Brief Encounter

(fish / marillion)

Vodka intimate, an affair with isolation in a blackheath cell
Extinguishing the fires in a private hell
Provoking the heartache to renew the licence
Of a bleeding heart poet in a fragile capsule
Propping up the crust of the glitter conscience
Wrapped in the christening shawl of a hangover
Baptised in the tears from the real
Tears from the real

Drowning in the liquid seize on the piccadilly line, rat race
Scuttling through the damp electric labyrinth
Caress ophelias hand with breathstroke ambition
An albatross in the marrytime tradition
Sheathed within the walkman wear the halo of distortion
Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation
She turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart
She hung herself around my neck

From the time-life-guardians in their conscience bubbles
Safe and dry in my sea of troubles
Nine to five with suitable ties
Cast adrift as their sideshow, peepshow, stereo hero
Becalm bestill, bewitch
Drowning in the real

The thief of baghdad hides in islingtown now
Praying deportation for his sacred cow
A legacy of romance from a twilight world
The dowry of a relative mystery girl
A vietnamese flower, a dockland union
A mistress of release from a magazine's thighs
Magdalenes contracts more than favours
The feeding hands of western promise hold her by the throat

A son of a swastika of '45 parading a peroxide standard
Graffiti disciples conjure testaments of hatred
Aerosol wands whisper where the searchlights trim the barbed wire hedges
This is brixton chess
A knight for embankment folds his newspaper castle
A creature of habit, begs the boatman's coin
He'll fade with old soldiers in the grease stained roll call
And linger with the heartburn of good friday's last supper

Son watches father scan obituary columns in search of absent school friends
While his generation digests high fibre ignorance
Cowering behind curtains and the taped up painted windows
Decriminalised genocide, provided door to door belsens
Pandora's box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens
Waiting, wai-wai-waiting, the season of the button
The penultimate migration
Radioactive perfumes
For the fashionably
For the terminally insane, insane
D-d-do you realise?
D-d-do you realise?
D-d-do you realise, this world is totally fugazi

Where are the prophets
Where are the visionaries
Where are the poets
To breach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary

(fish, steve rothery, mark kelly, pete trewavas, ian mosley)

Do you remember chalk hearts melting on a playground wall
Do you remember dawn escapes from moon washed college halls
Do you remember the cherry blossom in the market square
Do you remember i thought it was confetti in our hair
By the way didn't i break your heart?
Please excuse me, i never meant to break your heart
So sorry, i never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine

Kayleigh is it too late to say i'm sorry?
And kayleigh could we get it together again?
I just can't go on pretending that it came to a natural end

Kayleigh, oh i never thought i'd miss you
And kayleigh i thought that we'd always be friends
We said our love would last forever
So how did it come to this bitter end?

Do you remember barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars
Do you remember loving on the floor in belsize park
Do you remember dancing in stilettoes in the snow
Do you remember you never understood i had to go
By the way, didn't i break your heart?
Please excuse me, i never meant to break your heart
So sorry, i never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine

Kayleigh i just wanna say i'm sorry
But kayleigh i'm too scared to pick up the phone
To hear you've found another lover to patch up our broken home

Kayleigh i'm still trying to write that love song
Kayleigh it's more important to me now you're gone
Maybe it will prove that we were right
Or ever prove that i was wrong

(derek disck/steve rothery/ pete trewavas/ micheal pointer/mark kelly)

So here i am once more
In the playground of the broken hearts
One more experience, one more entry in a diary, self-penned
Yet another emotional suicide
Overdosed on sentiment and pride
Too late to say i love you
Too late to restage the play
Abandoning the relics in my playground of yesterday

I'm losing on the swings
I'm losing on the roundabouts
I'm losing on the swings
I'm losing on the roundabouts
Too much, too soon, too far to go, too late to play
The game is over, the game is over

So here i am once more
In the playground of the broken hearts
I'm losing on the swings
I'm losing on the roundabouts
The game is over

Yet another emotional suicide
Overdosed on sentiment and pride
I'm losing on the swings
I'm losing on the roundabouts, roundabouts, the game is over

Too late to say i love you
Too late to restage the play
The game is over

I act the role in classic style
Of a martyr carved with twisted smile
To bleed the lyric for this song
To write the rites to right my wrongs
An epitaph to a broken dream
To exercise this silent scream
A scream that's born from sorrow

I never did write that lovesong
The words just never seemed to flow
Now sad in reflection did i gaze through perfection
And examine the shadows on the other side of morning
And examine the shadows on the other side of morning
Promised wedding now a wake
Promised wedding now a wake, awake

The fool escaped from paradise
Will look over his shoulder and cry
Sit and chew on daffodils and struggle to answer "why?"
As you grow up and leave the playground
Where you kissed your prince and found your frog
Remember the jester that showed you tears, the script for tears

So i'll hold our peace forever when you wear your bridal gown
In the silence of my shame the mute that sang the sirens' song
Has gone solo in the game
I've gone solo in the game, but the game is over

Can you still say you love me
Can you still say you love me
Can you still say that you love me
Do you love me
Do you love me
Do you love me
Do you love me, the jester's tear

Can you still say you love me
Can you still say you love me
Can you still say that you love me?

The jester's tear, the jester's tear
Do you love me