Song Lyrics

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Cocteau, Goya, Blake
Maestro
Sailing to the Western Lands
Lucy and I
Good Tom-Go-Lightly
Master Van Rijn
Waiting For
Miskatonic U
Vanishing Act
Tir na nOg
Lughnasadh
Aaron Copland
Lord Vlad
Dragon
Next Head on the Block
Relic In My Time

Cocteau, Goya, Blake 

Newly awake, full of the dreams of the underworld.
Longing to look on its visions with a magician’s eyes.
And I am the beast haunting the labyrinthine corridors,
Seeking in silences the hallowed eloquence.
Mine is the life given to mysteries.
And if I seem like a dragon when you’re wrapped in your robes of the sun,
It may only be the shadow you’re casting on everyone.
And if I find a brightness where you see the dark and the pain,
The sacred page we’re reading from is still the same.

Canvasses teeming with wonders the world will not look upon,
Remembering only my catalogues of atrocities.
But all the midnight sabbaths and the Saturnine feasts
Are true to a realm of deliriums beggaring Bosch’s hells.
Mine is the life that speaks in mythologies.
And if I seem a Colossus, obscuring the sky with a figure too great,
It may be I can stretch the world to accommodate.
And if I leave in my wake a destruction that calls for the righteous to weep,
Know that I have no more power to harm this side of sleep. 

Oh, I have learned of fearful symmetries,
And ravening angels thieving innocence.
But I have known redeemers, come in the midsummer light,
And held infinity within my hand.
Mine is the life lived in poetry.
And if I seem like a faker, pretending to powers I never possessed,
Think of me healing the world of some of its dreariness.
And if I’m a trader in falsehoods, it’s the Art and the work that is true,
So when I depart on my journey I will remain with you. 

The magician, the painter, the poet, and the maker of lies
Dance round the circle, while only the center is wise.

Maestro

The exquisite shape-changer beckons me look through the veil at the yawning abyss,
And bound hand-in-hand to me whispers the sacred instructions:
To draw breath to bursting, expelling it into the space of a loosely clenched fist,
And follow it to the far side of the inchoate chasm.
Into the primordial nowhere of half-unformed appetites jealous of heat -
The nameless chimerae attendant upon my unmaking  -
Reduced to the thought of a brightness agleam with my purpose and terrible need
To open all doors and make whole again that which was broken. 

I have been sealed in the tower of my shame.
I have not been true to my name.
Make me forget my forgetting, reveal to me what I was born to again.
I swear I will not turn away. 

The arrogant surety’s gone to me now with the chances that all went awry,
But what I’ve lost in memory I’ve compensated in sorrow.
Awake to the grieving of having perfection itself torn away from my sight -
But out of my hell I will come take my place in the Circle.
Till I stand at the border of failure and wonder with an impotent fistful of breath,
Unsure of myself at the delicate moment’s deciding.
The hope of unbinding the damned and the living’s too heavy to place on my head,
And I can’t bear to add to the crimes with which I have been laden. 

I have been washed on the shores of my sins.
I have not done enough to amend.
Make me undo my undoing, show me the ending to what I began.
I swear I will not turn away. 

Now the world is so small I can gather it into myself like a tangible dream,
Or it may be that I’ve grown as large as the whole of Creation.
Unleashed as the thought of a brightness proceeding with purpose and terrible speed,
As unburdened I rush to the center and to the completion.
Till I stand at the veil between seeking and knowing with the Infinite’s name on my breath,
To look at last on the first cause of my pain and my power.
For the sake of redeeming the phantoms that all of my learning could not lay to rest,
I will burn with the worlds or return with an end and an answer.

Sailing to the Western Lands

I can be as cold and quiet as a shroud,

As I pass unseen among the unsuspecting crowd.

I’ve put half the world between myself and the stain on my name.

Rearrange it how I may, the words are still, are still the same.

Agents of the dark machine are gathered for the fall.

I don’t have the means to exterminate them all.

Pray that my mutation comes to tune me with the mystic flow.

This is the transformation age, and we are here, we’re here to go.

So come on aboard and take my hand – We’re all sailing to the Western Lands.

