Track 2 of Clutching At Straws ---



On premenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins

where ceremonies pause at the jewellers shop display

feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes

till they commit themselves to the muted journey home

And the pool player rests on another cue

Last nights hero picking up his dues

a honeymoon gambled on a ricochet

she's staring at the brochures at the holidays

chalking up a name in your hometown

standing all your mates to another round

laughing at the world till the barman wipes away

the warm wet circles



I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths a classrooms shabby butterflies

flit in the glow of stranded telephone boxes;

planning white lace weddings from smeared hearts

and token proclamations, rolled from stolen lipsticks

across the razored webs of glass

Sharing cigarettes with experience with her giggling

jealous confidantes, she faithfully traces his name

with quick bitten fingernails through the tears

of condensation that'll cry through the night

as the glancing headlights of the last bus kiss

adolescence goodbye



In a warm wet circle

Like a mothers kiss on your first broken heart, a warm wet circle

Like a bullethole in Central Park, a warm wet circle

and I'll always surrender to the warm wet circles



She nervously undressed in the dancing beams of the Fidra lighthouse

giving it all away before its too late

She'll let a lovers tongue move in a warm wet circle

giving it all away and showing no shame

She'll take a mother's kiss on her first broken heart

a warm wet circle, she'll realise that she plays her

part in a warm wet circle



(the Quarterdeck, North Berwick) [FISH and DEREK WILLIAM DICK]



It was a wedding ring, destined to be found in a cheap hotel

lost in a kitchen sink or thrown in a wishing well