Inside me lives a little bird Inside me lives a bird of rare and jewelled colour that burns with rainbow’s prismed fire. Yet he is hidden - he must hide, casting grey drab on his wings. And his throat is tight as he never sings. He never sings the passion that’s inside, that’s never heard, whose words he knows by heart in the cold grey dark. This bird within me wants to fly, to try and fly up to the sky... But wordstones hail down, word ice rains down: You dream too much, these dreams of flying, a silly dream... there’s no point trying... And the bird within me wants to cry, he wants to cry. the bird within me wants to cry. At least he dreams, he dreams such lovely, silly dreams. For what’s the point of song and fire? it’s too late at the funeral pyre! It’s worse than useless screwed away - unexpressed by night or day... You’re worse than useless anyway! I seem to hear them calmly say. He wants to dance in whorls and swirls, to dance with the boys and dance with the girls, he wants to dance till he’s not there and lose himself within his prayer. But the dream is there, The dream he’s always wanted, It’s still there still there. One day, he ran away, he ran and ran - away from the day, from those days at least, at least from those days. And he ran through the fields to the noise from a feast and far from the words of St. Paul and the priest. It was dark, and the marionettes were dancing, prancing with painted, rictus grins and I couldn’t see their strings as the light of the fire deceived me and I thought these manikins were real, and I thought they danced, alone for me and I thought I danced for them. But I danced alone. But the marionettes have velvet claws and are only the pimps for the drug dealing whores that stand in the thresholds of neon bright doors that beckon you in with the promise of fun and all the while at your head they’ve a gun. And it seemed this night-time carnival never supplicated dawn, never prayed for her warm return. But I could still remember Day from the fire’s pulsing embers a distant sun ago - so distant it was a memory outside time. Had it abandoned me, or had I let go? So gold torn now, I just don’t know, I just don’t know. Where are you sun? I seemed to say. What happened to the day - Now that was fun - Come to think of it - that was really fun. But that is done - yes, that’s been long done. And the mechanised music the marionettes marched to ground out some more it’s bitter sweet tune. And the dancing dead danced the meaningless dance under a mechanised moon. And a sliver of yellow, some shard from the fire, caught one of their eyes with soulless desire - like trapped amber flies. There was nothing, not a thing In these glassy doll’s eyes not even a butterfly wing or a song spark to sing. Then you came. A shaman, a wise woman passing through this republic of dreams, someone who knew that these things are not what they seem paused at the edge of this festival of fools. Perhaps she had heard something, perhaps she too had dreamed here once but she stopped as if to say: You live in the land of the dull dancing dead that spend all their days treading time in their beds, whose souls have alchemically been altered to lead. They are the dancing dead. These are the dancing dead. Now I must move on from this marionette’s feast and into the golden bloom of the east - To dawn and real life - real life is best whilst you have been running with the witch of the west. Do you want, would you like To come to the east? Do I want? Do I want? I looked back - fuck the feast! and followed this shaman into the east. High, high - look I can fly! A little way up - up into the sky. High, high, the sun is shining and I just want to try. So high, high... I don’t want to cry, No. I don’t want to cry. |
