Think Of The Children I

When the world for me was new
Yesterday was upside down
Summer skies were always blue
And feet would scarcely touch the ground

The gate to heaven was a wheel
With spokes of thought that made no sound
And everything you'd wish to feel
Was ever present in the round... and round... and round...

Adventure playground - every street
And each day we danced anew
We felt the mud beneath our feet
The grassy scent of early dew

Did we live far away from home?
Was planet earth a foreign land?
How have we lost what we once owned
And locked the cuffs on our own hands?

Think of the children! - Is all you will hear
Think of the children! - It's a mantra of fear
Think of the children! - If down that road you go
Then "Think of the children!" is all you will know

If you consider all the dangers
You've encountered in your time
Every chance that you were here no more
Every final line...

Sometimes thoughts can cut as razor blades
Circles vicious in our minds
Turn the wheel the other way
Or get left behind...

Now locked up tight inside a cage
And unaccustomed to the light
Our children victims of the age
Of the imaginary fight

We spin cocoons of spider thread
A superstructure of the night
Succumbing meekly to the dread
The cold "What if?" of careless fright

Think of the children! - Is all you can hear
Think of the children! - It's a mantra of fear
Think of the children! - If down that road you go
Then "Think of the children!" is all you will know

 

Hiding In Plain Sight

We're hiding in plain sight
Have no need for walls
Take a good look around you
You'll see nothing at all

There's an urgent, pressing problem
Occupies your hearts and minds
See it every night on your TV
Read about it in The Times

Whilst somewhere deep behind the lines
In view but lost to sight
Lie myriad atrocities
That never see the light

There's a big gap in the market
We developed it ourselves
Pushed and prodded the demand
And now it's flying off the shelves

It's a test of comprehension every day
Distorted through a mirrored lens
I-spy the puppet master staring back at me
The actors dancing in his hands

There's a theory on the web today
Cast as conspiracy and fright...
Cast as conspiracy...
Define conspiracy...
Go on, define conspiracy...
 

Oversight

They say the camera never lies
And question what you have to hide
It all depends upon your point of view
The secret is a feint, disguise
To pixellate, re-analyse
Developing and processing the true

Night after night
The watcher sets his phase
In artificial light
All outside in his gaze

He's seeing red on a lonely street
The shuffle of your shoes
The profile of your body heat
Will rise out of the blues

They say the camera never lies
And then question what you have to hide
It all depends upon your point of view
Their secret is a feint, disguise
To pixellate, re-analyse
Developing and processing the true

Day after day
The listener scans the wires
For signs that will betray
Your undisclosed desires

He'll read the thoughts that you expose
And search between the lines
Extrapolate and diagnose
A star amongst the signs

You see the camera never lies
And so they question what you have to hide
It all depends upon your point of view
The photographs are faked, disguised
Interpolate, re-analyse,
Develop and re-process, there's your "truth"

It's all in the machines
We're oiling the machines
Pandora's box of dreams
 

Cijfers

This constant stream of information
The memes that ebb and flow
Describe a perfect circle
Tangentially to grow

A world of steganography
Membranes shimmer, glow
Out on the edge of your perception
The picture is the snow
 

The Greater Game

Sitting in the wings
As the actors play their roles
The invisible magician
A prompt for wayward souls

He's a watcher, he's as cold as ice
But he was born to pull the strings
The world of puppets dances on his stage
Interpreting the tunes he sings

Yet they still believe they have control
Those true disciples of the night
Lords of their own dominions, masters all
But merely pawns within the fight

Day by day
Micromanaging the strategy
Lost in the detail
The subtle clutches of their vanity

Move their own pieces in the greater game
Manipulate and turn the tide
The shadow watcher sees them all the same
He doesn't even need to hide

Distorts the movement of the butterflies
Precipitates the hurricane
Pulls out the pin and ambles nonchalantly away
He's lost to view again

He shakes the reins
The puppets reel amok
Forks lightning through his veins
And the proxies ground out the shocks


 

Stealth

We trust ourselves to guardians
From our first waking days
Delegate authority
Prerogatives we waive

For those who know what's best for us
Will keep us safe from harm
We drift along the sliding scale
Make sail past the alarms

Stealth
Crawling in under the wire
Stealth
Careless with what we desire

Sometimes it's hard to comprehend
The way on down the line
Sometimes it's difficult to see
The outcome through the time

That mists between the present
And our futures all arrayed
We cannot make assumptions
Of the players and the played

Stealth
Crawling in under the wire
Stealth
Deeper we sink in the mire

The instruments of power
That we formulate today
Will pass from hand to hand
And may be dropped along the way

When you entrust a guardian
Remember in their stead
Comes another and you cannot know
What goes on in their head

 

Dream Without A Dream

It all began in innocence
An illusion of the truth
We manufactured for ourselves
From the arrogance of youth

We built a stage to play upon
To bridge an ocean cold and blue
Sail across that briny sea
Soar into the skies anew

The call of opportunity
Lured by passion, strong and without bounds
Blinded to reality
We watch the pretty lightning dance around

Do we find ourselves waking
In a dream within a dream?
Hand in hand as friends
We venture on and take the eye out of the team

We gave our freedom willingly
Bought into the common ground
Ignored the peril with a smile
Our house a castle, safe and sound

Now the walls are closing in
Closing in from all around
Take shallow breaths of liberty
With freedom nowhere to be found

So we find ourselves waking
In a dream without a dream
Let the nightmares end
We seek control when all there's left to do is scream

The end of the relationship
Shields up and markers down
In no-one do we ever trust
The wide blue ocean sees us drown

All we wanted was security
A place of comfort in the night
All we had to lose was liberty
But we took neither from the fight

 

1949

I awoke one morning
In 1949
To a sea of half-remembered faces
Tugging at my mind

They assaulted me with clipboards
That the ministry gave out
And the voices in my head were pleading
"What's this all about?!"

Drift in and sharpen the lines
Drift out of focus, unwind

My companions of honour
Came from valleys black with coal
Every citizen a subject
Fit for government control

Tick the boxes on the checklist
Feed the sour little pill
Take our medicine and like it
It's a struggle for free will

Tune in and soften the lines
Tune out unfocus, unwind

And the street outside, a river
Of humanity and rain
Is a goal for us to struggle
Daily, hourly to attain

As the coats push one door open
There's another to behold
And a transport going nowhere
Through the valleys, through the valleys of your soul

Fade in and feel the divine
Fade out of focus, unwind

Tune in, it sharpens the mind
Tune out the nightmare, unwind

Nurse, I really don't feel very good at all
There's something seriously wrong...

And the street outside, a river
Of humanity and rain...

As the coats push one door open
There's another to behold
And a transport going nowhere
Through the valleys, through the valleys of your soul

Drift In
Drift Out
Tune In
Tune Out
Fade In
Fade Out
Tune In
Tune Out

And I awoke one afternoon
In August two thousand and ten
 

Think Of The Children II

Spin up the spokes and gild the wheels
Send kites up soaring in blue skies
A generation primed in real
To feel the fear yet still to fly

For if all innocence is lost
Discarded meekly with a sigh
It will be we who count the cost
Of living bleakly with a lie

Think of the children - but guard them not too near
Think of the children - don't let them drown in fear
Think of the children - the values that you sow
So think of the children, give them the space to grow
Space to grow
Space to grow