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6. Goodwin and the Jumpsuit

I thought this loneliness

was just like steam -

in time it would burn off

and leave me clean.

We run like wind through the valley

I trail her name, behind me.

They look around, I hid her well.

I glaze the stars at night

with magnetic dreams

if they should all fall down

they'll stick to everything

I thought my time on earth

was part of a stream

in time I would join up with everything

We run like wind through the valley

I trail her name, behind me.

look all you like - I hid her well.

7.Familiar Stranger

When we made those plans

Summer cast no shadow

Winter was a hollow, where we ran.

So happy Christmas familiar stranger.

& happy new year -

a party favour for you.

Who took your little soul,

I guess I'll never know.

I led a lonely life.

Yes, I led a lonely life.

Kids, august sons.

now summer is in shadow,

cast by winter's hollow, where we ran.

8. Stations of the cross

My dear,

I hope this letter finds you well.

This place is hell,

but I know holds the answer

It rolls in - that one day we will

walk fields of gold

and fold into each other

It gets old -

stepping out in concrete worlds,

your photograph's in all of the newspapers

my dear - was it story or creation?

the thing that comes first is your salvation

I wish you knew, the desert tune,

that holds and stores

the stations of the cross.

9. Prelude To A Saga

I buried my daughter

in the sands of her realm

all questions covered

by the whispering sand.

this is my secret

as i lower my days,

into patterns and memories.

i don't know who i've been.

now i open up and let go

they left me for dead

in that burning meadow

but i had escaped,

my grave was empty

i gathered myself and spread into everything

you speak the words, but i dreamt them up

continent's asleep, but i woke it up -

an agent of blood, curdled and free!

oh little one, oh tiny thing,

walk with mummy, drink from the sea.

with bobby laughing

and our dads were asleep

all at the bar, and all in a heap

There's water near

some nights i can hear,

him bathing there.

one day there came

a knock on his door -

a knock on his door!

he grew so quiet

from where i hide,

i thought the end,

had come, the end

What I can recall of the outside world -

the taste of the bore,

that i my father dug.

in exchange for a god .

Now he's settled in,

and this dreaming must end.

my world's in here.

1. The Witnesses

This happened one evening -

as the nation lay sleeping.

Maybe we see things,

Maybe we dream them -

i hid the wiltshire

i cleaned the holden

and the sun gathered the tears

i shook the tent down

i placed the phone call

& the wind swept away all the tracks

Relayed through the visions

of writers and newsmen -

oh gaudy gestures

oh lonely nation

i kept her picture

i wrote a letter

& i kept a midnight vigil.

my wife tracked the footsteps

we found her guilty

and the dish ran away with the spoon

and the moon cast a temporal shadow

and the rock was a twilight cradle

and the anguish cleaved a rip in the wake

of breathless haunted country.

2. Brown Snake

brown snake, brown snake what did you see?

I saw the dead heart looking at me.

dead heart, dead heart, what did you see?

I saw the footsteps nearing the trees

Footsteps, footsteps, what did you see?

We saw the man of god trying to flee

Child of Oz,

What did you see?

Child of Oz

What did you see?

Child of Oz

I saw that brown snake,

and I saw the dead heart

I saw the footsteps

and I saw the God Man.

I saw them all looking at me, as I dragged the sand over me.

Our child of oz, that's what I was, A child of Oz.

3. My Sister In 1994

The years passed,

each laid across

the road out of here.

I took her everywhere,

tied bows in her hair -

they said I didn't care.

I took her everywhere,

tied bows in her hair -

they said I didn't care.

Do you hear things in the dark?

- Yes I hear another's voice.

Have you hidden anything?

- Yes I didn't have a choice

Have you eaten everything?

- No I didn't think I could.

But I've told you everything

Nothing lasts,

just piles upon.

I took her everywhere,

tied bows in her hair -

they said I didn't care...

4. A Bend In The Terror

You were taken that night

that black river seemed to want you

and now nothing seems right

we were darlings that year

we were darlings that year

You set fires at night

were they signals, or cloaks?

and now nothing seems right

we were darlings that year

we were darlings that year

(i just pray you became free)

5. The Cops

We are taken by the

nature of our work

to dark places

through country miles, city fringes

and violence

sick moments caught in the wind sheer of fire

when we reached the end there is no conclusion

I track them down

All my life

right or wrong

I track them down

oh my life

the curse of this country is not itself

because this country's not itself

on nights i can't get to sleep

I thumb through her still-open case