Phish

I feel I've never told you
the story of the ghost
that I once knew and talked to
of whom I'd never boast

Cause this was my big secret
how I get ahead
and never have to worry
I'd call him instead

His answer came in actions
He never spoke a word
Or maybe I lay down the phone
before he could be heard

I somehow feel forsaken
Like he had closed the door
I guess I just stopped needing him
as much as once before
..

But maybe he's still with me
the latch was left unhooked
He's waiting in the wind and rain
I simply haven't looked

I feel I've never told you the story of the ghost ......

I am a prince I have it all
I hear your footsteps through the wall
I wait in silence for your call
then take a shot and watch you fall

I am a ghost but I cannot fly
I'm stuck here as the years slide by
I need a resting place 'cause I
already felt my body die

if I had a host of ghosts
living on my street
I'd jive and strive to stay alive
and offer them some meat

I need a different life I think
perhaps I'd be the missing link
and treasure moments as I drink
away the memories let the sink

Guyute was the ugly pig
who walked on me and danced a jig
that he had learned when he was six
then stopped and did some other tricks

like pulling weapons from his coat
and holding them against my throat
he lectured me in a language strange
and scampered quickly out of range

I'm bouncing like a newborn elf
I can't remain inside myself
Guyute glances in my eyes
and manages to hypnotize

me as I sleep the sleep of death
he suck from me my only breath
that I had breathed since I was ten
I hope this happens once again

Fikus dreamed a dream for me
it cost me nothing it was free
he dreamed of walking in the sand
of blossoms forming in his hand

of kitchen cake and cedar shakes
of waterfalls and yellow snakes
of earthen dams and hydrofoils
of watching water 'til it boils

of holding forth from singing words
of flying south with flocks of birds
none of this was charged to me
for as I said it was for free

the terrible thing about hell
is that when you're there you can't even tell
as you move through this life you love so
you could be there and not even know

but you say so what I'm doing just fine
the irony is that it's all in your mind
and that's why hell is so vicious and cruel
but you'll just go on an oblivious fool

The shoulder that I leaned on was carved out of stone
But when I'm done freezing I want to be alone

Never want my hand cut off
Never want a hacking cough
Never need a cliffside push
Never turn my brain to mush

Always give me what I lack
Always take the best parts back
Always recognize your fate
Always just a moment late

Left is where I always turn
Left is how I'm forced to learn
Left the route my walking takes
Left alone with my mistakes

Up against a person who
Up 'til now I never knew
Up from hell the answer blew
Up and down it's up to you.

Drop me off the chinese wall
and peel my fingers off the rim
I come unglued while in mid-air
and land to reform
limb by limb

And I am taken far away....

Lingering slowly and melting away
Tossed with the salad and baled with the hay
Pooling like water that drips from above
Trampled by lambs and pecked by the dove

Drop me off the chinese wall
and peel my fingers off the rim
I come unglued while in mid-air
and land to reform
limb by limb

Time is me, and I should know
I knew this several months ago
I knew more than I do now
For I've been turned around somehow

Relax, the world will spin beside itself and suck you in
With threats and hopes beyond compare

I change the landscape as I pass
Meandering from sand to glass
I suction there for one whole day
Until the feeling goes away

Relax, the world will spin beside itself and suck you in
With threats and hopes beyond compare

I don't need these orbits in my life
Revolve and cycle through
don't keep coming back for more

I don't need this circular design
Wheel and spin away from me
you've been by here before

I've lost my mind
I've lost my way
I'm bound to lose
you wonder where I am

Relax, the world will spin beside itself and suck you in
With threats and hopes beyond compare

I've lost my mind
I've lost my way
I'm bound to lose
you wonder where I am
I've lost my mind
I've lost my way
I'm bound to lose
you wonder where I am
I've lost my mind
I've lost my way
I'm bound to lose
you wonder where I am..

If you're just staring at your walls
Observing echoing footfalls
From tenants wandering distant halls
Then this one is for you

If children playing all around
To you is noise not pleasant sound
And you'd be lost on the playground
Then this one is for you

All alone the life you lead
A silent diner where you feed
You bow your head pretend to read
Then this one if for you

Slip past strangers in the street
There's no one that you care to meet
Longing for your TV seat
this one is for you

If you're just staring at your walls
If you're just staring at your walls

And this one is for you

If you're just staring at your walls
If you're just staring at your walls

And this one is for you
this one is for you
this one is for you
this one is for you.....

Listen as she speaks to you
hear the voices flutter through
the barriers arranged by you.

Close the shutters draw the shades
Filter out the everglades
Glistening with evening dew

Thunder calls through waterfalls
Rising tide and ocean walls
I can hear you when you sigh

Listen as she speaks to you
Hear the voices flutter through
watch them and let them lie

I can hear you when you sigh
Through the water in the sky.

Thunder calls through waterfalls
Rising tide and ocean walls
I can hear you when you sigh

Listen as she speaks to you
Hear the voices flutter through

Through the water in the sky.
Through the water in the sky.
Through the water in the sky.

The circus is the place for me with bears
and clowns and noise
I love the shiny music that descends from overhead
Gordon knew the moment when the stars all turned around
But from that vantage point I frowned

If life were easy and not so fast
I wouldn't think about the past.
I can't forget to turn the earth so both sides get their share
of darkness and of light

So now I wander over grounds of light and heat
and sound and mist
provoking dreams that don't exist
A circus of light where dreams can take flight
In the peacefulness dreaming dreams brings

If life were easy and not so fast
I wouldn't think about the past....

