The Woods

Blizzards coming in, coming in in their dozens

In shifting light through narrow windows smeared with the grease of ovens

I have unattractive nurses in my dreams

Stacked low like pancakes, busy like anthills

I tell you because it's true: Kids jump off bridges

Lions rip the necks off lizards

Terrifying buses, filled with dead tree trunks

Mud-splattered grill guards

Blackened burnt out ceilings

And the sofas with their stuffing spilling out like guts

You go to the woods

You will find me in the crackle of a trashcan fire

When you come back to me

Still shaped by my ear like a melody

Unbuttoning your clothes

Unbuttoning my clothes

Where you come from

Goodness only knows

You said you knew me well but you never come in here

Where the fear is bland like english food

And warm like english beer

Where they queue up to get whipped down tottenham court road

And you, you go to the woods

You will find me in the wriggling worms

And you will find me in the crackle of a broken leaf

In the trembling hummingbird's heart

In the ancient dusty attic where you took my world apart

Unbuttoning your clothes

Unbuttoning my clothes

Where you come from

Goodness only knows

I either lie awake or I visit this place

Where kindness does not have a human face

And the bleeping monitors, the hospital corridors

Amplify the muffled cries of dying innocents

Rip the gold teeth out of skeletons!

Pay to paint the town!

The sea does not remember the name of all its drowned

Comb the cafes for me

Peaceably, I will be waiting with my beans

Picking at the seams of an unravellable sack

You go to the woods

You cannot miss me in the wriggling worms

The nightingale does not really sing your name

Does not deal in romance any more than in shame

Soft-breasted though you see

Still a little like me

Still singing for company

Unbuttoning my clothes

Unbuttoning my clothes

Where you come from

Goodness only knows

I feel like I've been swimming underwater

Shaking in the cold like a rich man's daughter

But it isn't that the morning comes in slowly

It isn't this feeling of regret

And it isn't the banks

And it isn't the birds

And it isn't the schools

And it isn't the pubs

And it isn't the piano playing in my head

And it isn't the soft feeling of your bed

And it isn't that your man won't come round here any more

And it isn't tha

T I woke up on the floor

The earth is a lie

Tie cotton to the branches

Francis wakes me up from all these moonlit spiders

Moonlit mosquitos, radiating agony

And you, you come back to me

Still shaped by my ear like a melody

Unbuttoning your clothes

Unbuttoning my clothes

Where you come from

Goodness only knows