Piano Magic

I was a postal worker from May until July
I left because of allergies - the letters made me cry
8am on Fridays, 6am the rest
Postal for the two months
Coastal for the rest
I kept the last day's letters

He lived a boy's life
He loved his "Camp Mohawk" on Viele's Creek
And he loved to work on problems, drifting in his canoe
Lightning days
He hated formalities in dressing
He would welcome also god himself, in his red bathing suit
Lightning days
The doors of his house were usually electrified

The season is long and i've got the chills
The city steps back, replaced by the hills
There's snow on my heart and snow on my pills
The season is long and this season kills
Don't you ever think that you might love me?
The season is long and I'm coming home
I captured your ghost in the throat of the phone
There's snow on my heart and snow on my pills
The season is long and this season kills
Don't you ever think that you might love me?

There are more people alive now than have ever lived
I read that somewhere and instantly thought it impossible but if it were to be true
I wonder that, if we keep living this fast, no-one will have time to die
I've met people whose lovers died in war and i've wondered what this helplessness could be like
One minute there's a whole life entwined with yours and the next, just a space and scattered clues
When I watch old films in which animals appear
I get sad because those animals are certainly dead now
And that certainty prompts my private epitaph and I have to say it out loud
"That dog is dead, that cat is dead, that horse is dead..."

The night settles down on the water
The feathers of sun gathering
The trees wave their way to the morning
The birds think about what they'll sing
I have dreams in which you're a nightmare
I have dreams in which you're unfair
But angels still dance in your garden and flowers still grow in your hair

My tears leave a skull on the pillow
My tooth leaves my blood on the sheet
My heart sways the way of the willow
My heart sways the way of the wheat
But you are the queen of the lowlands
You have the crown of the lost
I found you broke up like a shipwreck
I found you broke up on the rocks

The horses come in from the cliff tops, their shadows upsetting the sea
The waves swim their way to the bottom and stay there until they're forgotten
And you know about birds when they're dying
How they know that they're going to die
How they hide in the heart of the forest and sleep until death chances by
You know that
You know that

It's the same dream that lasts all night but I can only keep this: it's Halloween and I'm chasing you round the other kids on a moonlit lawn in a skull mask and a ghost cape
And you are sometimes and sometimes you are just a shadow

In travel, there are traps
When I'm writing in the back
Beneath the rain, between the maps
My diary bears this out but memory has it wrong
I loved you when you loved me and then we were done
There's a silence on the railway
There's a bad curse on the land
And this season writes a rainstorm like a poem in the sand
You told me I depressed you, that I withered in your hand
And that sentence cut my loveline when you left me as you planned
In travel, there are traps when I'm writing in the back
Beneath the rain, between the maps
My diary bears this out but memory has it wrong
I loved you when you loved me and then we were gone
In travel, there are traps when I'm writing in the back

Breaking Winter up by shooting numbers from the clock
The cat sleeps on the atlas in Alsace Lorraine, dreaming long grass and birds on the wire
I have memories no deeper than this glass and some besides that stretch history twice
In a super 8 film colour haze, a scratched nostalgia that runs through my cogs - shot through the fog; time taking care of whatever I cared about
So you are lost somewhere in here - your body, a raft,spinning towards the falls
Your death claimed me too - there were two throats in the noose but mine now swallows whiskey, mine is not now bruised
The black mouth of this month, bruised lips, black ice, forms a sickly smile across London's sky