Perfume River

There were no sirens, I heard no alarms,

This situation has somehow got completely out of hand

It’s no illusion; it’s not a dream,

My eyes are open and all is as appears,

It’s a perfect nightmare; it’s a perfect nightmare,

In an imperfect world

I missed the wake up, slept through the dawn,

The world’s a stage but I’ve declared these curtains drawn

Behind the fourth wall, behind the scenes

A discarded fading flower on the soporific,

sensual perfume river

The perfect nightmare; escape the perfect nightmare,

dream the perfect world,

I close my mind in soft surrender,

in quiet resignation take the lies,

I lock the door,

I lock the door

I junk the mail, I never open letters,

programme numbers that I know I’ll never call

Collect addresses of friends who’ll soon be strangers,

Message pending, I know just what it says,

should I accept another lie?

I swallow all the lies

I live the lie

There are places that I know that I will never see

Those to which I’d never gone before,

The horror stalks my vision and the cries ring in my ears,

I am helpless,

I am not brave,

I am alone

I wander the dark alleys of the citadel,

Deserted shops and empty houses mark my way,

Bullet holes in stuccoed walls are testimony

to the voices disappeared within the fear

Take me away to the Perfume River;

carry me down to the Perfume River

Set me adrift on a well stocked open boat

Show me the way to the Perfume River,

send me away down the Perfume River

Pour that sweet, sweet liquor down my throat

Fire breathing dragons swarm in sweltering skies,

Spewing flame on innocents below

Charred and brittle corpses, blackened evidence,

I am enraged,

I am afraid,

I am forlorn

The ashes of wise pages fly from libraries,

Tumble in the clouds of smoke and flies

To lie as dust in corners of dark palaces,

the fetid smell of revolution haunts the air

Take me away to the Perfume River;

carry me down to the Perfume River

Set me adrift on a well stocked open boat

Show me the way to the Perfume River,

send me away down the Perfume River

Pour that sweet, sweet liquor down my throat

Carry me down to the Perfume River,

hold me down in the Perfume River

Where I’ll drown my sorrows, let me lie in hope

Push me away down the Perfume River

to the swirls and eddies of the Perfume River

In these dark and muddied waters

just let me float

The truth I don’t want to know