Fosca

I dreamt the film of my life as directed by Joseph Losey.
It was eight minutes long, and cast as me was Parker Posey.
It had a limited run in the small hours on Channel Four.
And all of my scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.
Because from Stockholm to Bolton they're coming to Soho in droves.
For a sniff of some "face" whose skin barely touches his clothes.
There's little more to your name but a cool, sharp, three-button pose.
Ordering drinks with a flick of your famed button nose.

I'm bereft, I don't have a single secret left.
You traded them for every friendship's death,
Of which you're a millionaire.
If truth be told, I only wanted something for my cold.
I blame the lure of the laissez-faire
That you're the millionaire of your own hair.

I left my last social circle and I hid for a while.
I worked in an undertaker's so I wouldn't have to smile.
There's five weeks' worth of homework nestling under your bed.
While between the sheets skulks a grateful deputy head.
After Double French you silently slip your moorings.
And kill an hour or two in town defacing catalogues of vinyl flooring.
You're swearing in received pronunciation to impress a cute librairian.
And exchanging hooded glances with the townies and the precinct barbarians.

I'm bereft, I don't have a single secret left.
You traded them for stakes in crystal meth,
So you're a millionaire.
If truth be told, I only came for something for my cold.
I blame the lure of the laissez-faire
That you're the millionaire of your own hair.

There is an ancient journalist and he stoppeth one in three.
And he's asking me if I equate dressing badly with insincerity.
He's writing a book called "How To Tell Taxi Drivers They're Wrong."
And he doesn't trust people, but he knows his all-time favouite song.
Now the millionaire is busy pulling single dads on underground trains.
And he's blanking the old hack with characteristic haughty disdain.
Today he's fitting in a louche professor of Drama and Mime.
He says "I'd love to be lonely but I can't seem to find the time"

I'm bereft, I don't have a single secret left.
You traded them for stakes in crystal meth,
So you're a millionaire.
If truth be told, I only came for something for my cold.
You're telling the newspaper questionnaires
That you're the millionaire.
Yes, you're the millionaire of your own hair.

Storytelling Johnny, sit me on your knee.
Recite me some memory. No one else need see.
Glowing with gossip of some gamine from Glossop.
Boyish girl with a rucksack. Girlish boy with a bad back.
You're high on Wittgenstein. You are kind with red wine.
Whispering after a time, "I ALONE AM MINE."

Storytelling Johnny, crying like Niobe.
Moaning "if only others were as TIDY as me.
I once attempted Love. But it was oh so MESSY.
Not like in the MOVIES. Where at least it's much SHORTER...
It's best to dye your hair. It's best to change your name.
Rather than pin the blame on some helpless mother."

I long for today to be just like it was at school,
Where I was nearly Loved just for sharing my answers.
But the Happy Adult look wasn't in any Usborne book.
And a gold star in algebra won't get you far (except the bar).
And in a hopeful maisonette, the girl pushed a boy away and said
"These hips are not child-bearing, they're child-SPURNING
And child-SPARING and child-SCARING."

I was getting so afraid. I nearly had a t-shirt made
Saying 'LOSE FRIENDS IN DAYS, ASK ME HOW.'
She is now smoking menthols, because she heard they make you sterile.
She says "I'm helping evolution while remaining very stylish.
And oh it's also very handy for removing a young family
From a crowded cafe... I just light up and SWEAR LOUDLY.
Well I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

Storytelling Johnny, throw your words around me.
You never fail to regale with a new tale.
You're still high on Wittgenstein. You're still ready with red wine.
You are free from anyone's designs, saying "I alone am mine."
You're resigned to "I alone am mine."

Did I tell you I applied to the Uni of Life?
I was measured for my gown... and I promptly got turned down.
I'm not a bit surprised this time. It's just like you to dote
On someone who sleeps to 4pm and isn't even registered to vote.
Well, you're in the same boat.
That the peripheral vision of a dull 28-year-old
Can run rings around a bright teenage mind,
Is a rule you shamelessly uphold, as your sole foothold.
Now the toothpaste round the basin has lost its childish glee.
And your friends reek of cocooning, saying
"life must be taken seriously."
Well, you could have fooled me...

And if there was no praise or blame,
Would you ever be quite the same?
When will you assume nothing? Guess at nothing.
Try to make do with unfurling yourself.

I'll take you to the rooftop. On a clear day you can see
The company cars being half-inched,
And policemen hawking their pilots for TV.
At night you want for sleeping, but it's not easy to do
When the very one you dream of is the one who won't dream of you.
And it still holds true.

