(Hammill)



I remember what it felt like at

seventeen:

I was a cat, a snake, a lizard, a mouse.

Still got an interest in the limousine

and a spouse and a brat,

country house, London flat.



I'm gonna head for the island when

the summer's out,

I'm gonna do all the stuff that I can,

drink like a fish in a waterspout -

I'm a fan of the flow

it began long ago

I'm a man who should know

it doesn't stop.



There's so much to remember,

so much to forget:

we're all in the possession of the

future tense, but don't know it yet.

The flesh comes through the spirit,

the spirit through the flesh...

we look the Sphinx in the face

for answers and of course we're

really not impressed.

We're caught between age and beauty,

experience and youth

so we feel the need acutely

for any kind of Truth.



Oh but we get copped some days,

caught between options we've failed

to play, such wasted chance.

So I join the wastrel's dance:

it has slow as well as fast movement

and any change must be an

improvement on simply fossilising,

standing still.



I got a steady vocation for

the Quiet Zone,

I just can't wait for the song to be sung,

I'm still possessed by the promise

of the Pleasure Dome



You're so young,

so oldd,

such a drag

to be told.



You're so here, so gone,

so near, so wrong,

so queer, so strong





Such a drag to be told....