A spider wanders aimlessly within the warmth of a shadow

Not the regal creature of border caves

But the poor, misguided, directionless familiar

Of some obscure Scottish poet



The mist crawls from the canal

Like some primordial phantom of romance

To curl, under a cascade of neon pollen

While I sit tied to the phone like an expectant father

Your carnation will rot in a vase.



II. Lost Weekend



A train sleeps in a siding

The driver guzzles another can of lager

To wash away the memories of a Friday night down at the club



She was a wallflower at sixteen

She'll be a wallflower at thirty four

Her mother called her beautiful

Her daddy said, "A whore".



III. Blue Angel



The sky was Bible black in Lyon

When I met the Magdalene

She was paralysed in a streetlight

She refused to give her name



And a ring of violet bruises

They were pinned upon her arm.

Two hundred francs for sanctuary and she led me by the hand

To a room of dancing shadows where all the heartache disappears

And from glowing tongues of candles I heard her whisper in my ear

"'J'entend ton coeur"

I can hear your heart



IV. Misplaced Rendezvous



It's getting late, for scribbling and scratching on the paper

Something's gonna give under this pressure

And the cracks are already beginning to show

It's too late

The weekend career girl never boarded the plane

They said this could never happen again

So wrong, so wrong



This time it seems to be another misplaced rendezvous

This time, it's looking like another misplaced rendezvous

With you

The parallel of you, you



V. Windswept Thumb



On the outskirts of nowhere

On the ringroad to somewhere

On the verge of indecision

I'll always take the roundabout way

Waiting on the rain

For I was born with a habit, from a sign

The habit of a windswept thumb

And the sign of the rain

It's started raining