Pools of Mercury Lyrics

Pools of Mercury
By Jim Carroll

Mercury Records, 1998

See also: album details and audio clips

LYRICS INDEX

° Falling Down Laughing
° Desert Town
° Pools of Mercury
° Hairshirt Fracture
° The Beast Within

Falling Down Laughing

Lyrics by Jim Carroll

He was feeling invulnerable
That was foolish but wonderful
But of course the first one was always free
He’s got one wrist in heaven, one ankle in hell
Somebody pushed or he just fell
He’s riding the subway watching the lights play
red yellow green he’s always somewhere in between
the station he wants, the station he needs,
and the station where the chickenhawks come to feed

Refrain:
Since the worm turned he’s learned
This apple’s a blood-filled tear
And he falls down laughing, he falls down laughing
He falls down and he disappears

First he tried to be pure now he just wants a cure
He’s wasted, his skin’s sore, he’s flat-out poor
When you live in doubt that’s when your luck runs out
He’s on the roof alone, outside the zone
Now he’s on the street again when he calls him then
Billy just cannot resist
Now he’s an orphan sleeping with the coffins
Just like Oliver Twist

Well since the worm turned . . .

Billy’s tired of the lies, he’s turning every fire
Looking for his own past
He’s limping in the water searching for the quarter
Inch of clarity
His future is raining blood like stars
He’s fallen so far behind
He might as well be blind

Watching late-night film noir inside of stolen cars
His tongue stuck frozen to the monkey bars
His ladder lost its rungs, Billy speaks in tongues
Every time he’s in the clear his past looks back and sneers

But since the worm turned . . .

Desert Town

Lyrics by Jim Carroll

I hitched a ride to a desert town
(I never planned this trip)
I saw my past in the sun like a tongue
(that slowly dripped)
People faced me with Lazarus eyes
They were red and dazed like fat horse flies
I was lost in twelve directions
I was searching for my own reflection

In a desert town I found
a future old and broke like Roman ruins
I been turned around it’s true
The postage past is due
This heat is twisted like a knife

I got the picture but I lost the frame
(Where did it begin)
Thought I was holy but that’s not the case
I’m just too tired to sin
Sun glistening like a frightened fist
This latitude doesn’t exist

In a desert town I found
Nothing is going to be the way it should
What I thought I lost I could get back
Take the blade and hack my way back to another day

Instant that, instant this, instant that, instant this . . .

In a desert town I found
a future old and broke like Roman ruins
I been turned around it’s true
The postage past is due
This heat is twisting like a knife

In a desert town the sound
Whispers like like the women at the well
In this dry high wind I bend
like a cactus in the sand
I’m waiting, waiting for your hand

Pools of Mercury

Lyrics by Jim Carroll

Sirens begin, the red light spins
Hungry go the thieves

Betty’s in the sandbox trying to detox
She always wears long sleeves

Desdemona in a red kimona can’t get off the bench
Her bolts are fused, her limbs can’t move
Someone better find a wrench

Got no past, they can’t last
Future’s like a curse
What’s best for them is always bought
at the price of something worse

Wren’s heart of ashes, the glue-on lashes
Her baby’s in a Brillo box
She’s on one knee with key after key
Trying to find the right lock
By the pulp of her fears
and the shape of her tears
you can tell tomorrow’s weather
She bends her skin in the shape of her sins
To keep herself together

Got no past, they can’t last
The future’s like a hearse
What’s best for them is always bought
at the price of something worse

Got no past, I can’t last
The future’s like a curse
I’m swimming in pools of mercury
Making sense of the end of the century

They want to — outside
They want to — outside
They want to scream outside
They want to search outside
They want to lose outside
They want to beg outside
They want to have sex outside
They want to — outside
They want to pray outside
They want to buy outside
They want to dream outside
They want to pine outside
They want to — outside
They want to sleep
They only want to be alone outside

Carl’s been burned
Better return him back to central casting
Jen grows weaker her soul sneakers
Are useless without laces
So she rides the snake till she grows wings
And flies to better places

Got no past, they can’t last
The future’s like a hearse
What’s best for them is always bought
at the price of something worse

Got no past, I can’t last
The future’s like a curse
I’m swimming in pools of mercury
Making sense of the end of the century

It’s dawn, their faces worn
Rain like a female feathers
I’m swimming in pools of mercury
Making sense of the end of the century

Got no past, they can’t last
The future’s like a hearse
What’s best for them is always bought
at the price of something worse

Hairshirt Fracture

Lyrics by Jim Carroll

I’m feeling like I’m waiting on a train
By the sounds from my bed I think somebody’s bled
All over something someone’s keeping clean

I don’t need anything, just make it bright
then turn it low
You don’t need more than me
You could live right there beneath the stairs
I’ve done it, I’ve said all I can, I’ve reached the end
Now you must learn to bend
Bend to the floor, taste the core

You’re not going nowhere
leave the money right there
I feel the arrow sticking in my ear
We owe so much we pawned
Now watch the power come undone
I’m standing on my head to watch the day just drift away
This city always makes the same mistakes, asleep or awake

I’m sick of waking up inside white balloons
Inside of blue balloons

New York air is sweet tonight
there’s no stars but that’s all right
I’m breathing

I feel you through your fear
Pull the arrow from my ear
Tonight we’ll take a different way home
They say the fire burns but won’t consume
But it does consume

You’re slick, you shoplift
What’s left of my brain
You haven’t changed
This city always makes the same mistakes,
it’s just like me
It always breaks in two
I’m sick of me for being sick of you
We’ll take a gypsy cab to heaven or hell
Time will tell

The Beast Within

Lyrics by Jim Carroll and Lenny Kaye

If give me your ear
I’ll whisper you wind that could soothe your burnt blood
The door is right here
breathing the air filled with powders and porn
now comes the dawn

If I release the dove
Would it betray the sky and return to your cage
In the river above
Can I fold back the pages and just take one look
into your jungle book

Refrain: Some say it’s a lie, some say it’s a sin
Do you know how it ends if you won’t let it begin?
You feel it waking now beneath your skin
You can’t live without the beast within

If you lift up your veil
Then I’ll finish the features that aren’t quite done
How could we fail
With all the miraculous masks that we wear
In shadows and stares

Let’s seal out the dare
Your eyes like morning, naked and wet
What price will we pay?
Now think back and tell me how we ever got here
Such tender years

Some say it’s a lie, some say it’s a sin . . .