Pushing away from the mortal strand – We’re all sailing to the Western Lands.

Our ship is under our own command – We’re all sailing to the Western Lands.

Nothing remains to understand – We’re all sailing to the Western Lands.

We’re all sailing to the Western Lands.

I have turned away from your brutal surgeries.

All those pills and instruments can’t cure what’s wrong with me.

Addicted to my sicknesses, and you are too, you’re not immune.

Suddenly the lights are on and you can’t hide what you consume.

But I must be away before my years amend

The piracies I reveled in with my departed friends.

I feel a call to journey to where youth and beauty do not fade,

And I may linger only as the echoes of my rested shade.

Lucy and I

Underneath the stars, among this giddy revelry,

An unexpected melancholy’s stealing over me.

Suddenly out of the darkness I see Lucy smile.

She offers me her hand to come and walk with her a while.

She tempts me like a goddess to go down upon my knees,

Beautiful and terrible and wise.

She beckons me with promises of secret whisperings,

And in her eyes I think I see the starshine glimmering.

She knows not to apologize for keeping me awake,

As she moves us through the revelers like slow boats on a lake.

She asks me if I’m ready, and I swallow and say “please,”

And she plants a pair of kisses on my eyes.

Lucy and I reach with outstretched fingers to the diamond-spattered sky,

Suddenly full of color at this strangest hour of night.

She reminds me that her name means light.

Her touch sending shivers down the center of my spine,

As she promises she’ll be with me till I die.

In the meantime we are both divine, Lucy and I.

So hand in hand we walk out to the shadow-haunted fields,

To wait and see what miracles the Mystery reveals.

The stirrings of the gods are carried to me on the breeze

From somewhere in the dark beyond the strangely swaying trees.

And Lucy says a thousand worlds are inside everyone,

It’s just that we’re persuaded otherwise.

And then we laugh to see how all my solemness has gone,

While overhead the firmament spins in its slow pavane.

And something’s moving through me in my bones and in my blood,

With all these revelations coming to me in a flood.

I ask if I’ll recall them when I wake up to the sun,

And she tells me I know more than I realize.

Good Tom-Go-Lightly

You’d understand why I wander alone

In the streets late at night with my overcoat on,
While the landscape around me turns restless and strange,

And the skyline seems oddly arranged.

And I think you’d know what I meant if I said

That my costume is motley but my laughter is dead.

And you of all people I’d show if you asked

What my smile looks like under my mask.

Come Good Tom-Go-Lightly, unseen.

I have looked on your works and it seems

That not all of the dreamers are dead.

You have opened a door in my head.

I’ll go through it where Good Tom will lead -

Tom-Go-Lightly, who knows it indeed.

So spin me a tale of the realms of the weird,

Of the Boschian visions our masters revered.

Let me drink from the cup of the secrets you know.

Share the gifts that the darkness bestows.

Because I know the tune to the song that you played -

The grim Flemish laughter, the harlequinade.

I think I may have walked the same backstreets as you,

Looked in shadows that looked in me, too.

So it’s your voice I hear when the long shadows fall,

And I’m drawn to the derelict streets at their call.

When the landscape around me is eerily changed -

Full of silence and somehow deranged.

When I can’t escape from the feeling I feel

That the world I inhabit is strange and surreal,

I take comfort in knowing that somewhere tonight,

Tom-Go-Lightly would tell me I’m right.

Master Van Rijn 

The things I remember are never quite right.
The watch never gathered so late in the night.
But I’ll dip at my palette while I have the light,
And attend to the day’s slow destruction.
I took to my talents and answered my dream,
And I sat at the feet of the Master van Rijn.
So I could see things to be more than they seem
He bestowed upon me his instruction. 

Gather the circle round Master van Rijn,
Master van Rijn and his genius.
Look for your answers to Master van Rijn,
Master van Rijn and his paintbrush. 

At easel he bends to his fabulous toils,
The magic he makes with his canvas and oils.
With passion a serpent and I in its coils,
I attend every stroke of the Maestro.
And some of these portraits are ages behind,
But he’s still a young man in the eye of his mind.
His eyes will be brushes when he’s nearly blind,
To bring light to his world only more so. 

