Keep Moving Don't Move

(Album: The Book Of Traps And Lessons - 2019)

Close the curtains, light the incense
Inhale the thick clouds with your eyes closed, your nose burns
On your knees in the corner of a strange woman's room
Her naked feet like tree roots in this undergrowth
Frankincense, Frankenstein, Francophile, Philistine
Frankly, we are killing time
Wake it, bring it back to life
Kneel, bathe in warm water
Your bodies dirt turns the bath-tub as grey as these walls
Notice, bathe at moonrise and sunrise
And when you switch off the telly
Wrap your head in clean towels
Curl up like a found thing
A dead insect collected
Between the pages of an old book written
In a language you can't read
Now dry the inside of your elbows in painstaking ritual
Three times clockwise, three times anti-clockwise
Don't breathe in until there's no air left in your lungs
Keep moving, don't move
Keep moving, don't move

Seven point two billion humans
Seven point three billion humans
Seven point four billion humans

The rain falls like troops
Like troops, the rain falls
Open your coat in it, shiver and cough
Your skin's like a dead thing, dying
Your feet like pond weed, the rain falls like troops
Walk up the hill, post-pub trudge
Laugh to it, live to it
It's coming to pass, my country's coming apart
The whole thing's becoming such a bumbling
Open the front door, your key is an arrow
Now turn three times in the hallway
Peel off your clothes, socks last, socks last
Stand naked and push your twig fingers
Through the wet bracken that storms by your ears
Stand naked and shiver
Now dress in warm things that smell of your body
Lie in a cross on the rug, watched by the dog
Let his mild concern be comforting
As you stare at the bottom of the chair
Drink rum from a curved glass
That you stole from a place that you hated
Eat raw food standing up at the fridge
Stroke the phone screen with your thumb
Like a mother trying to wipe clean the face of her only child
That blemish, that black dot that will not come clean
The first sign of the plague
Absorb the ache of all your friends
And sleep with the light in your brain burning UV all night
Wake tired, eat bread, eat oranges, eat bus stops
Eat traffic jams, eat shoes, eat shop windows
Eat the chair you're sitting on, eat the paperwork, eat the table
Eat the idea there was ever more than this
Eat the beer, eat the takeaway, eat the toothbrush
Eat the boredom, eat the breakup
Eat the phone she's hasn't called
Eat her ringtone six times, six times
And when she answers, eat the scilence in your mouth
Eat the pillow, eat the blankets, eat the Moon
Eat the screaming drunks, eat the bad dreams, wake up
Eat the alarm, remember to chew
Are you doing this, too?

Seven point four billion humans
Seven point five billion humans
Seven point six billion humans

Open your arms and their legs
And your teeth and their jeans
And your ribs and their eyes
And your skin and their brain
And push two lonelinesses together
And create more loneliness
Or create God and come inside each other
Walk through the city alone in a stupor of love
Create God, touch everything
Nod at strangers like a daffodil with a severed head
Your face is a trumpet, blow the futile brass part
Sit across your lover's lap and scream into their mouth
Where's love?
Create God, but where's love?
The last real pub in the south is surrounded by wankers
And they're coming in close with their cards out
So, let's link arms
Be prepared to go down with your ship, your ship's sunk
Be prepared to go down
Stick your hands out of the car on the motorway
Feel the wind pushing its face into your open palms
Keep moving, don't move
Keep moving, don't move
Keep moving