Still they can't sleep,
though time marches on.
Specters of a distant past,
I can see they don't belong.

These ghosts and ghouls
all playing games
inside a broken house,
with me inside
-- trapped inside --
searching for a way out.

I want to flee;
this place is not for me.
But I'm trapped on this wheel
denying all I feel.

Sunlight sneaks inside
through bent and broken rafters.
I know that dawn
is just beyond
these bent and broken rafters.

Strange place to live, strange place to stay,
watching them on their empty way.
Strange place to be, strange place to see
such emptiness from them to me.

Wandering an empty street,
is there no one to meet?
Just empty people in an empty town,
watching an empty world spin around.

Empty faces going empty places,
running in their empty races.
Empty riches, empty pleasures
as they hold their empty treasures.

An empty brace, an empty tether --
Oh, how the emptiness holds them together!
When emptiness is all that's real,
emptiness is all they feel.

Those that fill become weighed down,
and when they sink, can only drown,
carrying along an empty frown.

An empty life, an empty death;
emptiness to the final breath.

An empty lie, an empty friend;
emptiness to the bitter end.

He came to town when skies were gray.
He said: "I can make the clouds go away."
So we looked up, and there he was.
He said: "Well, can't you see it's all because
you hold so dear to every day?"

He came to town barefoot and grinning
just to set our little world spinning.
Spin, spin, oh spin little top
but please don't stop
'til my eyelids drop.

He raised his hand and waved his arm;
and mumbling a little charm,
said: "I'll save you from the game,
it's easy to do, forget your name.
It's no cause for alarm."

He left the town when skies were clear
but now the things we held so dear,
from all our minds, are far and gone.
So, we stare at stars all night long
and sleep away the day.

He left the town barefoot and grinning
just to set our little world spinning.
Spin, spin, oh spin little top,
but please don't stop
'til my eyelids drop.

O, bitter skies with speckled heavens!
Beyond the idle thinker’s eye --
Serenely still without impressions,
Unconcerned with passers-by.

Beneath your canopy, on high,
Pleasured moans and tortured cries
Become the same with passing time.

Such elegance, so divine!
And without a chance to make it mine --
How my soul can't help but shake.

O, Master of Fortune and Weaver of Fate!
Your will unwinds in billows and furls.
With patient breath and silent ache,
Could I but stand within those curls!

Spinning around in the gentle moonlight,
she asked me to hold her, though just for the night.
The circles stood still as the embrace took hold
and the silence around us began to unfold.

I awoke from my dreams
of meadows and peace
to an empty bedside
of temporary retreat.

That evening had passed
through the fires of dawn.
Our moment but a flash,
the span of a yawn.

If only we'd met closer to home,
not out on the road, wandering alone,
we'd still be together out of the cold.