JETHRO TULL

1. Spiral

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Kilometers from nowhere on a scented avenue --
Lined with poppy girls.
I didn't stop, stop to say hello.
Curious vendors -- waving bric-a-brac --
Looked me over --
Thought it best, best that I should go.

Don't wake me: I'm falling.
Slow spiral into morning.
Who's out there? Can't hear you.
Ears covered -- Early warning.
Alarm bells ringing.
Time to make my peace with the dreary day.

I waited tables -- I was tipped in roubles.
Wine to water
was the best that I could do.
Wild office parties split the silence.
Loaves and fishes at an empty table laid for two.

Down the spiral, spinning madly.
Gathering momentum
On a Disneyesque adventure ride.
I fly in colours from richer palettes.
Famous artists running scared as worlds collide.

2. Dot Com

---

Waiters discretely at your beck and call
Place the tall sun-down potion
Lightly by your velvet elbow
While you compose a message on the wall

So punch my name.
And in case you wonder --
I'll be yours: yours, dot com.

With your handmade leather valise
Packed and ready, ready waiting
Showered and dressed down lightly for the heat
Give a clue; leave a kind word
Hint as to a destination
A domain where our cyber-souls might meet

So punch my name.
And in case you wonder --
I'll be yours: yours, dot com.

3. Awol

---

Stormy-eyed on the edge of dawn:
nose pressed against the triple glaze.
Floor to ceiling, wall to wall,
silent traffic streams both ways.
Along the fussy freeway drivers
dream of Sunday barbecues.
Of a sudden, seems I can barely
face my self: no face to lose.
Call the bosses. Call supervisors.
Won't be in today to work for you.

E-mail that girl who's working nights.
She can dress down for this wind and rain.
Leave her new Korean compact:
let some cabbie take the strain.
Take a shower. Take big espresso.
Take to the hills, and take a view.
Little black dress stretching over
hard crystal peaks; soft valleys too.
Call the bosses. Call for nurses.
Unfit today to work for you.

No wet excuses. Absent without leave.
I'll be her dayshift driver: exotic engineer.

Stormy-eyed on the edge of night:
( December, Eastern time: late afternoon. )
Atlantic City tight behind.
Trump Casino calls pontoon.
Gristle-burger, frazzled fries
end this romantic interlude.
Tomorrow morning's sweet awakening
could hardly prove to be as rude.
Make the journey. Make amends.
Work some hasty overtime in lieu.

No wet excuses. Absent With-Out Leave.
I was her dayshift driver: exotic engineer.

4. Nothing @ All

---

( instrumental )

5. Wicked Windows

---

I review my past through wicked windows framed in silver
and hung in toughened glass, upon my face, around and over.
Now and then: memories of men who loved me.
No stolen kiss -- could match their march on hot coals for me.

I have walked a line both faint and narrow, hard to follow.
Caught up in circumstance. Harsh truth for history to mellow.
Through my eyes: loyalties and obligation
magnified. Obedience: the better fellow.

Better not remember me. Don't miss my passing.
Fierce winter fails to ruffle my icy sleep.
We never quite vanish. No wet soft surrender.
Still waiting: bad blood running in close families.
I laughed like any child -- although you might find that strange
and Christmas was my favourite holiday.

Christmas was my favourite holiday.

I am not alone in seeing the world through wicked windows
while others hide likewise behind this vulnerable squinting.
It's in the stare: it's in the silent scrutinizing.
Strip you bare: I offer you no more disguising.

Better not remember me. Don't miss my passing.
Fierce winter fails to ruffle my icy sleep.
We never quite vanish. No wet soft surrender.
Same bad blood running in new families.

I review my past through wicked windows framed in silver
and hung in toughened glass, upon my face, around and over.
Now and then: memories of men who loved me.
No stolen kiss -- could match their march on hot coals for me.

I have walked a line both faint and narrow, hard to follow.
Caught up in circumstance. Harsh truth for history to mellow.
Through my eyes: loyalties and obligation
magnified. Obedience: the better fellow.

Better not remember me. Don't miss my passing.
Fierce winter fails to ruffle my icy sleep.
We never quite vanish. No wet soft surrender.
Still waiting: bad blood running in close families.
I laughed like any child -- although you might find that strange
and Christmas was my favourite holiday.

Christmas was my favourite holiday.

I am not alone in seeing the world through wicked windows
while others hide likewise behind this vulnerable squinting.
It's in the stare: it's in the silent scrutinizing.
Strip you bare: I offer you no more disguising.

Better not remember me. Don't miss my passing.
Fierce winter fails to ruffle my icy sleep.
We never quite vanish. No wet soft surrender.
Same bad blood running in new families.

6. Hunt By Numbers

---

Hey little buddies:
soft and silky night walkers.
Dangerous species --
Tiptoe menace long grass stalkers
on my bed:
no butter melting in your jaws.
Bonding monster --
Lethal weapon wearing claws.

Let's go out to hunt by numbers.

