my memory spans,
Chased all across this desolate land,
That dog ain’t no best friend to this man.
Ever since he turned his back on death
I’ve known know peace and I’ve known no rest,
At night he sniggers at an unknown jest.
My pulse is set to the rhythm of his breath.
Many years have passed and ever since
That dog has sat where I once kept my conscience,
All I wanted was to get a little bit of respite
So I came to the day where I took my own life;
I skipped from a cliff and down I fell
Passed purgatory and went straight to hell,
The devil was there with a long leather lead,
You can guess who he had waiting for me.
***
You Can’t Run From My Love
You ought to know by now
You’re not welcome round here
But you still prowl round
And all day long
I hear your voice down my telephone.
But I’ve made my choice to go on alone.
You can’t run from my love
Run from my love
You can’t run from my love
I love you too much and you’re mine
The embers of what I was,
Once drenched in devotion’s creed,
Glow again because
Now I know I need
Only one shadow,
I can provide my own echo
Without you here
Telling me
You can’t run from my love
Run from my love
You can’t run from my love
I love you too much and you’re mine
I remember the forgetting
But not what was forgotten
That day I gave you a piece of my heart
You took the lot
and your tragicomic histrionics
Suggest if love’s a plague
Then this one’s bubonic
Something precious inside me Darling take me home
Fell with a mighty sigh I don’t want to die alone
Love reared its vengeful head and said You can’t run from me.
***
Shards Of Glass
Shards of glass and blood on my shoes
She had so much to say and so little to prove
There was writing on the wall
Everyone around was walking tall
She said “You want a piece of me?
You’ve gotta come and take it all”
I’ll see you in hell my friend
When this world has reached its end
He agreed to love me the way I thought he should
Bound by a golden ring he was bound to me for good
For many years I wore his marks without complaint
And took his kisses like so many coats of paint
And I said
I’ll see you in hell my friend
When this world has reached its end
I drew her close to me and I breathed her name
Her hair was like honey dew and novocain
I told her it was more than a case of wounded pride
And she let out a scream that tore the mountain side
And I said
I’ll see you in hell my friend
Shards of glass and blood on my shoes
I just killed somebody I biblically new
There was writing on the wall
Everyone around was walking tall
She said:
You want a piece of me?
Come on and take it all
I’ll see you in hell my friend
When this world has reached its end
***
Some Could Love You Better
No one could love you more than I
But some could love you better.
We avenge the mind when we deceive a fool.
You say I’m being kind but I’m just being cruel.
I swallow up your virtue,
Spit it out and make it hurt you
And from love’s leftover gristle I serve insipid gruel.
Remorse?
Of course.
It was my fault not yours,
A heart heavy with hatred
Pumps its poison from the source.
Yeah, some could love you better
The clocks in your old photographs were ticking just for you,
We were toasting the dawn from the wrong side of morning
With a chill wind bleeding through.
Romance? No chance.
We’re just two love-torn forlorn bundles of bone.
The sound of your tears is music to my ears,
You might as well water a stone.
And your feelings were transparent
Like a cold stillborn heart,
You told me you were leaving me
But I said “No You’re Not.”
Because some could love you better
We’ve been bickering for years
And I don’t know where we’re bound,
You say we’re moving forwards
But the Earth’s still going round and round.
The burden of love is a crippling one
And passion’s partnered with pain,
Our love was once like a ray of sun
But now it looks like rain.
Bitter with the salt of human things
You were an angel until I clipped your wings,
Now you say we’re through
And I should go
I say no.
No
NO.
Some could love you better
***
Letter In A Casket
I was all yours
Until they took you from me
And led you away
You were unsure
Until I calmed your worries
And said we’d meet some day
And with a drum and a fife
You told me on your life
You’d be here in one year
And take me for your wife
Lover, lover, lover, lover, lover
Ten score or more
Times you swore you’d left your
Wandering behind
But one day a man came
Bearing a list of names
Called to the front line
Each day I’d pray some word would come my way
And we’d still make the same date
For our wedding day
Lover, lover, lover, lover, lover
They say you were slain
On the very first day
Before you could write me
But you called my name when Death came
And made you leave your burnt frame
To war’s mercy
And though it hurt my pride
I became another’s bride
But you’re still the man I’ll be buried beside
Lover, lover, lover, lover, lover
***
Dripping With Dew
I laid myself down on the ground,
My fingers dripping with dew.
