Chalk Flowers

After midnight, everybody left the houses for the Alice She'd pelt the neighbors' windows when lookin' for a fight She beckoned me towards her She moved her fingers forward The Jasmine blew and I just smiled She said, "Where are you going?" I said, "Nowhere you'd have heard of" There's a cornfield by an avenue when all the clouds are still A horse met on a ridgeway Though he's imaginary And over to the west, a king sleeps in the hill It's kinda like when evening comes The moment you aren't lookin' And then you get the chills, but you know you're alive And when she reached to kiss me I knew there was no escaping This kid set fires where the good smells drive We went up to the Thames Where she lived with her sister And there, by the lamplight She undressed without a smile And I had no idea I'd be in bits and pieces As I flowered through her skin And she flowered through mine I took her to the cornfield, I took her to the greenwood I took her to the places I had loved as a child And when at last I lost her in a bill-bucks on a hill I threw some restless matches down into her path The king's sleep is unbroken The hospice window's open At night, I dream of Oramorph and simple childhood games And when I came back home Somebody had left the lights on And all that I am is changed And the streets may tell the future What birds choose in numbers And they glide to the lines in the palm of your hand It's a word you can't remember in the corner of your memory It says that she loved you, but you don't understand By the end of November There was diesel in the gutters And I'd made up my mind, I would head back south The wind moved through the city Through the palaces and priest halls I packed my bags and I shut my mouth