soft black stars the empty streets the songs of twilight the clouds at rest the churchbells chiming a scarecrow shudders and some birds tremble i looked at you and saw it's time the faded flowers the faded pictures of faded lives your body waiting and unfulfilled with no regrets and empty heart and head in hands i heard them say today it's time the sunset heavy on mother mountain the cattle lowing the cattle dreaming the endless rain in haunted airs your loss of hope we were shown we were shown it's only time the smell of rain the twilight leaning against your lips waterwheels turning the forests brooding you took my hand and pointed full of pain that fishes dying you see the sign that this was time i waited years for you or so it seemed and stumbled through your world praying for just one kiss to stop my fall from grace and shelter in your palm you gave me everything both lock and key the oilclouds see it's only time if i could have one wish as in the fairytales i would unmake my past and rise like Lazarus and stand in sunlight and banish all the dark that locked my face away and say to you again oh that that was only time so willow weep not for me and oak bend not for me though others died for us and in our place though in the secret heart raw wound, raw source of all i heard the news today whispered in the dark at last at last we know it's time i knew at last it's only time i'll come in glory end of story ----- i'm clicking your fingers for a gothic twilight that actually existed just in your head your fingernails painted black or bloodred i forget and your fake-leather volumes jabbering on hell manifest decadence was what you hoped to exhale your eyes tried so hard to glitter a star-snuffing black so you opened your books and you opened your legs and so opened your heart and let in the badness you claimed as your friend with un-angels hovering like flies around the orchard that had covered your soul their empire increasing and your country deserted by your self the bells of st. mary call us to remember that life is with end and the gestures can kill us moreover destroy and there is one judgment only your letters came daily in french or in german but they meant to me nothing i caught the slow chords and dry ice fogging your mind i see all too clearly now why you could be discarded and though i could pray for you i probably shan't having had my cup filled up with your lies and your make-up you were nothing thinking you're something and nonetheless i still write this gothic love song a sign to myself and the memory of my past i still write this gothic love song a sign to myself and the memory of my past and a way to shut out your face ----- i saw the back of the stars tremble and fall while seahorses played on the slope of your breast i saw a hundred angels rush to the ground they were giving you garlands and giving you crowns the flowers are everywhere Christ glorious entwined the tip of the moon and the sun as it shines and the roots as they burrow and tunnel through earth and the birds as they soar on their wings i heard them whisper your name and i remember you there and the turtle-doves hiding as your eyes roared with light and i remember your smile so wide and so red whilst the snowflakes covered your hair with their seals and i remember our bliss as we gazed at the wall and i remember you there i remember you there with your mocking bird hair some years ago we had sat down and wept with the sea in our ears and seven cats on our laps whilst the books gathered dust unread and untrue and you flicked through the letters i could not bear to read ----- little children snuggle under soft black stars and if you look into their eyes soft black stars deliver them from the book and the letter and the word and let them read the silence bathed in soft black stars let them trace the raindrops under soft black stars let them follow whispers and scare away the night let them kiss the featherbreath of soft black stars and let them ride their horses licked by the wind and the snow and tip-toe into twilight where we all one day will go caressed with tendrils and with no fear at all their faces shining river gold washed with soft black stars and angels' wings shall soothe their cares and all the birds shall sing at dawn blessed and wet with joy you and i will meet one day under a nightsky lit by soft black stars ----- when you told me you heard the winds cry and then you told me you felt the seas die and then you showed me the flight of seagulls and whispered gently the party is over then then i knew it was time you looked so tired then bereft of beauty i knew that long ago your heart had stopped but all this beauty but all these shadows as if to say yes to life was pointless and then then i knew it was time in a small park just down from Soho you gestured wildly but meaning nothing and all the fountains shouted surrender and all the trees bowed at my betrayal and then then i knew it was time no words have substance no words are better than when i held you ragdoll defeated so drained of bright light so full of hatred with your soul crumbling parted for flowers i should have you told it's just time and then we looked up bear be it or be i saw the stars merge over St. Patrick's you said i am finished i am mist and foglight and slipped so sweetly into your grace if only if only it was only time and now it's eight years since i last saw you and all the starlight is now as nothing the letters all burned the kisses complete and all the coupling long forgotten and you long dead damned or forgiven it was no dream ----- antichrist and barcodes in the air that we breathe with a little black box i high in the sky in the water that trickles in our mouths in the codes that flicker are lives on and off does the carton nights starts to swallow and shiver and to freeze the fish belly up the unborn served up obeying the planets no insense is strong enough to make this life complete alpha and omega the great in the small the butterflies flutter by the foxes stop running the moon as sharp as a sickle and as bright as a pin breathed its heavy sick breath as we fitfully slept and heavily dreamed to awake back into endings and quietly wait for the trains to stop chugging and the clocks to implode his name is under our skin and so by the hair of my chinny chin chin by hook or by crook our necks are in the noose ----- i had gathered some flowers to lay upon your face though you were not gone from the realm of the quick i saw all the rainclouds being driven on forward by horses long numbered and featureless and free and i wanted to call you a wife though i couldn't stop glancing at the signs and the four heads of men and all that they carried and the four wombs of women and all that they promised and i wanted to write for you songs poems and bibles your face spotted with pearls and hand-cuffed to Christ but i couldn't stop watching the signs i had seen the news that the Trojan beast already and not yet no longer near nor close at hand nor at the door is finally here the great in the small and i couldn't stop watching the signs in the stars ----- as we stared beyond the windows there over all the gardens that have never been and will never grow again how long how long the shining winking stars the clouds too high so high pointing to some final star the dull face of the sky and the sound of the calling of the distant village bell and all that the sun is not enough for us any longer and her smile though she wears her hat and her cheery rays do not blanket with their glorious glare the burning body with distorted nimbus i see too well just beyond my neighbour's house it does not blank out the last sigh of the soul whilst the night rejoices profound and still at the edge of your street both shadow and destroyer but not alas the comforter ----- caught when i was still a child by a terrible vision of my Christ and caught in the throat by your signs and tears and goodbyes i picked me up and walked too far with thought of no return and not to see your face again and drowning all my hopes and wishing no longer upon stars believing no longer in moonlight or other dreams or other fields upon all of which we so beautifully play i saw a waste of all and so i put away all talk of death's heads and a little glimpse is a bloodblossomed force and all talk of apocalypse Apocraphon and Apollyon Abaddon all abandoned then i saw in myself the bowl and a gun and the glory that was to come ----- a car sweeps by with a murdered child a car sweeps by with a violated girl a car sweeps by with its trunk full of death i can't hear the voice i can't see the face ----- as i have not trusted i have not hoped in the bleak alleyways and the secondhand streets where misery waits and the turn of your hand as i have no believed so i have not seen the uselessness the pettiness and in by the clouds are the sun and the stars by the walls and the rain i shall not come to you for tea as you may come back home with me not believing and not seeing the facts yapping into our face alternate fire alternate smoke i shall not wake at seven or eight as all the hours are now too late with the lead weights motionless i spy with my little eye you and i my love you and i with our backs to each other chewing on shadows dissecting the lights that their brightness might be classified and then immasculated and finally killed