The Hole In Your Roof

What do the men say

To the women when they lay down at night.

All naked of arms from the old imagined fight?

And how do the women hear?

In kind and in likeness of light -

"In kindness you needn't and neither do I,

we are both of us capable of flight",

And as if to give proof

She jumped through the hole in the roof.

What did the condemned say

To the blessed when they met on the path?

"O you take the low road and I'll take the high for a laugh,

(but if I'm laughing now it's because I've a gentle heart)",

And because it was true

He slipped through the hole in the roof.

La la la la,

La la la la la la...

From above your head a thing can be read that you're thinking...

What the secretaries sing and the CEOs bark in the bars -

What do the dead say

To the ones who still think they're alive?

"With your heads all on backwards

You can't see in front for what near behind you lies"

"Well show us some help then,

Above your head let it flicker the light,

These ones that I'm with

Have not learned to forgive your necessary alibis -

When they made you love money,

And the poor prophet's stock,

When they poisoned the watersheds

And fashioned our arrowheads

From the deep forbidden rock.

O but did you see what people do?

And when you saw it you did it too,

Now all your children are twice the size of you,

and they come in at night through

The hole in your roof

Maroondah Reservoir

To be,

A bee, a moth.

Four wings spread for the soft last touch

Of glory sun,

Remembering blood plums and lips and lemons -

One hundred different suns

In a hundred different heavens.

Spied from a rowboat -

Stroke, nought is spoken,

Before you know it, the spell is broken,

You might wonder where you are,

Floating on the reservoir.

Oh I have counted the notes

We landed here not many years ago

And it was not a pretty song that we composed:

La, la, la, the early bird he knows,

You hang from the cherry bough

When you're lichen yourself, and leave -

The cold cold scent of stone and mulch,

The great stone wall to stave the rush,

To think that peace might be too much,

Waiting for that giant touch...

The lake... the fir-fringed lake -

Placid and ample, birded, breezed and dappled

Through the mountain break,

A moment take, a moment, a moment...

You might wonder where you are,

Perched up on the reservoir,

Adolf in the white hotel,

All this time we've been in hell,

You might wonder where you are,

Perched above the reservoir,

Luis of the lake retire,

Before they set the lake on fire

There Is No Such Place

There is no such place, o yes I have seen it too

Just a little different from how you do,

A river winding blue among the dunes and a marble bed

A sun that doesn't set but settles.

There is no such place.

If I lower mine to yours would you kiss me on the face?

If you're looking for an unmarked place,

There is no such place -

Blasted in appearance and a composite of fearful minutes

Frozen in the waking instant

Longing, things I long for,

Peaceful nights, strangers at the door,

O come in, come in,

You've been here before.

There is no such place, so perhaps we have a reason

For our long and falling face,

Above all it would be warm but we would keep our heads all

Clear as Winter, storms would be a sight to make us shiver

But without the chill

Of thinking all is hither-thither -

Longing, things I long for,

Peaceful nights, strangers at the door,

O come in, come through the door,

You've been here before,

You've been here before

There is no such place, o yes I have seen it too

Just a little different from how you do,

A house upon a hill with no windows

Just a can upon the sill

To catch your tears

To feed your garden.

Tulip

Are you lit from the inside, is that why your teeth are bright?

You smile as the sun sets on the window, and the car fills up with light,

Make a smile tulip, don't think of me as something that's passed,

I am not written in the book, but I intend to last...

And as the sun comes up you know it's really going down,

You only framed it incorrectly, now you cannot turn it round,

If there's enough of us here left, then we'll drive it into town,

And when we pass the field of tulips, then I'll put the knuckle down...

Don't frown tulip,

Make a smile,

Don't frown tulip,

You know it's all worthwhile...

There were lions by the roadside, I was driving with my Father,

Through a dream of French forests, and all was warmth and solace,

And all said He is with us, but always sad and serious,

Standing outside in the garden, pained and peerless...

Don't frown tulip

Make a smile

Don't frown tulip

You know it's all worthwhile...

