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LORD JIM
Little Lord Jim
Can't help rushing in
With a Shiva grin
People popping up and vanishing
Clever little Jim
Quick in his images
Visionary thing
Sweeps all before him
Little Lord Jim
That tick-tock ticking
Sweating in his sleep
Twitching and kicking
Just a matter of time
Till the waves start whispering
Just a matter of time
Till they're screaming on the rocks
And they teem about the dock
And you cry out
As the ship limps in
And they're on deck pointing
At you little Jim
Very disappointing
But it's the eye little Jim
It's the eye that you travel in
When you run from the storm
It's the eye that you hide in
Jimmy's got paws
Jimmy's got digits
Behind closed doors
Fiddles and fidgets
Jimmy on his own
With a head full of heroes
Giving their scores
We know you know
Oh no no Jim
Jimmy sees savages
Show them how he manages
That's where his magic is
Lining up cabbages
But little Lord Jim
Why are they laughing
Little Lord Jim
Can't get the staff in
TERMINAL BLUES
Plains aren't so wide
As you and I and our great divide
Tides fall not so low
As this spring exposed
I had to run
I was done with steel shirts
Hurt, oh I'd confide
But I must hide the exile inside
I will polish and shine
I will straighten my tie
I will dab myself dry
She will be by my side
I will step into line
I will step back in time
Holds are not so deep
As the bags that we keep
Blues, terminal blues
When I think of you
I am the exile inside
THE BODY
Look, girl, at the clothes on my bed
The clothes that I own
The clothes that you wear
And they've never looked so good as on you dear
She brings a tray of biscuits
Fruit and white tea
Parks it on the blanket right beside me
She has mint on her breath and the sugar spoon glints angrily
Through the gentle sobbing rain
Pulling up the counterpane
Ducking under the bedspread
I hear the jets scream overhead
Fragments of the sleeping dead
She's never the same in the morning
When her eyes are raw and virgin
Hands still blindly groping
For someone else's body
St Peter has a squadron scrambled to ensure
The sound of guilty cockerels each dawn as before
And there's a weight outside my door
And there are footsteps pacing the floor
He left more than his mark on these sheets
The faithful outline
The holes at his feet
I do my best to keep her sweet
But how on Earth could I compete
EVENT HORIZON
Goddamn 24-hour clock never stops
Elbow it out of the way with a good song
I know you know
I'm home from work
Got to get a groove on
Sitting at a white screen
Filling it up with my have beens
Yes they have been busy days
But they so disappear
Into my dozy memory black hole
Where do they fall to a place of singularly intense experience
I am floating on a horizon
An event horizon
With my eyes on you
So pretty pretty pretty pretty
Drop the blinds
Kill the lights
Screw my eyes up tight
See what you see when I freeze on your update
But you still wait up late
Done my research
Read a lot of big words
Plundered and mined all the minds of the great and good
But they do no good
Like I knew they would
Cos they write for different times
Out of the dark bring images that cling
Close to the ghost of a mind of singularly intense experience
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