Take for your teacher the Master van Rijn,
Master van Rijn will enlighten.
Your coals and your embers bring Master van Rijn,
Master van Rijn will ignite them. 

I’ll never have powers he had at his height,
The spells he could weave out of shadows and light.
His disciples can only come close but not quite
To the Master’s unearthly perfection.
And some whom the harvester holds in his thrall -
The named and the nameless, the mighty and small -
Van Rijn at his easel immortalled them all,
And in resin he sealed their protection. 

Follow the footsteps of  Master van Rijn,
Master van Rijn and his vision.
See the world different for Master van Rijn,
Master van Rijn the magician.

Waiting For 

Vladimir and Estragon stand by the road with their shit-kickers on,
And hold their breaths for a man with a cudgel to come and say,
“This is a no-loitering zone.”
Side by side and hand in hand - two case studies of worm as a man.
And isn’t funny how staying together can make you feel so all alone?
Don’t lose faith and someday we might even be as lucky as he,
And shoulder a burden as solid as paraphernalia and servitude.
Because there’s silent strength and desperate hope in being at the end of a long heavy rope,
And only having one speech to deliver and all your dialogue is through. 

Round and round, awake, debate, and die.
Beneath the welkin’s vast unblinking eye,
While moments or millenia pass by. 

So we’ll recall the days back when, as we get ready for nothing to happen again.
But until it does we will pass the time in the only way we’ve ever known.
Because any time now that kid will say, “Mr. Godot isn’t coming today,
But tune in at this time tomorrow and you’ll surely be satisfied, and we’ll send you home.” 

A moment from the birth-pangs to the tomb,
In transit between not so different rooms,
To savor our salvation and our doom. 

We could be slaves or bourgeoisie, but one can’t speak and the other can’t see,
So maybe down here in the mud is where we would have chosen to be anyway.
And as I said and I feared, here’s a message from the man with the long white beard.
And we could decide to leave, but it isn’t that easy just to walk away.

Miskatonic U 

I dreamt that I was sitting in a café up by Miskatonic U -
It was me and Tom Ligotti, drinking coffee, smoking pipes and singing “Tangled Up in Blue.”
Then Thomas says, “It’s time for me to go -
I’ve got a class to teach tonight, you know.
But if you’ll kindly pay the tab for me I’ll settle with you later what I owe.” 

So I left just in time to see Clive Barker disappearing round a bend,
And later in the doorway of an adult bookstore, sure enough, he’s coming out again.
He says, “You’re not required to like this kind of thing,
And it’s not about the sales that it will bring -
Although you’ve got to please the public if you want those fucking registers to ring.” 

Wandering round in Arkham while I’m sleeping, meeting shadows of the men
Who have his craft now in their keeping.
Wondering - does he go by Randolph Carter now? Would he mind if I invoked him in a toast?
Or is it silly to pay homage to the fantasy of his ghost? 

So, pondering what this meant, I turned the corner and I went into a bar,
And who’s there at the tap but Neil Gaiman wearing Ray-Bans, saying, “How’s your dream so far?”
I’ll just sit and have a pint without regret,
And I’ll smoke another vile clove cigarette,
And later I may ask him to explain it all to me, but not just yet.

Vanishing Act 

You met each other in the usual way -
By luck, by chance, on a whim.
And as far as you knew it was the very first time
You’d been drawn to a lover the way you were attracted to him.
And things, as they will, went alright for a while,
And nothing got under your skin.
The whole world could see it was a storybook love,
But fairytales leave off where most people’s troubles begin. 

And all of that fire has done a vanishing act.
Nothing in your power to do now will conjure it back. 

You still recall the way things used to be,
Though it’s hard to remember it now -
How you liked the same movies and music and books,
And made love as often as time and the world would allow.
But now, when you say the old mantra to him,
The words just sound empty and dead .
You wonder how it happened that you can’t be alone
In your bed, in your house, in your life, in your heart, in your head. 

And all of your space has done a vanishing act.
All that you claimed for your own once is under attack. 