Make a smile at the end of your tether,

This was never gonna last forever...

The woods were all peopled with daughters and sons,

The teeming uncounted and unchosen ones,

Who don't dance anymore, they just move around in bubbles,

And nobody notices nobody's troubles,

Nobody notices nobody's troubles...

Don't frown tulip

Make a smile,

Don't frown tulip,

You know it's all worthwhile...

Make a smile at the end of your tether,

This was never gonna last forever,

Don't frown tulip, don't frown tulip...

Tasman Awakens

The honey goes candy in the condiment cupboard,

Unwax it. unplug it,

What you discover in August nights,

Like children walled in and papers drawn up for life -

That kind of truth you can't crack with a knife.

Smoke from the wood fires, unholy spires,

And can you surmise from which well you have drawn your courage, it stings your eyes

What you saw when she stood in the yard and she let him undress her -

What happened next you have failed to understand.

What happened then as he took her by the hand...

Little lights are burning bright in you

Orphan leaves of arrested trees divide the street from the gutter

As the sunset shudders at the prospect or night

On the children malled in and mauling their brethren and like -

That kind of truth is a needle and a knife.

That kind of truth is a needle and a knife...

And you little lights are burning bright in you

They tell you what you have to do.

Believe Me

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Believe me

I came to warn you

Sunset Studies

You are the queen of a dust bowl,

Ex to a crier in a town of ashes,

This is what happens when a great love crashes.

Tonight you let me see you,

For the first time, in a long time,

For the first time, in a time

Without the fear of going blind,

without the fear of going blind...

In a den of quitters in a hall of hosts,

Between worn out waltzes and wedding toasts

I heard a man confess that what he struggles with most

is the freedom for so long.

Without a strong enough voice to tell him what's wrong,

Without a will, without a prayer, without a passionate song to sing...

Our favourite sons, our polished metal guns,

Plagues, mermaids, setting suns

Our favourite sons, our polished metal guns,

Plagues, mermaids, setting suns

Well all by and by and all through and through,

this is the only thing that comes back to you,

how you banged her on a cannon in a World War Two park in Gundagai,

O come on guy, O come on, you were born red-eyed and screaming,

Your mother was beaming, she trembled,

and dabbed your eyes with mercury and rained on you the blessings three.

You were a babe of Spring now what's it going to be.

Sunshine

Our favourite sons, our polished metal guns.

Plagues, mermaids, setting suns

Our favourite sons, our polished metal guns,

Plagues, mermaids, setting suns

Upon all brave new breeds of old disease

on rotten roots of family trees,

on sold out universities,

Other sunset studies and these.

Men Who Follow Spring The Planet 'Round

"Well met, well met" said an old true love, "well met, well met" said he,

"I have just returned from the salt salt sea, and all for the love of thee."

From pole to pole I've spread my soul o'er sea to august sea,

In body, bankroll and bedded sin, I've liked to spread it thin.

I saw you in the German eye, I caught you in the head,

In hearts beset by Winter's debt, I heard you wonder why -

O why, o why do the tender sigh at first with the breath of me,

Then at my leave remember grief and clouds to fill the sky?

I'll tell you why your majesty, I'll join you in your balcony,

Your lofty arboreal grace, and in my hand your crumbling face -

It's for they know that when you go the anger does awake

And the babies that you bred will grow to armies in your wake!

That's why the tender in their few do seek to touch the heart of you,

And round the planet do oft do sing, to make a final honest ring...

For love or lack thereof, turn back - All for the love of thee!

For love or lack thereof, turn back - All for the love...

"Well met, well met," the English said, and sailing set for free land,

Albeit chained and with a pent up greed, they killed a family,

And all before your pretty face, not once or twice or three.

Have men been stirred, and thick, and furred as beasts and all for thee,

And all for the love of thee

Angels Of The Bowling Green

The children of this cold coast

Are throwing themselves off cliffs,

We know that they don't want to

But memory insists -

Memories of water,

Fantasies of fins,

So be off baby seal.

Swim little fish...

