| I promise you, I won’t leave a clue:
|
| no tell-tale remark, no print from my shoe.
|
| Still a steady trail to the water’s edge —
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| I will keep my pledge to the end;
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| I intend to go free
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| No more rushing around, no more travelling chess;
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| I guess I’d better sit down, you know I do need the rest…
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| Yes, it’s time to resign with equanimity and placidity
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| from the game.
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| I can’t explain;
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| I can’t relate…
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| Have I done it all too late?
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| Now is the time for the commission to report;
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| till lately, I thought: I’d been planted.
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| Trying hard to make it all come real,
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| permission to feel is ungranted.
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| But, now it’s happening, I’d like to keep it private if I can;
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| last words, last look, make a final stand.
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| Now my number’s come up on the Pools,
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| guess I’ll board Titanic for a cruise…
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| Now is the time to make my status clear,
|
| too late, I fear, and lonely,
|
| as friends and enemies traverse the stage,
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| all in a rage disown me.
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| And all the pip-props shatter into dust about my ears;
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| memory and conscience, hope and fear.
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| As I crawl out further on the limb
|
| something tells me I am crawling in to unknown prophecies and lives —
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| the rainbow’s end is hemmed around with knives…
|
| As I stand on the boards and the stage lights grow dim,
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| shall I go out of doors, or shall I maybe go in?
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| Have I reached the point when I should take my cue
|
| and follow you and your signs?
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| I can’t remember my line
|
| at the prompter cat calls
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| and the cards all fall
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| in the strike
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| All the pages are thin, all the corners are curled.
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| Does the starshine fall in through my window on the world?
|
| or am I living our (the seeds of doubt) a chronicle of revenge?
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| The willow bends
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| as do my hands —
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| do your understand?
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| And will you still be my friend in the end?
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| … When my mouth falls slack
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| and I can’t summon up another tune,
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| shall I then look back and say
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| I did it all
|
| too soon |