You’re certain that you’ve made a dreadful mistake,
But you’re not certain what you should do.
And you can’t help but feel that the problem’s your own
When he’s obviously so entirely devoted to you.
Because he only knows he’s a sensitive man,
He just doesn’t know what that means.
Nobody told him how easy it is
To become, without knowing, a highwayman stealing your dreams. 

You wonder what he will do, when you do your vanishing act.
Will you have the courage to walk away without looking back?

Tir na nOg 

Ship is on the strand,
Bobbing there for me.
I must keep my promise to my Master in the sea.
Must be on my way.
I have stayed too long.
It is time to make my journey to the Land of the Ever-Young. 

And if you can’t go to Tir na nOg, I will understand.
But I can’t bear to see you sad, so smile for me, my friend.
And even if we don’t meet on the road as time goes on,
Just be glad that I was here a while - don’t miss me when I’m gone. 

Good to see you smile.
Try and fight your tears.
The place I’m going, sadness is as meaningless as years.
Give me one more laugh -
Try for me at least.
And I will think of that when I am singing at the fairy-feast. 

Nothing lasts for long,
Laughter least of all.
But winter must give in to spring as summer gives to fall.
Just remember this:
Love and light prevail,
And I’ll be proud to count you as my friend no matter where I sail.

Lughnasadh 

Fields of grain of golden hue
Make a crown for Master Lugh.
Gather round beneath the tree.
Pass the jug of barley bree.
Light the pipe and hand it here.
Crow as loud as Chanticleer.
Howl a love-song at the stars –
Glorious on Lughnasadh. 

Honor Him who blessed the land –
The Bright One of the Skillful Hand.
Keep the Goddess’ accord –
Her union with the Great Horned Lord.
Swear by Oak and Ash and Thorn,
Swear by blood of barleycorn.
Say you’ll love me near and far.
Marry me on Lughnasadh. 

Come and join the feast of golden Lugh.
Give a little back of what you grew.
Strike the fiddle, dance and play the drum.
Turn around and see what you’ve become. 

Holly King is standing by,
Waits to watch the summer die.
Take your fill before it ends.
Save a seed to plant again.
Merry meet and merry part,
Merry come back to the start.
Dance the dance of all we are –
Round and round on Lughnasadh.

Aaron Copland 

Hello, Aaron Copland.  Thought I saw you at the local mall.
What’s a nice old queer like you doing in a town this small?
I hear you’re selling beefsteak now on national TV.
Are you stuck in Appalachia? Come and sit down next to me.
And it’s you and Uncle Walt and Oscar Wilde and sometimes me,
And I’m happy to be in your company. 

Hello, A.E. Houseman.   I’m not saying that the times are bad,
But things are very different now from when you were a Shropshire lad.
Our athletes all grow old these days, alive and doing fine,
Retiring on the millions that they’ve made by twenty-nine.
And it’s you and maybe Shakespeare and H.D. and sometimes me,
And I’m happy to be in your company. 

Hello, William Burroughs.  Have you paid yet for your life of crime?
You must tell me what it’s like to be a relic in your time.
Did you suspect the things you said would linger on somehow?
Because the tune you piped’s still playing, though the beat is different now.
And it’s you and Gertrude Stein and Jean Genet and sometimes me,
And I’m happy to be in your company. 

So here’s to all you lovely odd girls, all you queens, and maybe me,
If you’ll have me in your merry company.

Lord Vlad 

Cracks and shards, but I don’t know if I’ve been cast out or I’ve been freed.
But the gentle beat of leathery wings is such a comfort in my time of need.
I will fear no wizard’s spell, I will fear no killer’s blade.
I won’t look back and I won’t regret the choice I made. 

My grandpa told me, “Vladimir, that’s no life for an honest man.”
And I’ve been no such thing, but I’ll try and make amends now if I can.
My poor head is worth more gold than you’ve seen in all your days.
But if you sell me out, you don’t want to know the price you’ll pay. 

I lost my job, I lost my place, I lost my loving wife.
A wise-ass on the wing and a long sharp blade and that’s my life.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
You’ve got a knife-edge smile – are you sharp enough to let me be? 

Now folks don’t always have nice things to say about me, it’s true.
But that’s all too familiar to me, practicing the craft I do.
Around the table we feed on others’ kill kill kills.
Lord Vlad’s got to work to pay the bills. 