Under mackerel sun, you're unnatural

O how, how do they breathe?

And whales hear whales

When love comes down there,

But also from miles

Hear pain and there fear.

Pinned by the water pins,

Stuck by the ships,

Mild the bay seems,

Mild in the mist...

Under mackerel sun, you're unnatural.

O how, how do they breathe?

On days when the bay breaks,

And gales gut the shore,

They come up from the water's edge,

And they appear young no more -

White haired, widowed, and what they would have been.

Children at eternal play.

Angels of the bowling green.

Heartbeat And Sails

Scoop my brains and let my heart have action

In its thousand million lots,

In the dumb city dawn I am senseless and drawn to the sun

as the blackbirds and the toppyknots.

And in biting down on the great foam world

What is the looming thing?

Not money, not flesh, not happiness,

But this, which makes me sing.

O scoop my brains and let my heart have action

In its thousand million lots,

And feel the subterranean movement a fraction

and deep under ocean, the celibate rocks.

Has it borne me down?

Has it run me through?

If I give it a name do I contract it too?

More likely this thing has been growing in me,

Like I have grown in you.

Scoop my brains and let my heart have action

In its thousand million lots,

In the dumb city dawn we dispense with the forlorn beasts

that we were in the night, grown lean on love.

A love which will pierce and callous and tumesce,

O upon the birth oath the morbid bloom

Is a child's sense of impending doom

in a womb that is ambushed,

in a womb that is ambushed.

In biting down on the great foam world,

What is the looming thing?

Not money, not flesh, not happiness,

But this, which makes me sing.

Not money, not flesh, not happiness,

But this, which makes me sing.

The Offer

This is a song, not like the other ones,

secret and selfish and somewhat hollow.

In the middle of this song there seemed to grow another

Of indeterminate length and origin.

To populate a people's song, first you must do something wrong,

If you've never been infirm you can never be strong.

Prune your rose bushes, Djamila,

Or you'll never see your home again.

Country and city, kingdom of the well, of the unwell,

You dwell in them both like a ghost -

When old King George said to my long dead kin

"Ten summers and winters in Arthur will do you in"

He cut out his heart and he buried the sin there in England.

Prune your rose bushes Luis,

Oh they'll grow up again,

There may still be a next year, who knows?

If you're lonely take a drink, there are better things to think,

Think on ancient cities, sunsets and girls in Spring.

You needed a song, I needed one too,

So keep listening

FOR MY OFFER TO YOU

Take it with good grace and humour too

First came the golden age

When there was no need of proof,

When lions ate flowers and your house

Didn't need a roof.

Then came the silver days

When a boy saw himself for the first time

In the reflection of a blade

Then he saw the way

To populate a people's song.

First he must do something wrong.

If you've never heard the music you never will

Prune your rose bushes Billy and Toby.

So they'll soon grow up again,

There may still be a next year, who knows?

If you're lonely, take a drink,

There are better things to think

Think on ancient cities, sunsets and girls in Spring.

Because all the tears that you mend,

They will open up again.

And weren't you supposed to call your friends this evening?

It rained all night the day I left.

The weather it was fine,

It rained all night the day I left

The Good Gardener (On How He Fell)

Here sits a once good gardener, pale as a shadow of a doubt,

Once a happy dweller of a garden good, once a sleepy sinner,

once cast out

To the sea where the crossy-eyed maids murmur low, "do you see, do you see

where the doubts cross his shadow?"

Drowned and amoral, I pollinate the coral and reek of the deep

where I've tended the water weed -

I was your good gardener, sing to bring on Spring,

I know where your good grass grows,

I know what your boyfriend knows,

I was your good gardener.

I saw twilight car waxers, corpulent dog walkers, clean canny couples on the sunset strip,

From a tower forty miles to the east of Augusta saw a plague on the Indian

a'coming on a windship,

You were in the garden when the wind swept up and took the foul words from your mouth

Now you know what your sarcasm really really means

It's the tearing with your teeth of the flesh from the bones of your brother -

Kill the shrub to fertilise the flower,

Did I hear you saying that the form doesn't matter?

