Peter Hammill - Now More Than Ever

Extracted from Patience, 1983. Photo/drawing - Paul Dickerson

Between coma and consciousness
no hard and fast line,
no chance to vote on the motioning eye.
A mystical vision or a fall from grace,
the chase in slow motion through alien space?
I don't know what to make of the dream-time:
it seems as though I'm me,
but I'm now more than ever
happening inside myself - I don't know
whether I need anything else.

Stored information or secretive clue,
so much will fit the design....
one field of life where free will
won't cut through:
the dream and the unconscious eye,
in real time.

We surf between waking
and the breakers of sleep
the unconscious ocean, still waters run deep.
We lay down all logic,
all sense of control, suspend disbelief
in the window of souls.
I don't know what to make of the dream-time:
it seems as though I'm me,
but I'm now more than ever
happening only in thought...
I don't know whether
any sense is caught.
Stored information etc....
...the dream disappears in the light.

In the laboratory they're waking him up:
the dreams on the lips but they smash the cup.
A psycho-experiment, and there is no doubt --
the dream's an experience I go crazy without....
I don't know what to make of the dream-time:
it seems as though I'm me,
but I'm now more than ever
happening inside my head...
is this a forever with the ego dead?
Stored information etc....
...the dream and the unconscious eye.
In real time
it's now more than ever.