So it’s time to leave while I still have nine fingers and my pride.
I’ve got to keep my wits as sharp as the rapier at my side.
And if you come to bring me death, you’ll find it shining back in an assassin’s eyes.
They may take me down, but they’ll never take me by surprise.

Dragon 

When I was a boy, not so long ago,
I was happy to stay in my own little town.
I had no idea who I really was.
Now I’ll shatter the world before I am done,
With what I’ve become.
In the time that I have I will do what I may
To balance a man with the monster you see.
But I’m bound to a wheel that turns as it will.
It’s dark and it’s light in equal degree -
The power in me. 

It’s black on the bone,
It bubbles and foams,
It’s a knife at my throat and I’m driving it home.
Sweet as a rose,
Oh, it shimmers and glows,
And it tears out my heart every time that it goes. 

Advice from all sides to survive my last fight,
But I’ll win it my way.  Burn me, I will.
I’ll nod and I’ll smile if it buys me the time
To determine the shape of the truth that you tell -
That you’re hiding so well.
So I’ll stand on my own or I’ll draw to my doom
The ones who can’t choose but be counted my friends.
The gentleman wolf, the trickster and rogue,
And the madman who’s raving inside of my head -
Three thousand years dead. 

Dragon. 

And it’s hovering over me like a carrion bird.
And the laughter howls in the dark every time
That I swear that I’ll keep my word.

Next Head on the Block 

Space I’m taking up -
I’m afraid it’s not enough.
I thought I’d make you proud of me but I fouled up.
Break me on your love.
Don’t wait to wake me up.
I long to test my faith and maybe press my luck. 

Thought I was a rock but I was wrong,
And now it shouldn’t be too long
Till I’m the next head on the block.

In sickness and in health,
Please keep me on your shelf,
And if you’re sweet to me I’ll keep it to myself.
Deep as you may delve,
You won’t get through my shell.
I need to hoard the secrets that are all my wealth. 

You see me at my best,
In all my shallowness,
But I promise I’ll be honest with you, more or less.
Forgive me and my flesh
For the weakness I confess,
And pay no mind to anything I say in jest.

Relic In My Time 

Guess it isn’t fair, the way I’m leaving here.
But if you needed me to stay you should have told me, dear.
So I’ll probably spend my winter in the belly of another whale,
And I’ll probably end up winning and then wishing I had failed.
But close the door.  I’ve said before, it’s not your problem anymore.
Only let it not be said of me I didn’t care.
I said I’m through, and I won’t pursue – there’s too much grief in loving you -
But don’t be surprised to turn around and find me there. 

Know that you’ve been kinder than you wanted to.
I know that you won’t tell me if I’ve slighted you.
You say that’s all behind us now, and you tell me that you’re in my debt,
But I don’t think you’ve forgotten and you haven’t forgiven me yet.
So you feel betrayed – well, I’m afraid that’s just the way the game is played,
And I’m sorry that I couldn’t be a better man.
And you may still find that you’re so inclined, but a change of heart is not a change of mind,
And it’s too late now.  It simply wasn’t in the plan. 

I wish that I had had the opportunity
To play the part of gentlemanly roguery.
I could have been a highwayman, or a captain of a ship at sea.
I could have been a chevalier.  This is not the age for me.
But all the same, when I face my shame, I still have no one but myself to blame
If I didn’t do all of the things I always wanted to.
And I’ve served my share, so I am aware that it isn’t kind and, no, it isn’t fair -
But you’ll still give all the answers they expect of you. 

I am out of time, and I am out of place.
But I will play my part, though you shake your head and you break my heart -
A thousand times in a thousand different ways. 

So now I’ve found a grail that’s worth the questing for.
So forgive me if I’m quiet slipping out the door.
I know that you’ll be worried for me.  Know that you’ll be concerned.
Know you’ll think I’ve doomed myself, but that’s a right that I’ve earned.
And I’ll be fine – I am resigned to being a relic in my time,
And I’m sure that that’s a kinder fate than many ones.
And I’ll agree that you should be free, but don’t you be ashamed of me.
I have never deserved your enmity or anyone’s.