Dead Man (Held on Hand)

Dead Man (Held on Hand)

Are you going back for good?
You’ll never ask me to
You’ll never ask me to

Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow’s dawn,
Calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here
Up and be gone

Where I could not follow with wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon
Never to bid goodbye, lip the softest call
Or utter a wish for a word

While I saw morning
Harden upon the wall
Unmoved, unknowing
That your great going had place

Why do you make me
Leave the house and think
For a breath it is
For a breath it is you that I see

(Are you gonna switch the light when I’m walking by?
Are you gonna taste the trouble ‘cause of lullabies?
Are you gonna rip it off?
Are you gonna switch it on?)

At the end of the alley
Of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you
Used to be

Till in darkening dankness
The yawning blankness
Of the perspective
The perspective that sickens me



I’m a dead man held on hand
I’m a dead man held on hand
Of yonder moon, which shapes so soon to demilune
I’m a dead man held on hand
I’m a dead man held on hand
Indubitably, good company



I’m a dead man held on hand
I’m a dead man held on hand
One whose desires and inner fires move him as wires
I’m a dead man held on hand
I’m a dead man held on hand
Indubitably, good company