Envelopes of Yesterday

I feel like a rusty key I don't fit any door

You stole my cloudy castles but you didn't say what for.

You said I didn't have the eyes to paint out in the street

Without a standard martyr's hat and neon sloganned

feet.

To eat, it seems, I needed you for crumbs your need was

me.

We cheered and passed the sanguine flask till the ice

man made me see

At five o'clock you could never wash your printer's stain

away;

So I count you lost and your words I've tossed

In the bleary envelopes of yesterday.

I feel like a tumbling kite there's no hand on my reel.

I dived aboard your star-bright ship to find you'd left the

wheel

To hunt some upstart passengers who had gambled with

their fare

Then trumpeted the hull with holes and laughing gone

by air.

Whilst most of us who stayed aboard slipped brandy to

the crew

John Purser locked his iron box and pointed at the queue.

Still working out the price of time no echoes will we lay;

So I've burnt the till and I've thrown the bills

In the weary envelopes of yesterday.

I need to suck the breasts of time and freeze her milk in

ink

To juggle cruets full of dreams and balance on the brink.

Don't blame me if my smoke and steam obscured your

rutted track,

I only meant to startle you not offer you my back

To ride upon and overload with your jars of unbaked clay.

You can find your guide to the pulpit ride

in the dreary envelopes of yesterday.

I'm upside down I'm an empty town my eyes are full of

ghost

Of dusty windowed certainty and spider-webbed almost.

I love, I hate this rock and roll the ladies and the lights

Ate all my flowers long ago but the roots came through

all right.

Whilst now my toast is the crossroads post, I hear just

out of sight,

That the Black Pick's found his Chaldean lamp

After years in a concentration camp.

But I fear he's still out on the ice

With his bagpipe mouth and his cup of crimson speiss.

Still, I've fulfilled a host of dreams for that I'll cry hurray

But it won't be long till I cast this song

In the jet-edged envelopes......