A Louse Is Not A Home - Peter Hammill

Sometimes it’s very scary here, sometimes it’s very sad

Sometimes I think I’ll disappear;

betimes I think I have

There’s a line snaking down my mirror

Splintered glass distorts my face

And though the light is strong and strange

It can’t illuminate the musty corners of this place

There is a lofty, lonely, Lohengrenic castle in the clouds;

I draw my murky meanings there

But seven years' dark luck is just around the corner

And in the shadows lurks the spectre of Despair

A cracked mirror 'mid the drapes of the landing:

Split image, labored understanding…

I’m only trying to find a place to hide my home

I’ve lived in houses composed of glass

Where every movement is charted

But now the monitor screens are dark

And I can’t tell if silent eyes are there

My words are spiders upon the page

They spin out faith, hope and reason —

But are they meet and just, or only dust

Gathering about my chair?

Sometimes I get the feeling

That there’s someone else there:

The faceless watcher makes me uneasy;

I can feel him through the floorboards

And His presence is creepy

He informs me that I shall be expelled

What is that but out of and into?

I don’t know the nature of the door that I’d go through

I don’t know the nature of the nature

That I am inside …

I’ve lived in houses of brick and lead

Where all emotion is sacred

And if you want to devour the fruit

You must first sniff at the fragrance

And lay your body before the shrine

With poems and posies and papers

Or, if you catch the ruse, you’ll have to choose

To stay, a monk, or leave, a vagrant

What is this place you call home?

Is it a sermon or a confession?

Is it the chalice that you use for protection?

Is it really only somewhere you can stay?

Is it a rule-book or a lecture?

Is it a beating at the hands of your Protector?

Does the idol have feet of clay?

Home is what you make it

So my friends all say

But I rarely see their homes in these dark days

Some of them are snails

And carry houses on their backs;

Others live in monuments

Which, one day, will be racks

I keep my home in place

With sellotape and tin-tacks;

But I still feel there’s some other Force here…

He who cracks the mirrors and moves the walls

Keeps staring through

The eye-slits of the portraits in my hall

He ravages my library and taps the telephone

I’ve never actually seen Him

But I know He’s in my home

And if he goes away

I can’t stay here either

I believe… er …I think…

Well, I don’t know …

I only live in one room at a time

But all of the walls are ears and all the windows, eyes

Everything else is foreign

'Home' is my wordless chant:

Mmmmmaah!

Give it a chance!

I am surrounded by flesh and bone

I am a temple of living

I am a hermit, I am a drone

And I am boring out a place to be

With secret garlands about my head

Unearthly silence is broke

The room is growing dark, and in the stark light

I see a face I know

Could this be the guy who never shows

The cracked mirror what he’s feeling

Merely mumbles prayers to the ground where

He’s kneeling:

«Home is home is home is home is home is home is me!»?

All you people looking for your houses

Don’t throw your weight around

You might break your glasses

And if you do, you know you just can’t see

And then how are you to find

The dawning of the day?

Day is just a word I use

To keep the dark at bay

And people are imaginary, nothing else exists

Except the room I’m sitting in

And, of course, the all-pervading mist —

Sometimes I wonder if even that’s real

Maybe I should de-louse this place

Maybe I should de-place this louse

Maybe I’ll maybe my life away

In the confines of this silent house

Sometimes it’s very scary here, sometimes it’s very sad

Sometimes I think I’ll disappear, sometimes I think … I…