The Collector - Twelfth Night

Kingdom come come kingdom go That you may carve upon my grave stone

When confined in a six walled box

I will no longer hear the clocks

Indifferenty ticking in cold deserted mansion halls

Kingdom come come kingdom go Mementos relics crated cargo

A million things all left behind

Relationships with humankind

Conducted as if I was buying slaves at auction

Holding court at gross parties

Where punch drunk sycophants came slobbering

To suck my cocktails …

I escaped upstairs to my collection

Titians tits and grand Goyas

Glower through the high stone traceries

Oily smears bequeathed by thirsty souls

Studied throughout my long daze

Scumbled paint in priceless fossils

Many a sad sullen pieta —

Christ eternal held away from me Behind a brown and ancient glaze

In my collection

Facets of ego

Gradually eclipsing mass between the nursery and now

Struggling for meaning

Walking earth insensible

Flowerings of childhood turned to stringy vegetable

Troubled at night by flashbacks flashbacks flashbacks …

Waaa Waaa Mummy

I don’t want to go potty

Training: I don’t want to share my toys with the other children

They’re horrid

Child that I was then when was I last young?

When did comic wood bricks become trading in con-tricks?

When did innocence shudder and die?

Adolescent I planned to take total command

Draped vision’s guilt edge on the bars of my play-pen

Hoped to arrest the swift passage of time

As though by some chance I could recreate Eden

Apple pie?

Lovely!

My hopes became a statue my mouth became a gun

In the hit parade of self interest I remained at number one

I was Mozart’s old piano with a special gold inlay

I was always a lover of music but I never did learn to play

I thought I’d be saved by my collection to begin with

I thought I’d be saved by my collection

Would you believe it?

I did;

but then …

Nanny — Nanny Conscience?

Is that you standing at the end of my bed there Nanny?

My word, it’s a long time since you’ve been round here

Out in the open — you’re looking dreadful

I mean, so pale and interior;

Look at your skin … My god, the wrinkles!!!

Nanny-nan-nanny;

had her made into a table lamp for me Because I needed light to shine

But artificially

From her prim portals … Oooooooo!

Nanny-nan-nanny

Don’t you think it’s about time you started being nice to me Nanny?

One day soon I’m going to grow up big and strong

And my ego will build me a temple

And nobody in there will make me Wash behind my ears or eat my greens or Share my toys with the other children who are just horrid anyway

Not me I drank myself as dry as a desert

Still in the end there was nothing left to call my own

This freedom from pain with which I toyed

Became a gateway to a void

The only values left were relative to power

The trouble with life in ivory towers

The seconds stretch until they fit the skins of hours

The faithless mates who come and go They run away like melted snow

A temple to ego never constitutes a home

And though it seems sad

This jangling junk we are amassed

A passing pageant passing fast

There must be something

Something that can last more than the sense of life as just

A short and pointless overture

To death

Fear debilitating fear and death turn round in circles

Turn!

Kingdom come come kingdom go Collecting clouds before the Son light

On pain of death our presents pass

Secreting habit over insight

Human soul is fertilised

Human span it’s wombing season

Ward of conscience fragile child

Aborted by unfettered reason — that candle

Both ends burning

Collecting trash collecting gold

Vampires ego drains and clutches

When cross examined by the truth

It carves the cross up into crutches

Sharpened at both ends

Some friend …

Freedom’s Ling is donkey borne

A cross

The bleeding palms on main-street

Collecting nothing but the scorn

Of those who cannot bear their eyes to meet

Except in artificial light

Who needs to star in such a cast?

I leave collecting to the past

To one last party I asked them all and One

And when it was over I found that all but One haad gone

Did Jesus have a grave stone upon which to carve His name?

When He came collecting the grave gave up it’s game

Now no-one collects worthwhile living

For it is a crop that grows from His seed of giving

Diaries

Drugs

A glittering crystal ball

Cathedrals

Palaces

Sweet sugar you can keep them all

Heaven is not for sale …

BASS: CLIVE MITTEN

DRUMS, PERCUSSION AND PROGRAMMING: BRIAN DEVOIL

GUITARS: ANDY REVELL AND CLIVE MITTEN

KEYBOARDS: RICK BATTERSBY AND CLIVE MITTEN

VOCALS, SQUEAKY TOYS AND ASSORTED NOISES: GEOFF MANN

WRITTEN BY: ANDY, BRIAN, CLIVE, RICK AND GEOFF

ORIGINALLY RELEASED ON: PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED