Shake Off This Sleep

Shake Off This Sleep

From the album Time's New Romans

Along the Tigris or Euphrates
Maybe it was Purgatory or Hades
Drunken gents and painted ladies
were dancing in the street

The road was slick, I started to swerve
right about at Dead Man’s Curve
I couldn’t quite drum up the nerve
to use my own two feet

Hell was walking down the road
Broke into a sprint and dropped its load
Made its way to my abode
with a very danceable beat

I was walking wounded, feeling dead
Needed a place to rest my head
Stumbled up to the bed
and hid beneath the sheet

It wasn’t a dream I’m sure
It really happened that way I think
Had you come along a second later
you’d have found me at the brink
And behind every good man
is a better woman who knows the deal
If I can just shake off this sleep
I might recognize what’s real

I know better than to hope in you
And I know you wouldn’t want me to
But still you know I’m one of the few
who is finally complete

Hell’s outside lurking around
Searching through the lost and found
Cranking that seductive sound
and leaving it on repeat

Stay with me and leave the lights down low
We’ll start a fire and watch a show
We tend to drift into the glow
and surrender to the heat

When the blinds reveal the sun is there
The shafts playing in your hair
There’s something better in the air
It’s pleasant and it’s sweet

It wasn’t a dream I’m sure
It really happened that way I think
Had you come along a second later
you’d have found me at the brink
And behind every good man
is a better woman who knows the deal
If I can just shake off this sleep
I might recognize what’s real

©2009 Radio Free Babylon. All Rights Reserved.