{"id":709,"date":"2013-04-12T16:01:28","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T14:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/?page_id=709"},"modified":"2013-05-03T01:38:20","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T23:38:20","slug":"5-godbluff","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/teksty\/teksty-oryginalne\/teksty-vdgg\/5-godbluff\/","title":{"rendered":"5. Godbluff"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\nThe Undercover Man<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here at the glass – all the usual problems,
\nall the habitual farce.
\nYou ask, in uncertain voice, what you should do
\nas if there were a choice
\nbut to carry on miming the song
\nand hope that it all works out right.
\nTonight it all seems so strange –
\nmy spirit feels rigid,
\nmy body deranged;
\nstill that’s only from one point of view
\nand we can’t have illusion between me and you,
\nmy constant friend, ever close at hand –
\nyou and the undercover man.
\nI reflect: 'It’s very strange to be going
\nthrough this change
\nwith no idea of what it’s all been about
\nexcept in the context of time…’
\nOh, but I shirk it, I’ve half a mind
\nnot to work it all out.
\nIs this madness just the recurring wave
\nof total emotion,
\nor a hide for the undercover man,
\nor a litany – all the signs are there
\nof fervent devotion –
\nor the cracking of the dam?<\/p>\n

It’s cracked; smashed and bursting over you,
\nthere was no reason to expect such disaster.
\nNow, panicking, you burst for air,
\ndrowning, you know you care
\nfor nothing and no-one but yourself
\nand would deny even this hand which stretches out
\ntowards you to help.
\nBut would I leave you in this moment
\nof your trial?
\nIs it my fault that I’m here to see you crying?
\nThese fantom figures all around
\nyou should have told you,
\nyou should have found out by now,
\nif you hadn’t gone and tried to do it all by yourself.<\/p>\n

Even now we are not lost: if you look out
\nat the night
\nyou’ll see the colours and the lights seem to say
\npeople are not far away, at least in distance,
\nand it’s only our own dumb resistance
\nthat’s making us stay.
\nWhen the madness comes, let it flood on down
\nand over me sweetly,
\nlet it drown the parts of me weak and blessed
\nand damned,
\nlet it slake my life, let it take my soul
\nand living completely,
\nlet it be who I am.<\/p>\n

There may not be time for us all to run
\nin tandem together –
\nthe horizon calls with its parallel lines.
\nIt may not be right for you to have and hold
\nin one way forever
\nand yet you still have time,
\nyou still have time.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Scorched Earth<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just one crazy moment while the dice are cast,
\nhe looks into the future and remembers
\nwhat is past,
\nwonders what he’s doing on this battlefield,
\nshrugs to his shadow, impatient,
\ntoo proud yet to kneel.<\/p>\n

In his wake he leaves scorched earth
\nand work in vain;
\nsmoke drifts up behind him – he is free again,
\nfree to run before the onslaught of a deadly foe,
\nleaving nothing fit for pillage,
\nhardly leaving home.
\nIt’s far too late to turn, unless it’s to stone.
\nCharging madly forward, tracks across the snow,
\nwind screams madness to him, ever on he goes
\nleaving spoor to mark his passage,
\ntrace his weary climb.
\nCross the moor and make the headland –
\nstumbling, wayward, blind.
\nIn the end his footprints extend as one single line.<\/p>\n

This latest exponent of heresy is goaded
\ninto an attack,
\npersuaded to charge at his enemy.
\nToo late, he knows it is, too late now
\nto turn back,
\ntoo soon by far to falter.
\nThe past sits uneasily at his rear,
\nhe’s walking right into the trap,
\nsurrounded, but striving through will and fear.
\nAhead of him he knows there waits an ambuscade
\nbut the dice slip through his fingers
\nand he’s living from day to day,
\ncarrying his world around upon his back,
\nleaving nothing behind but the tell-tale
\nof his track.<\/p>\n

He will not be hostage, he will not be slave,
\nno snare of past can trap him,
\nthough the future may.
\nStill he runs and burns behind him
\nin advanced retreat;
\nstill his life remains unfettered –
\nhe denies defeat.
\nIt’s far too late to turn, unless it’s to stone.
\nLeave the past to burn – at least
\nthat’s been his own.<\/p>\n

Scorched earth, that’s all that’s
\nleft when he’s done;
\nholding nothing but beholden to no-one,
\nclaiming nothing, out of no false pride,
\nhe survives.
\nSnow tracks are all that’s left to be seen
\nof a man who entered the course of a dream,
\nclaiming nothing but the life he’s known
\n– this, at least, has been his own.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Arrow<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stub towers in the distance, riders the blasted moor
\nagainst the horizon
\nFickle promises of treaty, fatal harbingers of war,
\nfutile horisons
\nswirl as one in this flight, this mad chase,
\nthis surge across the marshy mud landscape
\nuntil the meaning is forgotten.
\nHood masks the eager face, skin stretched
\nand sallow,
\nheadlong into the chilling night, as swift
\nas any arrow.<\/p>\n

