You feel it, you seize it and tease it
Every time you see the autumn coming
You seal the moment with the cuckoo-spit
As you are listening to the funeral drumming.
Whistle-blows, the platform crumbles
And the salt-stained goodbye falls
And the calendar starts nailing you with the numbers
To the grey cinderblock walls.
All the grave-robbers put on the gloves
Placing in the coffin heart-shaped stones,
When language is dead and sooty are the doves
And sweet is rot and ivory are the bones
Sick of all the toffs and rebels
You swim against the tide,
Until you hear the tolling of the bells,
That’s how you know: something in us died.
Again, you feel it pierced by despair,
You feel the autumn is coming today
So you want to be up and there somewhere,
Over the hills and far away.