Perfume River - Fish

There were no sirens, I heard no alarms

This situation has somehow got completely out of hand

It’s no illusion, it’s not a dream

My eyes are open and all is as appears

It’s a perfect nightmare

It’s a perfect nightmare

In an imperfect world

I missed the wake up, slept through the dawn

The world’s a stage but I’ve declared these curtains drawn

Behind the fourth wall, behind the scenes

A discarded fading flower on the soporific, sensual Perfume River

The perfect nightmare

Escape the perfect nightmare

Dream the perfect world

I close my mind in soft surrender

In quiet resignation take the lies

I lock the door, I lock the door

I junk the mail, I never open letters

Programme numbers that I know I’ll never call

Collect addresses of friends who’ll soon be strangers

Message pending, I know just what it says

Should I accept another lie?

I swallow all the lies

I live the lie

There are places that I know that I will never see

Some I wish I’d never seen before

The horror stalks my vision and the cries ring in my ears

I am helpless, I am not brave, I am alone

I wander the dark alleys of the citadel

Deserted shops and empty houses mark my way

Bullet holes in stuccoed walls are testimony

To the voices disappeared within the fear

Take me away to the Perfume River

Carry me down to the Perfume River

Set me adrift on a well-stocked open boat

Show me the way down to the Perfume River

Send me away down the Perfume River

Pour that sweet, sweet liquor down my throat

Fire breathing dragons swarm in sweltering skies

Spewing flame on innocents below

Charred and brittle corpses, blackened evidence

I am enraged, I am afraid, I am forlorn

The ashes from wise pages fly from libraries

Tumble in the clouds of smoke and flies

To lie as dust in corners of dark palaces

The fetid smell of revolution haunts the air

Take me away to the Perfume River

Carry me down to the Perfume River

Set me adrift on a well-stocked open boat

Show me the way to the Perfume River

Send me away down the Perfume River

Pour that sweet, sweet liquor down my throat

Pour it down my throat

Carry me down to the Perfume River

Hold me down in the Perfume River

Where I’ll drown my sorrows and I’ll die in hope

Push me away down the Perfume River

To the swirls and eddies of the Perfume River

In these dark and muddied waters just let me float

The truth I don’t want to know