Flight

Flying Blind

I always forget how crazy things are

so sometimes it catches me off my guard

when they make sense.

The line on the road trail the arrow in the sky,

I search for the mote in my brother's eye

beneath the pence...

a time of blunt instruments.

Still uncertain when I've woken

or what constitutes a conscious mind,

though the thought remains unspoken

I know I'm flying blind.

Breaking into cold sweat on the white-hot coals

the pennies from heaven drop through my soul:

it don't relent.

At the back end of dreams I'm amazed to awake...

I offer my theories but just can't shake

that seventh sense

to which there's no defense.

It seemed the time was for action,

it seemed so cool to be that kind...

my tongue writhed to form some retraction

but I knew I was flying blind.

I want things to be fast, down to the power-dive;

I want the zero-gravity heroes to play dead,

but stay alive.

We want it to be slow, all the way to stall;

we talk about a thousand things that never change at all.

No, it never change...

It was then that I knew I'd been thoughtless,

something had slipped my mind:

I'd strapped myself into the Fortress

but the Fortress was flying blind.

We got full clearance,

so someone down there ought to know

the truth of our disappearance -

If even that still shows it accuses and blames me,

but nothing was quite what it seemed.

Sometimes things work out so strangely

that it might as well all be dreamed.

The White Cane Fandango

The White Cane Fandango in Morse code,

try to shake through the message,

shake the load;

only venial sin, running on the spot

till the dance begins.

Where does a man go when the muscles cramp?

Try to write out a postcard on a postage stamp

with a drawing pin punching out the Braille

for the whole within?

Upset the contango on your future stock;

paying backwardation, hold onto what you've got -

such a sideways grin!

Some day you may need

to trade that in.

If we ride this right

the future will fall in our hands.

If we survive the flight

the future will work out -

nothing's that black and white.

Control

The colour-coded charts are spread,

but we're still gliding deep into the red,

the radio is dead

every valve blown open.

The radar screen flicks monochrome,

air traffic controller wants to get on home,

waiting for a phone call

to release him from responsibility.

Nobody goes to see him any more

except for the man from the ministry.

He wanted to be, he wanted to be

the man at the helm, in command of the flightpath;

he's flying a chair, quite beyond control;

he's going to have just one more chance

at a barrel roll.

All in a dream, all as a dream,

the colours too bright, the music too deafening -

the black-out world has just begun to show.

These cracked-out words I offer...

but I still don't know.

Cool blue suffuse the colour gun -

oh come in, come in number one:

your time's nearly run.

Speed-freeze the frame,

the present and the past hold fast....

It's too fast, the thing don't,

the thing won't,

the thing don't last.

Cockpit

The rolling dice clash together, never make up the score;

that old device, the ejector seat, glued to the floor.

Everybody waits for everyone to make a show,

no-one wants to be the first, admitting that they know

how anythings that's gone down here

could fit into an analytic groove.

Wait for the tactical move,

wait for some action we all can approve.

Too much to drink, for the cup reaches down to the sea;

too much to think, the barometer pressuring me.

Rolling down the weather for an Easter parade,

reeling out the Maydays in the hope of being saved,

but the radio ham's out giving blood -

no, no, he's not listening.

The cricketer knows his "Wisden",

the pilot has got his "Jane's",

but the sum of this factual wisdom

don't help us to fly the plane

(no, and it never will...)

Beneath the tartan two-piece something rips undone...

Wait for the ladder to run

wait for the snake that the ladder becomes.

A passenger hits the cockpit, willing to chance his game:

pulls out his gun and cocks it

in the hope that it all might change.

(Oh, but it never will...)

A fly-leaf from the library shows others have been here before,

tried, failed and kicked out the door;

the aircrew don't care anymore.

Now they just wait

for the beat of the silk-worm wing,

wait for the heat to come down on us

full force of the law.

Silk-Worm Wings

Full force of gravity pulls me down,

I'll be better off out of there;

aerobatic spin around,

I'll take my chances in the open air.

Sycamore silk-worm wings

or Roman Candle to the ground,

there's only one thing for sure:

when the balloon goes up

the aeronaut calm down.

Nothing is Nothing

He say nothing is quite what it seems,

he say nothing is quite what it seems;

I say nothing is nothing.

A Black Box

Softly, the angels sing their time and space refrain:

there's something in everything if you can only pin down its name

Aerobatic thoughts at the back of my mind -

Is it nothing but the looping line we all follow?

Nothing but the spiral twist of DNA?

There'll be no looking back from tomorrow on today.

So the wire is tripped, split-seconds defect to their successors;

the umbilical cord is ripped -

here we all are in free fall.

I stall where I am, as if to see where I've been,

only running down the looping line we all follow,

only chasing down the spiral twist of DNA.

There can be no looking on to tomorrow from today.

Life/death/night/day...

cold breath will surely fly away.

Is the empire of sensation locked in a black box

deep in me, encoded there somehow?

It fires the imagination to fly on a wing and a prayer

through my life. Is that how it is?

(There'll be no looking back on this....)

This is now, which will be then?

Is this the means?

All I know for sure is

this is the end.

No looking back from tomorrow,

no, there'll be no looking back on today;

better be looking on to tomorrow...

better think on today.

• Artist:Peter Hammill
• Album:A Black Box