Well form into matter, the matter is forever, but only in a good garden

Black rock bound in the Brighton bowl where the seas of desolation roll,

Where you're borne and borne and borne in again to the pebble-feather shore of forgotten friends

Think how you can't see the science without seeing first the self,

But then nobody thinks of growing somebody else,

And how the sun, hungry sun, holds the withered withered world,

So why shouldn't I kiss the beautiful girl?

When I was her good gardener.

Sing of the Summer sham,

O see them grow tall, see them in their rot, see them go to seed in the cemetery plot

I was your good gardener

Sing to bring on Spring

O ice of Winter would crackle and splinter with my love in everything

Ice of Winter would crackle and splinter with my love in everything

I was your good gardener...

The sea is stark and lovely, and it scares me to the point of rapture

I was your good gardener, of some good stature

The sea is stark and lovely, and it scares me to the point of rapture

I was your good gardener, now I - can barely - look at ya.

Here Comes The Night

Here comes the night.

Roll on you careless evening,

When we unite

Not a force concurs,

Not hell nor heaven,

So let it come, let it rain,

Let it burn through you and me again

In the slums without name,

and it isn't only poverty to blame.

Here comes your man.

Rolling down the street the callous field,

He puts it in your hand

And all the world is but a whistle and a milkshake.

O how can you breathe little blue?

You have hooks, you have holes in you,

In absentium and in lieu of all the things that have been promised you...

But o my sweet how incomplete you are,

in your eyes a smile so sweet

A silly soldier's scar

Splits your face from ear to ear,

You pretend that you simply cannot hear

The bells and the bombs going off in the galleria.

Here comes the night.

Roll on you careless evening,

When we unite

Not a force concurs,

Not hell nor heaven,

So let it come, let it rain

Let it burn through you and me again

In the slums without name,

And it isn't only poverty to blame -

My sweet how incomplete we are,

In their eyes am I from dust

You from my bones imparted.

And if that don't make you laugh at nature's rough replacement.

Too late in all : Here comes the night

Here comes the night

Roll on you night. the night. good night. roll on.

Asleep In Perfection

Over the airwaves tonight,

Sailing by a love lonely light,

Isn't it blue, but isn't it brighter

Than the pilot of a domestic flight

Well under this low, lonely light

I might be still in sight,

You were a girl, now you're a wife

Do not these memories stir you

From your long and peaceful night's

Sleep in perfection

Asleep in Perfection

A soul's misdirection, directed at you.

Waiting for Summer to come,

Will you wear a rainbow on

And outside your window something grows

In your garden, is it content

Well that's not what I need tonight,

Maybe I don't think right,

Or maybe I lack that insight

And only the numb or the peaceful might

Sleep in perfection,

Asleep in Perfection

A soul's misdirection directed at you.

Over the airwaves tonight,

Sailing by a love lonely light,

Isn't it blue, or is it the sight of you

Set to fall

Asleep in Perfection

A soul's misdirection directed at you.

Owen’s Lament

Level your fretting. I won't be forgetting the flush of your face

When I lifted you level to me and a wattle tree framed your body.

In whispers welling with the dope of a new Spring

You said "Kill me a dynasty or our love won't mean a thing..."

A bullet for a diamond ring.

A favour promised

A promise delivered and more to you -

It's only a war I'll be back to your shore before you know I'm gone,

Then I'll cover your body.

And if you have to go please go lightly,

Keep it to a foxtrot whether he's a fox or not.

Keep it cold, keep all your heat for me -

I'll be needing it for when I'm cold you see?

Let your children remind you of me

Whether by another or by the ghost of me in you -

There goes my baby.

I would think of you and a palm tree would cover your body.

You - in love and war we are bound by a law,

it goes to you and then to yours to recover my body.

She bound me up and hugged me

'O how the mother loves thee'

She covered my body

In a ragged flag and bloody -

O not on your life.

All lyrics by Glenn A Richards (Sony/ATV Music Publishing)