Peter Hammill: (In The) Black Room/The Tower

'''(In the) Black Room'''

I was thinking about thinking
but it really didn't get me very far,
so I thought I'd throw a Tarot,
but I only got the Priestess and the Star.
There's a shadow cast between the future and the past;
the room and I agree to buy some time....
The cards don't tell truth nor lies,
only options and cusp lines:
the furniture in the black room.

I've been thinking about acid,
but, it seems, there's not a reason to believe.
I don't make a vital breakthrough
and it walks me like a dog upon a lead.
It's all unreal and, the way I feel,
I'd like to try and make it on my own....
Going to the feelies is fine:
I really have me a good pleasure cruise.
But, deep in my mind,
I'm no better or worse, just open to the walls.
Paint peels in the black of my room.

I'm only talking about myself, ordering the treasure shelf,
documenting these present feelings as the future sets me reeling....
What I'll be is what I am,
I'm simply trying not to sham or fake.
Use vision as sense and not as crutch!
It doesn't matter all that much;
whatever happens we'll all survive,
I'm only trying not to pawn my life.

When I'm (maybe) old and strait-laced,
shall I then deny all that I feel?
In words of bitter compromise,
re-smelt the wrath that's in my eyes like steel?
Be a hermit then?
Or be a miser?
Be a man who hasn't managed yet to write his rules?
The Fool?
The future holds my hand in the room....

Well, then, my ghosts shall steer down through the years
and lay a hand upon my soul
like ice.


'''The Tower'''

So: onto the familiar top steps!
In cloud-scud moonlight glow
the Tower reels.
I, the blind man,
feeling for a path I know...
don't you know that I'm only feeling for how to feel?

Rats run.
Snakes coil.
Fathers
stare out at the whispering night;
rub mud on their arms.

Spiders.
Mud boils.
Children
whimper in the human vortex;
faces glow of worms.

THUNDER
Silence.
Omens....

I think it's coming,
all signs are very near, all signs are that
pain shall come
and change shall run
down through my heart
and shake my knees
and now it is coming,
all around is the humming
of the World.

Too late, with my balance gone,
dead-eyed doll,
I'm falling, falling
back to where I began....


'''(In the) Black Room continued'''

I'm feeling like a kid again,
I'm feeling like I just walked in the door,
and with my head on fire
I wrote this song - I don't know who it's for.
Hands held fast in camera,
I'll swear I heard the Stammerer exclaim:
"I am a traveller, unraveller,
I only live through pain, and shame, and change!"

In my room, the secret tomb, I can see
future forms, space/time storms:
they're all me,
and I've only got to choose!

In my head I am dead if I fall
in the trap,
the subtle lap,
safety's pall....
but I'm living while I choose....