The Sphinx In The Face

(Hammill)

I remember what it felt like at
seventeen:
I was a cat, a snake, a lizard, a mouse.
Still got an interest in the limousine
and a spouse and a brat,
country house, London flat.

I'm gonna head for the island when
the summer's out,
I'm gonna do all the stuff that I can,
drink like a fish in a waterspout -
I'm a fan of the flow
it began long ago
I'm a man who should know
it doesn't stop.

There's so much to remember,
so much to forget:
we're all in the possession of the
future tense, but don't know it yet.
The flesh comes through the spirit,
the spirit through the flesh...
we look the Sphinx in the face
for answers and of course we're
really not impressed.
We're caught between age and beauty,
experience and youth
so we feel the need acutely
for any kind of Truth.

Oh but we get copped some days,
caught between options we've failed
to play, such wasted chance.
So I join the wastrel's dance:
it has slow as well as fast movement
and any change must be an
improvement on simply fossilising,
standing still.

I got a steady vocation for
the Quiet Zone,
I just can't wait for the song to be sung,
I'm still possessed by the promise
of the Pleasure Dome

You're so young,
so oldd,
such a drag
to be told.

You're so here, so gone,
so near, so wrong,
so queer, so strong

Such a drag to be told....