The Woods

Blizzards coming in, coming in in their dozens
In shifting light through narrow windows smeared with the grease of ovens
I have unattractive nurses in my dreams
Stacked low like pancakes, busy like anthills
I tell you because it's true: Kids jump off bridges
Lions rip the necks off lizards
Terrifying buses, filled with dead tree trunks
Mud-splattered grill guards
Blackened burnt out ceilings
And the sofas with their stuffing spilling out like guts
You go to the woods
You will find me in the crackle of a trashcan fire
When you come back to me
Still shaped by my ear like a melody
Unbuttoning your clothes
Unbuttoning my clothes
Where you come from
Goodness only knows

You said you knew me well but you never come in here
Where the fear is bland like english food
And warm like english beer
Where they queue up to get whipped down tottenham court road
And you, you go to the woods
You will find me in the wriggling worms
And you will find me in the crackle of a broken leaf
In the trembling hummingbird's heart
In the ancient dusty attic where you took my world apart
Unbuttoning your clothes
Unbuttoning my clothes
Where you come from
Goodness only knows

I either lie awake or I visit this place
Where kindness does not have a human face
And the bleeping monitors, the hospital corridors
Amplify the muffled cries of dying innocents
Rip the gold teeth out of skeletons!
Pay to paint the town!
The sea does not remember the name of all its drowned
Comb the cafes for me
Peaceably, I will be waiting with my beans
Picking at the seams of an unravellable sack
You go to the woods
You cannot miss me in the wriggling worms
The nightingale does not really sing your name
Does not deal in romance any more than in shame
Soft-breasted though you see
Still a little like me
Still singing for company
Unbuttoning my clothes
Unbuttoning my clothes
Where you come from
Goodness only knows

I feel like I've been swimming underwater
Shaking in the cold like a rich man's daughter
But it isn't that the morning comes in slowly
It isn't this feeling of regret
And it isn't the banks
And it isn't the birds
And it isn't the schools
And it isn't the pubs
And it isn't the piano playing in my head
And it isn't the soft feeling of your bed
And it isn't that your man won't come round here any more
And it isn't tha
T I woke up on the floor

The earth is a lie
Tie cotton to the branches
Francis wakes me up from all these moonlit spiders
Moonlit mosquitos, radiating agony
And you, you come back to me
Still shaped by my ear like a melody
Unbuttoning your clothes
Unbuttoning my clothes
Where you come from
Goodness only knows