I've been wading in the velvet sea
I've been wading in the velvet sea
I've been wading in the velvet sea
I've been wading in the
I've been wading in the
I've been wading in the velvet sea
I've been wading in the velvet sea
I've been wading in the velvet sea
I've been wading in the
I've been wading in the
I've been wading in the velvet sea
I've been wading in the velvet sea
I've been wading in the velvet sea
I've been wading in the
I've been wading in the

I took a moment from my day
wrapped it up in things you say
mailed it off to your address
you'll get it pretty soon unless

The packaging begins to break
and all the points I tried to make
are tossed with thoughts into a bin
time leaks out my life leaks in

you won't find moments in a box
and someone else will set your clocks
I took a moment from my day
wrapped it up in things you say
and mailed it off to you

and all throughout I gaze and glimpse you
loving never did convince you
I see you when you're all alone
it's like a person I've not known

the moment ends though I feel winds
blowing differently than ever before
and they're pushing me further from shore

a frothy cap the steady slap
of lines against the rail
a biting rain take in the main

up the rigging take in sail mind the skipper we'll not fail
he'll bring out wine all will be fine just hear the order watch the sail
the moment ends

a silent bird / a raging tide a mountainside
an open door / looming from the surf
a whispered word / a steady wind as we began
and then no more / to close in on the earth

The Squirming Coil of sunset
I keep within my reach
Tried yesterday to get away
and hitchhiked to the beach

I saw Satan on the beach
trying to catch a ray
He wasn't quite the speed of light
and the squirming coil
it got away....

The muscles flex the mother's ring
She fastens children to her king
and sends him down the crooked street
When he returns, the birth's complete

Jimmy holds the Tannis root
The forest's tasty nectar shoot
The sun tips off the monarch's suit
from sequined sash to shiny boot

"I'd like to lick the coil some day
Like Icarus, who had to pay
with melting wax and feathers brown
He tasted it on his way down"

Stun the puppy!
Burn the whale!
Bark a scruff and go to jail!
Forge the coin and lick the stamp!
Little Jimmy's off to camp

Reba sink a boulder in the water
Reba tie a cable to a tree
Reba stuck in a game of lipstick perfume flypaper
Reba press a razor to a slide cross a needle with a prune
Knee deep in the motel tub
Reba dangle ladle form her lip
dip
sip
Reba babble to the nag with the lipstick perfume
mutter to a farmer in a truck
Take a peek at the cheetah, Reba
cheetah on the prowl in a cage
sink a boulder in the water
tie a cable to a tree
Mutter "nature" to the nag
with the lipstick perfume
Reba flush a fleshfarm leftover
thunder in a circle
down the pipes
Bag it
Tag it
Sell it to the butcher in the store
Reba put a stopper in the bottom of the tub
picked up a jar unscrewed the top
and watched it drop into the water
A little scoop of plaster mix
some coffee grounds and mud
and then she stirred it with the ladle
that her Grandmother had bought her
threw in a pot of melted wax
a forefoot and a hoof
apple core, worms galore
and a can of some corrosive
coconuts and chloroform
some wicker and some cork
Toxic waste, some purple paste
she hoped was not explosive
Reba dip a ladle for a taste of her creation
and she knew that what she make
would be the finest in the nation

My sweet one, I'll call you my sweet one
You're my only true sweet one
With my all, I'll call you my sweet one
From far away, I'll say your name
Oh with you, I'd travel thick
And with you, I'd also travel thin
And all the spaces in between
I'd travel with you, you're my sweet one
But for now I must sit here and ponder the yonder
Herbivores ate well cause their food didn't never run
Oh, if You're ever unsatisfied with the way life's treating You
You know You can count on me to take good care of You
I love you honey oh yes I do You know that's true of course
and if your dog or cat ever dies, I'll buy You a Ewe

In the morning I pack up my gear
and toss it in my carryall
Run the wide load to the lip
and watch the big core crack and glow

In the evening I undo my belt
Split open and melt

I wake up on my stomach
with my face between my hands
and crawl along the floor toward the doorway
Jumping to my feet
I try to put myself together
but I feel it in my knees
and the room begins to spin
and I slip and bump my head and raise a welt
Split open and melt

We breathe deep
in a steam dream
and plunge below the water line
down, down, down
between beams
to the gloom room
among the seaweed and the slime
down, down, down
Melt

Brett is in the bathtub making soup for the ambassadors
And I am in the hallway singing to the troubadours
The kings are all lined up outside the gate
And the autumn bells are ringing but they'll just have to wait
Where is the joker? Have you seen him around
With his three coned cap that he wears like a clown?
Have you seen his stripped stockings and heard his sad tale
About the kids under the carpet and the purple humpbacked whales?
Here come the ambassadors, they show up one by one
Brett is tasting all the soup to see if it is done
Wendy's on the windowsill waiting to be let in
And we're all in the bathtub now making bathtub gin
The kings storm the hallway they've climbed up through the gate
they didn't mean to be impolite but they just couldn't wait
Here comes the joker with his silly grin
He carries a martini made of bathtub gin
Here comes the joker we all must laugh
Cause we're all in this together, and we love to take a bath.