Chalk Flowers

[Verse 1]

After midnight, everybody left the houses for the alleys

Checked out the neighbors' windows when looking for a fire

She beckoned me towards her, she moved her fingers forward

The jasmine bloomed and I just smiled

[Verse 2]

She said, "Where are you going?"

I said, "Nowhere you'd have heard of"

There's a cornfield by an avenue when all the clouds arе still

A horseman on a ridgeway, though he's imaginary

And ovеr to the west, a king sleeps in the hill

[Verse 3]

It's kind of like when evening comes

The moment you aren't looking

And then you get the chills, but you know you're alive

And when she reached to kiss me, I knew there was no escaping

As kids set fires where the goods vans drive

[Verse 4]

We went up to the tenement where she lived with her sister

And there beside the lamplight, she undressed without a smile

And I had no idea I'd be in bits and pieces

As I flowered through her skin and she flowered through mine

[Verse 5]

I took her to the cornfield, I took her to the greenwood

I took her to the places I had loved as a child

And when at last, I lost her in a pillbox on the hill

I threw [?] matches down into a pond

[Verse 6]

The king's sleep is unbroken, the hospice windows open

At night I dream of oramorph and simple childhood games

And when I came back home, somebody'd left the lights on

And all that I am is changed

[Verse 7]

In the streets they tell the future, watch birds choosing numbers

And they glide to the lines in the palm of your hand

It's a word you can't remember in the corner of your memory

It says that she loved you, but you don't understand

[Verse 8]

By the end of November, there was diesel in the gutters

And I'd made up my mind I would head back south

The wind blew through the city

Through the palaces and priest halls

I packed my bags and I shut my mouth