don't look up to the stars

heaven protect 

children and sailors

sailors and drunken men

somewhere past the Kuiper belt

past the ring of babies unbaptized

where a star is just any star

that's where you'll see her

curled in smoke

don't look up to the stars

this nothing is permanent

this one is burning

(this one is burning so bright)

this one is glowing

(this one will not last the night)

the only forever is 

a nothing about nothingness

but that was all

before your time

this one's a baby

(this one is burning so bright)

this one is dying

(this one will not last the night)

the light in your eyes is

a prehistoric instinct

but that was all

before your time

this one exploded

(this one is burning so bright)

this one's forever

(this one will not last the night)

that star was extinguished

a million years ago

but that was all

before your time

heaven protect 

children and sailors 

sailors and drunken men 

retirement

I missed your funerals;

how did they go?

Two tins of ashes now

hid in a row?

Forever on the hill

till the sun turns to red

Or developers come to

turn you both out of bed?

Although we have paid 

in advance for our plot,

nothing's forever and

forever is nought.

[[ my parents on a hill ]]

code

the latest mythology
the one about people
becoming their code

is a reformulation
of all the old myths
of the eternal soul

we will never separate
us from this flesh
we are what we feel
and how we feel it

unwholesome man

[[ A hard-drinking wife-beating 'unwholesome' man is executed by the community but comes back as a zombie to have one last drink at the local saloon with his wife, then walks back to the cemetery. Yeah. Call and response. Maybe two singers alternating on most lines, maybe overlapping like an echo. ]]

unwholesome man

(unwholesome man)

he was a man would

(he was a man would)

take a fist to his woman

take a bottle to his bed

take a fist to his woman

take a bottle to his bed

take a fistful of dream

stick it all in his head

they said that man's an animal

they said put a man down

they said that man's an animal

they said put a man down

next day it fell on a Thursday  

next day sheriff put him in the ground

unwholesome man...

take a fist to his woman...

sheriff put him in the ground

that man he dug himself out again

that man stood under the moon

that man he dug himself out again

that man stood under the moon

that man could smell it was Friday

man walked to the local saloon

unwholesome man...

take a fist to his woman...

sheriff put him in the ground

dead man walked back to town

that man had a penny on his left eye 

that man had a penny on his right

that man had a penny on his left eye 

that man had a penny on his right

that man slid a penny to the barman  

bar man said you drink all night

unwholesome man...

take a fist to his woman...

sheriff put him in the ground

man walked back to town

man bought another round

that man stood next to his woman

woman said I've nothing to say 

that man stood next to his woman

woman said I've nothing to say 

that man knocked back his last whisky

said I'll see you on Judgment Day

unwholesome man...

take a fist to his woman...

sheriff put him in the ground

man walked back to town

man bought another round

never made another sound

walked back out of town