Touching From a Distance
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Someone called her name. A noise outside breaks the afternoon silence. ‘Aren’t you glad I came. I need someone to realise my dreams. I can take you away from all this. I’ve already seen your daughter. I picked her up in my car on her way to school this morning. She’s beautiful. Don’t you think you need a change too.’ Someone called her name. Sound of children crying.
Cold wind moving in from afar — death in the park, another senseless murder, child mutilated, red sky calling, inserts deep inside, warm glow from the feet up — this could be Hell.
Twelve noon lined up against the wall — about face, load fire. Ten shot echo in a faraway African town. CIA reports ‘No cause to worry — everything under control.’
On the beach looking for old friends — cities springing up all around — metallic glow reflecting a coldness felt only once in childhood. Money for this, money for that, money for nothing. I guess they died some time ago. Walking on water — Moses crosses the red sea — world peace intact, with a deep sigh he turns to face the wall, hand in hand they disappear into the night.
Pictures, brown round the edges, occupying places on half empty walls. As the dust gathers so do the memories of a child’s past. Healing wounds opened again and letters in strictest confidence for the world to see. Follow me down the garden path, I’ll show you where it all happened, oh so many years ago. Follow me down the path. Tears of a brother lost before birth, sentenced to no life at all. Tears of a mother who knew she had lost everything.
‘We left her playing here besides the flowers and then...It was horrible. I just can’t bear to think about it.’ The clock strikes six, everyone eats and then sleeps. A deep uneasy sleep. I can’t understand why. Pacing the floor I stare out into the night. What’s left for me?
A wider alliance that leads to new roads beyond the limits, holding hands, jumping off walls into dark seclusion, cut off from the mainstream of most intimate yearnings, I left my heart somewhere on the other side, I left all desire for good.
Clinging to naked thought, impossible tactics worked out for impossible means. This is the final moment of respite. The final page in the book. A bitter challenge between old and new, with one last warning.
Черновики
Out of Touch (1977)
On the wasteline,
Heartbreak, mainline,
In a hurry to get somewhere.
Divorced from what’s real so early.
All a waste of nothing really.
Arrive too late — don’t you know you’re out of touch?
Pass the dateline,
All on your time.
In a hurry to get something.
Staring at your own two faces,
Feeding off your private crazes.
You’re out on you’re own — out — out of touch.
Nervous feeling,
No scene stealing,
Can you reach the outer limits?
Stuck inside your pen too long,
Forgotten moves where you went wrong.
You’ve lost the feeling, now you’re out of touch.
Empty station,
Too long waiting,
In a hurry to get somewhere,
Divorced from everything so early,
All a waste of nothing really,
You were never there always out of touch.
Deadline (1979)
Destinations always change,
It could be hours,
It seems like days,
Wait around as though nothing’s wrong,
But heaven knows we’ve tried so long,
To do the final breakthrough.
A choice of gifts,
With cards to deal,
A narrow table,
Legs of steel,
A window seat with views the same,
All down the line we play the game,
For two, now we are two.
Destinations never change,
It seems as though we’re days away,
And all the points that lead us to,
We never stop, just pass on thru’ again,
Do it again.
Driftwood (1979)
Moving on out in a new line,
Setting our course by the sun,
Leaving the shoreline behind us,
We’re drifting apart while we run.
Wheels are in motion above us,
Metal and power in disguise,
Scared of the danger around us,
We’re drowning in our paradise.
Wreckage and gold on the sea bed,
Souls we could never reclaim,
Grey are the skies that surround us,
Forcing us farther away.
Moving on out in a new line,
Setting our course by the sun,
Leaving it all way behind us,
We’re drifting apart as we run.
Conditioned
(Незаписанная
Sure I’11 see you drown,
You do for me, I did for you,
You’re on the rim of wheels that turn
In ignorance, no way to learn.
Cure just takes you down,
Not down for good, that’s understood,
Lights on green, borrowed times,
It’s just the same, a different name.
Conditioned — you,
Conditioned — me,
No way out that I can see,
Conditioned — you,
Conditioned — me,
Who selects your destiny?