A Plague Of Lighthouse-keepers:(i) Eyewitness Lyrics - Van Der Graaf Generator

Eyewitness 

Still waiting for my saviour, 

storms tear me limb from limb; 

my fingers feel like seaweed... 

I'm so far out I'm too far in. 

I am a lonely man, my solitude is true 

my eyes have borne stark witness 

and now my nights are numbered, too. 

I've seen the smiles on dead hands, 

the stars shine, but they're not for me. 

I prophesy disaster and then I count the cost... 

I shine but, shining, dying, 

I know that I am almost lost. 

On the table lies blank paper 

and my tower is built on stone 

I only have blunt scissors, 

I only have the bluntest home... 

I've been the witness, and the seal of death 

lingers in the molten wax that is my head. 

When you see the skeletons 

of sailing-ship spars sinking low 

You'll begin to wonder if the points 

of all the ancients myths 

are solemnly directed straight at you... 

Pictures/Lighthouse 

(Eddies, rocks, ships, collision, remorse) 

Eyewitness 

No time now for contrition: 

the time for that's long past. 

The walls are thin as tissue and 

if I talk I'll crack the glass. 

So I only think on how it might have been, 

locked in silent monologue, in silent scream. 

I'm much too tired to speak 

and, as the waves crash on the bleak 

stones of the tower, I start to freak 

and find that I am overcome... 

S.H.M. 

'Unreal, unreal' ghost helmsmen scream 

and fall in through the sky, 

not breaking through my seagull shrieks... 

no breaks until I die: 

the spectres scratch on window-slits - 

hollowed faces and mindless grins 

only intent on destroying what they've lost. 

I crawl the wall till steepness ends 

in the vertical fall; 

my pain has sailed into the sea: 

no joking hopes at dawn. 

White bone shine in the iron-jaw mask 

lost mastheads pierce the freezing dark 

and parallel my isolated tower... 

no paraffin for the flame 

no harbour left to gain. 

Presence of the Night / Kosmos Tours 

'Alone, alone' the ghosts all call, 

pinpoint me in the light. 

The only life I feel at all 

is the presence of the night. 

Would you cry if I died? 

Would you catch the final words of mine? 

Would you catch my words? 

I know that there's no time 

I know that there's no rhyme... 

false signs find me 

I don't want to hate, 

I just want to grow; 

why can't I let me 

live and be free? 

but I die very slowly alone. 

I know more ways, 

I am so afraid, 

myself won't let me 

just be myself 

and so I am completely alone... 

The maelstrom of my memory 

is a vampire and it feeds on me 

now, staggering madly, over the brink I fall. 

(Custard's) Last Stand 

Lighthouses might house the key 

but can I reach the door? 

I want to walk on the sea 

so that I may better find a shore... 

but how can I ever keep my feet dry? 

I scan the horizon 

I must keep my eyes on all parts of me. 

Looking back on the years 

it seems that I have lost my way: 

Like a dog in the night, I have run to a manger 

now I am the stranger I stay in. 

All of the grief I have seen 

leaves me chasing solitary peace; 

But I hold experience in my head... 

I'm too close to the light 

I don't think I see right, for I blind me... 

The Clot Thickens 

Where is the God that guides my hand? 

How can the hands of others reach me? 

When will I find what I grope for? 

Who is going to teach me? 

I am me / me are we / we can't see 

any way out of here. 

Crashing sea - a trophied history: 

Chance has lost my Guinevere... 

I don't want to be one wave in the water 

But sea will drag me deep 

One more haggard drowned man... 

I can see the lemmings coming, 

but I know I'm just a man; 

Do I join or do I founder? 

Which can is the best I may?