Pete Atkin - Shadow And The Widower lyrics

Atkin-James As we left each other on our final night And I walked away with all the love remaining A cla**ic whisper near the station wall I could just hear without straining Asked if I was scared to realise this was all Disappointed there was only this much in it The perfume and suppliance of a minute? It was him - the Shadow and the Widower There's that all right, I said, and so much more An hour of life inside a world of dying A wider limit set to one's regard The kinder forms of lying And beyond all that the privilege of a memory scarred In prettier ways than most, perhaps than any Such a fate must seem desirable to many Even you, the Shadow and the Widower The cla**ic laughter echoed near the wall A strip torn from a three-sheet stirred and fluttered The whisper said, Well don't that just beat all What this oracle hath uttered? A straight-up scalp-collector I could understand All those lineaments of gratified desire But he's handing me that old refining fire This to me, the Shadow and the Widower The whisper moved with me into the light Where the access tunnel ran beneath the tracks The wind searched for a way back to the night But no romance, no lonely alto sax Just litter and the notes left for the blacks The graffiti stopped your pulse like heart attacks To perdition with that rarefied regret Those half-remembered ladies swathed in yearning Said the whisper just an inch behind my head The world is burning And the tales of love fit for the guiltless dead Will have little in them of the airs and graces With which your tender soul goes through its paces Commit that to your fragrant memory And while you're doing that, remember me The Shadow and the Widower