Feet against the flagstones, fingers scrabbling
\nat the lock,
\ncraving protection.
\n'Sanctuary!’ croaks a voice,
\nhalf-strangled by the shock
\nof its rejection.
\nShot the bolt in the wall, rusted the key;
\nnow the echoes of all frightfull memory
\nintrude in the silence.
\nWhat a crawl against the slope –
\ndark loom the gallows
\nOne touch to the chapel door,
\nhow swiftly comes the arrow.<\/p>\n

„Compassion” you plead, as though
\nthey kept it in a box
\n– that’s long since been empty.
\nI’d like to help you somehow,
\nbut I’m in the self-same spot:
\nmy condition exempts me.
\nWe are all on the run on our knees;
\nthe sundial draws a line upon eternity
\nacross every number.
\nHow long the time seems, how dark the shadow,
\nhow straight the eagle flies,
\nhow straight towards his arrow.
\nHow long the night is –
\nwhy is this passage so narrow?
\nHow strange my body feels,
\nimpaled upon the arrow.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sleepwalkers<\/strong><\/p>\n

At night, this mindless army,
\nranks unbroken by dissent,
\nis moved into action
\nand their pace does not relent.
\nIn step, with great precision,
\nthese dancers of the night
\nadvance against the darkness –
\nhow implacable their might!
\nEyes undulled by moon,
\ntheir arms and legs akimbo,
\nthey walk and live,
\nhoping soon to surface from this limbo.
\nTheir minds, anticipating the dawn of the day,
\nshall never know what’s waiting mere insight away
\n– too far, too soon.<\/p>\n

Senses dimmed in semi-sentience,
\nonly wheeling
\nthrough this plane,
\nonly seeing fragmented images prematurely
\ncurtailed by the brain,
\nbut breathing, living,
\nknowing in some measure at least
\nthe soul which roots the matter
\nof both Beauty and the Beast.
\nFrom what tooth or claw does murder spring,
\nfrom what flesh and blood does passion?
\nBoth cut through the air with the pendulum’s swing
\nin deadly but delicate fashion.
\nAnd every range of feeling is there in the dream
\nand every logic’s reeling in the force of the scream
\nthe senses sting.
\nAnd though I may be dreaming and reality stalls
\nI only know the meaning of sight and that’s all
\nand that’s nothing.<\/p>\n

The columns of the night advance,
\ninfectiously, their cryptic dance
\ngathers converts to the fold –
\nin time the whole raw world will pace
\nthese same steps
\non into the same bitter end.<\/p>\n

Somnolent muster now the dancing dead
\nforsake the shelter of their secure beds,
\nawaken to a slumber whose depths they dread,
\nas if the ground they tread would give way
\nbeneath the solemn weight of their conception.
\nI’d search the hidden corners of all this world,
\nmake reason of the sensory whorl
\nif I only had time,
\nbut soon the dream is ended.<\/p>\n

Tonight, before you lay down
\nto the sweetness of your sleep
\ndo you question your surrender
\nto the drop from Lover’s Leap
\nor does the anaesthetic darkness
\ntake hold on its very own?
\nDoes your body rise in service
\nwith not one dissenting groan?
\nThese waking dreams of life and death
\nin the mirror are twisted and buckled,
\nlashes flicker, a catch of breath,
\nskin whitening at the knuckles.
\nThe army of sleepwalkers shake their limbs
\nand are loose
\nand though I am a talker, I can phrase no excuse
\nnot to rise again.
\nIn the chorus of the night-time I belong
\nand I, like you, must dance to that moonlight song
\nand in the end I too must pay the cost
\nof this life.
\nIf all is lost none is known
\nand how could we lose what we’ve never owned?
\nOh, I’d search out every knowledge
\nthat I could find,
\nunravel all the mysteries of mind,
\nif I only had time,
\nif I only had time,
\nbut soon my time is ended.<\/p>\n

All lyrics by Peter Hammill<\/p>\n

\"Przewi\u0144<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Undercover Man Here at the glass – all the usual problems, all the habitual farce. You ask, in uncertain voice, what you should do as if there were a choice but to carry on miming the song and hope … Czytaj dalej →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":659,"parent":517,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"sidebar-page.php","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-709","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":713,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/709\/revisions\/713"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vdgg.art.pl\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}