On some days you're just all Hate.
And on every other, you ingratiate.
So when will you assume nothing? Guess at nothing.
Try to make do with unfurling yourself,
With unravelling yourself, with unpacking yourself.

You're watching rugby, for all the wrong reasons.
Your knees are hurting, for all the wrong reasons.

When you live without expectation,
You can never be let down.
Still you say
"Trust NO ONE who kisses eyes open.
Trust in God but lock your car."

Thoughtlessness may well be their excuse,
While fecklessness may well be mine.
But what's yours?
I found the truth, and it was of no use.
I came here to do nothing and did it very well.

You're not yourself, you're an imitation
That only answers to the same name.
So phone in sick, today, tomorrow.
Tell them tell them why
There must be more to life than this.
Reclaim your own, that which was meant for us,
It was meant for us.
Reclaim your own, that which was meant for us,
It was meant for us.
Writing songs for the well-read and the ill-fed.
Writing songs for the waiflike and the WRAITHLIKE
And the Safely Unliked.
Inviting the sort of license normally afforded
Only to children and fools...

You watch and wince and then you yearn
"Will people in London never learn?"
The grace of Harrow and Eton skies
Has yet to be beaten in your eyes.

Give me days of dreaming spires,
Over punctured bicycle tyres.
In a place devoid of taste
Remaining chaste isn't much of a waste.
It's not such a waste.
It's not much of a waste.

Don't be so down on Breeders.
They are people too, well so I heard.
The chapel's hymns and sweet-sung psalms,
They offer you Love within their arms.
There's Love in their arms.
Real Love in those arms,
For those cruelly born into the wrong time or class.
Into the wrong time or class.
O Love without emulation. Of Love without negotiation.
It's Love without association. Show me Love without toleration.
It's Love without defamation. Real Love without social tourism.
O Love without remission! O Love without permission!

O, Barrie, you know far too much about me.
J.M. Barrie, he knows far too much about me, it seems...
The "onlie begetter" had it down to the letter for me.
I'm out of sync and on the blink, and I would sink normally...
If this wasn't such a dead sea.
I'm out of sync and on the brink, and I would sink easily...
If this place wasn't such a dead sea.

Dear girl, you will be a boy for him tonight.
Dear girl, he only wants to see the boy in you tonight.
Do you still mooch there, still hung up on wedge hair?
Do you still mope there, falling asleep with wet hair?
All that you really want, is to know what it is you really want.
Overweight wallflower goth, brought up on the wrong side of Lowestoft.
With your crime of Being Yourself. And your punishment of Staying Yourself.
Who exactly is your type? Where exactly is your type?

Confused and proud, but you can't say it loud.
You're confused and proud, but you'll brazen it out.

Of the forty-eight genders why must you concern yourself with merely two?
Plumping for polarity in your life, as if that somehow means more clarity in life.
And if we held a protest demonstration, we'd all march off in different directions.

Confused and proud, but it's scarcely allowed.
You're confused and proud, and thrown out of the crowd.

I didn't CHASE you, I more fell towards you.
No, I did not CHOOSE you, I just fell towards you.
And while sobriety slumbers, you and I may swap numbers.
But those dutiful digits won't be dialled. Those dutiful digits won't be dialled.
They're digits inevitably filed. They're digits to remain un-dialled.
More digits that will never be dialled. More digits just scribbled and filed.
More digits that will NEVER be dialled. More digits just written and filed.

Don't bother with their wisdom, don't bother with white lies.
I'm trying to deliver what's written in their eyes.
If the rot can't be stopped, then why not o why not,
Can't I swim with the tide but faster?
And you speak about the "Sanctity of Life".
While going out of your way to make someone's hell.

Say what you won't say. Tell what you can't tell.
Take back your kindness. Wait to be weightless.
Death to the future. My choice of freedom.
Hoping is... hopeless. Wait til I'm weightless.

I've been beaten at adult games too many times to mention.
Less and less is making sense. Not sure I was meant to get older.
If it's wrong to prolong what cannot here belong,
Can't I swim with the tide but faster?
Fairly soon I'll be wholly immune to the Hipster Disease of Blanking.
Writing an ode from no fixed abode is cruel on the ones who are STRONGER.
If it's bad to have had not an inkling of Glad,
Is it worse to want no more of Wanting?
If it's bad to have had not a smidgen of Glad,
Is it worse to want no more of Wanting?
And you speak about the wonders of your life.
As if indulgence needs a by-your-leave at all.
To be weightless...