But I wasn’t with you honey
No I wasn’t with you.
I’d been dancing to a different tune,
Seeing all the colours between blue and blue
I’d spent all day reading Machiavelli in a glossy magazine,
Jesus looked down at me funny through the pub TV screen.
Someone was pumping Mozart through their mobile phone,
An item on the news told me they’d just cloned The Stones
And I
Laid myself down on the ground
Fingers dripping with dew
But I wasn’t with you.
Since you left me in the gutter I’ve been living on my knees,
I woke up pale this morning and now my mother’s called the priest,
My fortunes took a tumble when I first came to this place,
I only did it baby to see the look upon your face
When I
Laid myself down on the ground
Fingers dripping with dew
But I wasn’t with you
Well I was led astray by a bright young thing
Who gave me shelter beneath her wing,
She led me down a sodden path,
My blindfold slipped,
She began to laugh:
Her lips pulled back across her teeth,
She tore apart the earth and sank beneath,
She told me this deed would stay with me forever
And we’d share a bed in hell together
And I
Laid myself down on the ground
Fingers dripping with dew
I saw a man at the heart of a gathering crowd
With his hands in the air,
He was talking loud.
He said to us “You’d better gather round
And write this down”
He said “Love’s not something that is so mundane
Like a view from a bridge or a walk in the rain;
It’s an un-healing hole burnt right down into your soul
That filters out the same-old-same-old…
Or at least that’s what I’m told.”
***
Love Struck Me Down
Love struck me down way too young.
I wish I’d known what I know now.
Love struck me down,
The silver lining only served to conceal the cloud.
It lay in wait pretending
To be some kind of happy ending,
Love struck me down.
It hollowed me out and wore me like a crown.
Love struck me down
It got me bewitched,
Now word’s going round that I’m cupid’s new bitch.
Love struck me down,
It saddled me up and rode me around.
I looked to the sky and saw Cupid fly by
With a bow in his hands and a glint in his eye,
Tattoos on his shoulders where there should have been wings,
He was clinking a chain made of old wedding rings
And towering above on a dark cloud stood love
Cramming her claws into a pair of black gloves.
She told me politely
“I think you’ll grow to like me”
Down came Aphrodite and said “You can’t fight me”
Love struck me down way too young,
Pinned me to the ground and ripped out my tongue,
Love struck me down
And fed me in chunks to her slavering hounds
Once you’ve seen what I’ve got to show
Beneath my halo
You’ll never ever want to go
(and nobody need know).
If another tempts you away
I’ll make them pay,
So stay with me
Love speaks a tongue that none can translate,
It stands at our rudder with no other shipmates,
I’m sure that my mother told me I should just wait
But I took Love’s bait.
Now it’s too late.
I’ve got to get out of here…
***
Thick Carpets, Old Lifts
I fold down the corners on the pages of my life
And skip over the chapters that I wasted on my wife.
I know I’m not too handsome,
I know I’m not too tall
But sit down darlin’
And tell me it all.
I like my hotels with thick carpets and old lifts,
I like to eat my grapes sour with pips.
I know I’m not too rich,
I know I’m going bald
But sit down darlin’
And tell me it all.
I was just a girl that kept her feelings well hid
And my conscience stayed quiet about the things that I did,
I locked up my heart but gave a man the key,
He wasn’t much to many but he meant a lot to me.
We wandered to and we wandered fro,
Drank a lot of liquor a did a lot of blow.
I was the fruit and he was the rind,
I was the clock and he was the time.
You know what they say about love
And you know what’s always being sung
But relationships are more like chicken pox:
You’ve got to get immune when you’re young.
You’ve got to get immune when you’re young.
