"The Tower" lyrics - PETER HAMMILL

PETER HAMMILL
"The Tower"

So: onto the familiar top steps!
In cloud-scud moonlight glow
The Tower reels.
I, the blind man,
Feeling for a path I know...
Don't you know that I'm only feeling for how to feel?

Rats run.
Snakes coil.
Fathers
Stare out at the whispering night;
Rub mud on their arms.

Spiders.
Mud boils.
Children
Whimper in the human vortex;
Faces glow of worms.

THUNDER
Silence.
Omens...

I think it's coming,
All signs are very near, all signs are that
Pain shall come
And change shall run
Down through my heart
And shake my knees
And now it is coming,
All around is the humming
Of the World.

Too late, with my balance gone,
Dead-eyed doll,
I'm falling, falling
Back to where I began...

(In the) Black Room... continued

I'm feeling like a kid again,
I'm feeling like I just walked in the door,
And with my head on fire
I wrote this song - I don't know who it's for.
Hands held fast in camera,
I'll swear I heard the Stammerer exclaim:
"I am a traveller, unraveller,
I only live through pain, and shame, and change!"

In my room, the secret tomb, I can see
Future forms, space/time storms:
They're all me,
And I've only got to choose!

In my head I am dead if I fall
In the trap,
The subtle lap,
Safety's pall...
But I'm living while I choose...