A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers: S.H.M.

Van Der Graaf Generator

Compositor: David Jackson / Guy Evans / Hugh Banton / Peter Hammill / Van der Graaf Generator

'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