Tabby, spotted, black as coal --
Serval, Margay, Caracal.
Moggie in the moonlight listens:
whiskered sensory miracle
Felis, befriend us --
Egyptian Mau -- Freya's familiar.
Long in the future --
Cloned disciples, the castle guard.

Now, let's go out and hunt by numbers

7. Hot Mango Flush

---

Hot mango flush.
Ladies with ice cream hair -
Gyroscopic pink neon beams -
Everybody's happy 'bout something.
The crowd moves like a flock of starlings: they
switch direction as one.
Jive on the jukebox -- Jack and Joker
split the night air with whoop and holler.
Faint aroma -- wood smoke, old fish,
diesel harbour, roadside mongrel,
painted man with buttons barely
holding, bursting belly bulging.
Doe-eyed ragamuffin mumbling --
Scolded for some vague infraction.
Stole a penny candy-coloured
sweetheart kiss down at the market.
Down at the market all the world
seems to simmer:
Hot mango flush.

8. El Nino

---

As one, wet merchants turn their eyes towards the west.
Trade winds falter as if in dire consequence.
Freezing fish to fry, fail to materialise.
Christ-child, blood-warm current sends to touch the skies.

El Nino.

Bathing in uncertainty, another age
seems to wing from T.V. screens in weather rage.
Savage retribution makes for a headline feast.
Planet-warming, opinion-forming headless beast.

El Nino.

Cold thrust tongue extends its dark and watery touch.
Forces gather, martial stand against the rush.
Wily child in mischief here to make his play.
Leaves toys for little sister on another day.

El Nino.

9. Black Mamba

---

Hand in the snake pit -- black mamba chase.
Head through the lion's cage -- head on a plate.
Two feet on the hot coals -- last dance at the ball.
Blindfold on the tightrope -- whenever you call.
Be my slippery slider. Black Mamba crawl over me.

Dark thoughts of the sleepless -- hung out to dry.
Slip through the bedclothes -- unblinking eye.
Long tongue flickering --fixed stare grip.
Sweet venomous potion, held to my lip.
Be my slippery slider. Black Mamba crawl over me.

A tropical whisper. A sibilant kiss.
Soft strike teasing. Dangerous bliss.

10. Mango Surprise

---

( instrumental )

11. Bends Like A Willow

---

She's catching the wind: the gentlest of breezes.
It's a sensitive passage she's sailing-----
Through stormy straits, navigates my unfathomable failings.

She rises before me, reading me clearly.
Empty nest left pressed in the pillow.
She can shift, she can sway
and bend like a willow.

I'm swept in the riptide. Caught in a fish trap.
Gift-wrapped in my soft self centre.
Summer sun leaves me as one who can only taste winter.
She's a good, a good God-send: she can bend like a willow.

With a fully armed angel to cover me quickly,
I'm cool under enemy fire.
If I fall, she can crawl right under the wire.

When I'm caustic and cold, she might dare to be bold -
ease me round to her warm way of thinking:
fill me up from the cup of love that she's drinking.
And I find, given time, I can bend like a willow.
She bends like a willow.

12. Far Alaska

---

Placing people in their dreamscape
with fantasies of foreign fields
Lofty spires all well appointed
In off-season special deals

To far Alaska: down to Rio in the Carnival
Norwegian fjords in the ever-light of Solstice call

A part of me might travel with you
in a freebie bucket seat for one
Business First -- at last, forever
Hopeless thoughts of flying fun

Now get me out of here I cry in air rage psycho-doom
I'm only dream-arranging from the safety of my room

Pick a place or stick a pin in
any corner of the sphere
Post me cards and tell me nicely
Say you wish that I was here

To far Alaska: down to Rio in the carnival
Norwegian fjords in the ever-light of Solstice call

13. Dog-Ear Years

---

Rusted and ropy.
Dog-eared old copy.
Vintage and classic,
or just plain Jurassic:
all words to describe me.

Relaxed in the knowledge
that happily present
are all things to sustain me,
nurture and claim me;
roll back the mileage.

You have settled beside me.
To the far and the wide of me.
A matter of choosing,
of finding and losing
on the rough ride with me.

Take whisky with water,
kick stones down the gutter.
Think back to long days with
stale breath recycled in my face.
Rattling through airways --
plastic on cold trays.
Watching through windows,
deep landscapes below
await another time and space.

There must come some time
to walk through the night line.
Hands tight: heads high.
These are the dog-ear years.
Don't turn back. Don't linger.
For God's sake keep moving.
Primitive shadows sidle beside.

Bonus Track

14. Gift Of Roses

---

I count the hours: you count the days.
Together, we count the minutes in this Passion Play.
Walk dusty miles. And I ride that train
on a first class ticket, just to be with you again.

Picking up tired feet. Back from a far horizon.
Cleaned up and brushed down. Dressed to look the part.
Fresh from God's garden, I bring a gift of roses:
To stand in sweet spring water and press them to your heart.

Like the Kipling cat, I walk alone -
Never inviting trouble, never casting the stone.
But this badge of honour is of tarnished tin.
Light your guiding beacon to bring this fisher in.

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