Surface Tension
Many thanks to James
and Joe for help with the lyrics.
All songs copyright control. Crosstown Music (p)+(c) 1995-2000.
Safe (official)
I said save your breath
Try to
save your breath
I tried to save your breath
I tell people to
return your futures
They're not for them to wear
I can't quite put
you together
You could be anywhere
Safe, safe...
Summer, summer is my life
Just a
few days long
Just a few days, long
But I, I don't have to worry
'Cause you said I'd be alright
But didn't you say, didn't you say I'd
be
Safe, safe...
I can't quite put you together
I
can't quite put you together
I can't quite put you together
I
can't, can't, can't
Safe, safe...
Just a few days long, just a few days
long
Just a few days long, long, long
This return trip is just a lie
Life is a lark and then you...
With object lessons
With static reason
Sometimes it's what it is
Sometimes I'm what I see
Sometimes it hardly means enough
To be surrendering
And those religious thieves
They stole the words from me
My purpose, meaning
My courage, feeling
Sometimes it's what it is
Sometimes I'm what I need
Sometimes it almost seems enough
To be surrendering, to be surrendering
The last days are calling
The lost years are calling
This soul surrendering
Jack (official)
Fear of flying
Delirium at the idea
The tendency to motion of man is understood
He came to lift me
My orb and gravity
And to fall is second nature
Mercury in the blood
There was a warning signal
A weight was lightening
Into the open sky through dirty windows
Lead and I will follow. Leave, swallow fear
Now listen here
Fear of darkness
Clearway to the sea of dreams
The nightmare execution
Of the night-light's children
He came to lift me
To offer me concern
With such difficulty breathing
Air seemed an illusion
Rain check and test of mettle, I have all the time to rise
Into the dirty sky through open windows
I want to lower my head and look down on you
He came to lift me with you... listen here
Sometimes I feel the wind blowing through me
The wind is carrying spores
I don't want to be afraid anymore
If my house were a colony of ghosts
I could learn their words
At my invocation on occasion
They enter but do not stay
A black rag drifting to earth
White shoes running without feet
Anything but sunken so deep in this clay
Sometimes I feel the wind blowing through me
The breath of the dead
Diaspora
I don't want to be afraid anymore
I will set traps for these shipwrecks
So like a God, knowing them all
In the northern sky
Studying auroras
Differentials in the shifting surface layers
The abiding law
Of summer thaws
And losing our direction
Our common lack,
We have a radio transmitter
And I note you are haywire
Bearing up on the shelf
Our common wealth
This is strange terrain;
A plain white topograph
I move out with my all sky camera
To immerse myself
In the wealth of words
That will not translate
These units express
Elements of culture
I must limit my horizons
To survive
And these glyphs and graphs
The power tools
To cut through
Like a scythe
Our common lack...
Now which way?
Now which way
I remove the centre staples
From a summer diary
And let the wind take up the pages
So they can fly
Leaves fly, leaves again
Once shy, twice bitten
All gone soon, all gone soon
Somewhere in the middle hundreds
Of some encyclopaedia
To keep the weather from the deadheads
So they can dry
Leaves pressed, inter-leaved
At rest, white lilies
All gone soon, all gone soon
The character inside
In its seasonal flame
By any other name is still a rose
And so it goes, goes
And leaves, leaves again
Dry seeds, for women
All gone now, all gone now
Blooms, soon, blooms, soon
When the surface breaks
And the water comes in between
Who will save you
When the surface breaks?
Let it go…
I remember I saw god in an optic
And I asked:
Are you a wave or a particle?
He said:
I am…
…Balanced on the crest of a world winding down
That over which you pass in silence
The absolute noun
But there is a water-wheel
Turning inside
This dam-building
You cannot win against the water
Memory is a reservoir of resonances
And dreams are crystalline
They fall out of the noise
When you could measure the effects
They kept you high and you went running wild
And clean out of daydreams
You cannot win against the water
No the tide has time on its side
I remember I read that life is s-shaped
And from my place on the bell-curve
I turn my back on her
Resounding on the drum of summer
But there is a water-wheel
Turning inside
This damn building
You cannot win against the water
The tide has time on its side
I remember I saw god in an optic
And I asked:
Are you a mirror or a lamp?
He said:
I am
…I am…
I hate these severed hands
I turn you onto me
Are you still into me?
I know it, I know it
It's out there
Nothing, waiting
I know it, I know it
I have nothing to say, nothing to say
It's all here
So will you take it off my hands
Please
I hate these severed ties
I turn you onto me
Are you still on two minds
I know it, I know it
It's out there
Nothing, waiting
I know it, I know it
I have nothing to say
It's all here
Does it ever cross your mind?
Can you remember not being?
Does it ever cross your mind?
This static fear
You should know that nothing is so close to everything, everything
No more lightning, no more tungsten
No more radium, no more fuselage
I was with the Ephesians when he preached
Now we are breathing in hotels, (Artemis)
Elaborate theatre of service on my knees
And Paul in the temple, (Artemis)
His was the language of rhetoric
And only speech translates, (Artemis)
He read my silence as admission of the world
Admission of his faith
And Paul in the temple, (Artemis)
I was with the Ephesians when he came
Now we are dreaming in hotels, (I'm breathing)
This brutal act of understanding that will steal
Steal him away
Like Paul in the temple, away away
Latter days, mechanical
Winch would haul the lead weight up the shaft
Thread the stairs again, to wind the light
For revolution
What the hand performs, the mind records
I have this stored away from daylight
From daylight, from daylight
I am the heritage
Of manpower that is running in the wires
To the signal box, dead sentinel
With artificial eyes
What the mind perceives
The soul can read
If language runs to seed
In daylight, in daylight
A light that knows reflections
In infinite recession
A light that knows geometry, mirrors that can teach
The mortal grace to turn the face discreetly to the wall
In daylight, in daylight
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