Stormwatch

[instrumental]

Darlings are you ready for the long winter's fall?
Said the lady in her parlor
Said the butler in the hall.
Is there time for another?
Cried the drunkard in his sleep.
Not likely
Said the little child. what's done
The lord can keep.
And the vicar stands a-praying.
And the television dies
As the white dot flickers and is gone
And no-one stops to cry.
The big jet rumbles over runway miles
That scar the patchwork green
Where slick tycoons and rich buffoons
Have opened up the seam
Of golden nights and champagne flights
Ad-man overkill
And in the haze
Consumer crazed
We take the sugar pill.
Jagged fires mark the picket lines
The politicians weep
And mealy-mouthed
Through corridors of power on tip-toe creep.
Come and see bureaucracy
Make its final heave
And let the new disorder through
While senses take their leave.
Families screaming line the streets
And put the windows through
In corner shops
Where keepers kept
The country's life-blood blue.
Take their pick
And try the trick
With loaves and fishes shared
And the vicar shouts
As the lights go out,
And no-one really cares.
Dark ages
Shaking the dead
Closed pages
Better not read
Cold rages
Burn in your head.

Hair stands high on the cat's back like
A ridge of threatening hills.
Sheepdogs howl, make tracks and growl ---
Their tails hanging low.
And young children falter in their games
At the altar of life's hide-and-seek
Between tall pillars, where sunday-night killers
In grey raincoats peek.
Misty colours unfold a backcloth cold ---
Fine tapestry of silk
I draw around me like a cloak
And soundless glide a-drifting
On eddies whirled in beech leaves furled ---
Brown and gold they fly
In the warm mesh of sunlight
Sifting now from a cloudless sky.

I'll be coming again like an old dog in pain
Blown through the eye of the hurricane
Down to the stones where old ghosts play.

Clear light on a slick palm
As i mis-deal the day
Slip the night from a shaved pack
Make a marked card play
Call twilight hours down
From a heaven home
High above the highest bidder
For the good lord's throne
In the wee hours i'll meet you
Down by dun ringill ---
Oh, and we'll watch the old gods play
By dun ringill
We'll wait in stone circles
`til the force comes through ---
Lines joint in faint discord
And the stormwatch brews
A concert of kings
As the white sea snaps
At the heels of a soft prayer
Whispered
In the wee hours i'll meet you
Down by dun ringill ---
Oh, and i'll take you quickly
By dun ringill

She wore a black tiara
Rare gems upon her fingers
And she came from distant waters
Where northern lights explode
To celebrate the dawning
Of the new wastes of winter
Gathering royal momentum
On the icy road.
With chill mists swirling
Like petticoats in motion
Sighted on horizons
For ten thousand years
The lady of the ice sounds
A deathly distant rumble
To titanic-breaking children lost
In melting crystal tears.
Capturing black pieces
In a glass-fronted museum
The white queen rolls
On the chessboard of the dawn
Squeezing through the valleys
Pausing briefly in the corries
The ice-mother mates
And a new age is born.
Driving all before her
Un-stoppable, un-straining
Her cold creaking mass
Follows reindeer down.
Thin spreading fingers seek
To embrace the sill-warm bundles
That huddle on the doorsteps
Of a white london town.
Oh, sunshine --- take me now away from here
I'm a needle on a spiral in a groove.
And the turntable spins
As the last waltz begins
And the weather-man says
Something's on the move.