***
Matilda And Claude
Matilda killed her kitten Claude when she was nearly six:
She pinned all four of its playful paws to a tiny crucifix
And upon the rood it mewed and mewed,
To each of its nine lives did cling.
But as fate required,
The beast soon expired
And Matilda started to sing.
Do we ever reach an age where we’re not all terrified
Of a tiny idea that could alter us inside
And twist us away from the lies that we’re told
That make us spend too much of our time
Being too young or too old?
All you pitiful proud people are just pieces of the past,
Chipped away from the same old fading plaster casts.
The shades of our age have now all turned to hotter hues.
Tragedy isn’t ready for me
But it’s hungry for you.
And Matilda filled her heart with woe,
Such suffering and sore sorrow
That ripped and tore with tooth and claw
And left her youth enraged and raw
The world that swirled outside her thoughts
Laughed at all her stalled onslaughts
And thought it such a charming thing
When they heard Matilda sing.
***
Your Love
Only you can slow my heart
And make it sink like a greasy lump in the washing up.
But in those times of talk and touch
You said you’d be my muse
If I would be your crutch.
I took an oath in your damp undergrowth,
You said you were looking for love,
I said I think it’s close.
Wrapped in lace you offered me grace,
But your pillow talk was like a slap across my face.
There’s two sides to what I’m saying:
I was drawing chalk lines while you were praying.
You say I’m so sweet but I’m full of conceit,
I’m a man of my word but my word is deceit.
We swore l’amour on the blossoms
But by the autumn they were all rotten.
Honey I’d forgotten those times.
The day you became my bride
I died just a little bit inside
Because girl:
Your love, your love, your love
Is not enough, not enough for me.
We went through the blow like children in the snow,
All the way to limbo where the good pagans go.
You carved my name on a big black tree
Then said “what about me?”
I said girl:
Your love, your love, your love
Is not enough, not enough for me.
There’s a midnight rainbow curling up inside you,
Shining like a counterfeit sun
(a really dim one).
You seemed unconvinced,
You said you liked your words minced
And talked about forever.
I screamed NEVER NEVER NEVER!
Your love, your love, your love
Is not enough, not enough for me.
***
Turn Out The Light
Can you care too much?
You say it depends.
If I poured all the world’s love into your cup
Would you ever say ‘when’?
All this disarray:
Well it’s okay.
Lay these things down on me
The dawn once shone on our happiness.
You rose early each morning to tie the frail fastenings of fondness
While I lay and slept.
You and I
We’ll get by
So lay these things down on me
You warmed me
But seldom like the sun.
It came closer to a cold kiss on a warm night
In a building that’s burning down.
Me and you:
We aint got a clue
So lay these things down on me
Take a long hard look at me now
Take a long hard look at me now
Take a long hard look at me now
And I’ll be the last thing you see
Before I turn out the light.
***
Dying Of Something
Don’t take this down I’m just thinking aloud
But I don’t like your town, I don’t like this crowd.
There’s hatred in the air and a warning in my ear,
I’ve got to get away cos the people round here are
Dying of something I don’t want.
Don’t try to talk me down, I’m not listening no more
And it’s a sixteen cigarette walk from my floor to your door.
Now your foaming at the mouth and no one’s making any sense,
Jesus Christ no wonder I’m feeling so tense.
Your all dying of something I don’t want.
Now my skin’s burning,
Heart’s stopped yearning,
World’s not turning as fast as it should be.
Now the rain’s falling down and I don’t mind.
You’re telling me we’ll get wet but it wouldn’t be the first time.
Three forty five stuck in a compromise:
Put on your black shoes,
We’re going outside
Cos someone in the next room has just died
Of something I don’t want.
Now my skins burning,
Heart’s stopped yearning,
World’s not turning….
Now you stay away from me
Because I know what you’ve got,
You’ve been eaten away like a moth-eaten cloth.
Now you’ve started to rot and I an’t help you not
Because I’m saving my pennies to buy my soul back from God.
Hold me! Hold me!
Hold me like you’ve never held nobody before
Your race is almost run
And I can’t take no more
Cos you’re dying of something I don’t want.
