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i) Flying Blind |
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I always forget how crazy things are |
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so sometimes it catches me off my guard |
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when they make sense. |
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The line on the road trail the arrow in the sky, |
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I search for the mote in my brother's eye |
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beneath the pence... |
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a time of blunt instruments. |
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Still uncertain when I've woken |
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or what constitutes a conscious mind, |
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though the thought remains unspoken |
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I know I'm flying blind. |
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Breaking into cold sweat on the white-hot coals |
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the pennies from heaven drop through my soul: |
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it don't relent. |
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At the back end of dreams I'm amazed to awake... |
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I offer my theories but just can't shake |
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that seventh sense |
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to which there's no defense. |
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It seemed the time was for action, |
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it seemed so cool to be that kind... |
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my tongue writhed to form some retraction |
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but I knew I was flying blind. |
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I want things to be fast, down to the power-dive; |
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I want the zero-gravity heroes to play dead, |
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but stay alive. |
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We want it to be slow, all the way to stall; |
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we talk about a thousand things that never change at all. |
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No, it never change... |
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It was then that I knew I'd been thoughtless, |
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something had slipped my mind: |
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I'd strapped myself into the Fortress |
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but the Fortress was flying blind. |
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We got full clearance, |
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so someone down there ought to know |
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the truth of our disappearance - |
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If even that still shows it accuses and blames me, |
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but nothing was quite what it seemed. |
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Sometimes things work out so strangely |
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that it might as well all be dreamed. |
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ii) The White Cane Fandango |
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The White Cane Fandango in Morse code, |
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try to shake through the message, |
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shake the load; |
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only venial sin, running on the spot |
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till the dance begins. |
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Where does a man go when the muscles cramp? |
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Try to write out a postcard on a postage stamp |
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with a drawing pin punching out the Braille |
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for the whole within? |
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Upset the contango on your future stock; |
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paying backwardation, hold onto what you've got - |
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such a sideways grin! |
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Some day you may need |
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to trade that in. |
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If we ride this right |
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the future will fall in our hands. |
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If we survive the flight |
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the future will work out - |
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nothing's that black and white. |
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iii) Control |
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The colour-coded charts are spread, |
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but we're still gliding deep into the red, |
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the radio is dead |
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every valve blown open. |
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The radar screen flicks monochrome, |
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air traffic controller wants to get on home, |
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waiting for a phone call |
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to release him from responsibility. |
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Nobody goes to see him any more |
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except for the man from the ministry. |
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He wanted to be, he wanted to be |
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the man at the helm, in command of the flightpath; |
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he's flying a chair, quite beyond control; |
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he's going to have just one more chance |
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at a barrel roll. |
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All in a dream, all as a dream, |
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the colours too bright, the music too deafening - |
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the black-out world has just begun to show. |
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These cracked-out words I offer... |
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but I still don't know. |
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Cool blue suffuse the colour gun - |
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oh come in, come in number one: |
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your time's nearly run. |
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Speed-freeze the frame, |
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the present and the past hold fast.... |
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It's too fast, the thing don't, |
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the thing won't, |
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the thing don't last. |
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iv) Cockpit |
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The rolling dice clash together, never make up the score; |
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that old device, the ejector seat, glued to the floor. |
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Everybody waits for everyone to make a show, |
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no-one wants to be the first, admitting that they know |
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how anythings that's gone down here |
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could fit into an analytic groove. |
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Wait for the tactical move, |
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wait for some action we all can approve. |
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Too much to drink, for the cup reaches down to the sea; |
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too much to think, the barometer pressuring me. |
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Rolling down the weather for an Easter parade, |
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reeling out the Maydays in the hope of being saved, |
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but the radio ham's out giving blood - |
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no, no, he's not listening. |
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The cricketer knows his "Wisden", |
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the pilot has got his "Jane's", |
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but the sum of this factual wisdom |
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don't help us to fly the plane |
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(no, and it never will...) |
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Beneath the tartan two-piece something rips undone... |
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Wait for the ladder to run |
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wait for the snake that the ladder becomes. |
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A passenger hits the cockpit, willing to chance his game: |
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pulls out his gun and cocks it |
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in the hope that it all might change. |
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(Oh, but it never will...) |
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A fly-leaf from the library shows others have been here before, |
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tried, failed and kicked out the door; |
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the aircrew don't care anymore. |
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Now they just wait |
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for the beat of the silk-worm wing, |
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wait for the heat to come down on us |
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full force of the law. |
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v) Silk-Worm Wings |
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Full force of gravity pulls me down, |
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I'll be better off out of there; |
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aerobatic spin around, |
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I'll take my chances in the open air. |
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Sycamore silk-worm wings |
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or Roman Candle to the ground, |
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there's only one thing for sure: |
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when the balloon goes up |
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the aeronaut calm down. |
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vi) Nothing is Nothing |
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He say nothing is quite what it seems, |
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he say nothing is quite what it seems; |
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I say nothing is nothing. |
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vii) A Black Box |
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Softly, the angels sing their time and space refrain: |
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there's something in everything if you can only pin down its name |
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Aerobatic thoughts at the back of my mind - |
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Is it nothing but the looping line we all follow? |
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Nothing but the spiral twist of DNA? |
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There'll be no looking back from tomorrow on today. |
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So the wire is tripped, split-seconds defect to their successors; |
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the umbilical cord is ripped - |
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here we all are in free fall. |
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I stall where I am, as if to see where I've been, |
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only running down the looping line we all follow, |
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only chasing down the spiral twist of DNA. |
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There can be no looking on to tomorrow from today. |
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Life/death/night/day... |
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cold breath will surely fly away. |
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Is the empire of sensation locked in a black box |
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deep in me, encoded there somehow? |
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It fires the imagination to fly on a wing and a prayer |
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through my life. Is that how it is? |
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(There'll be no looking back on this....) |
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This is now, which will be then? |
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Is this the means? |
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All I know for shure is |
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this is the end. |
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No looking back from tomorrow, |
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no, there'll be no looking back on today; |
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better be looking on to tomorrow... |
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better think on today. |
