John Cale - The Jeweller lyrics

Very slowly he sipped his tea
Not shifting his glance from
The thick double spaced
Printing he read with his jeweller's eye
Engrossed in his corner
He passed onto the other
Inhabitants of the room
A scrawled insularity of time and space
For both passed him by with
The speed of light, not unlike the flow of
Substance, however varied
Into that lysergic entity known
As the black hole

He was hardly ugly for his time
And conversation was certainly not
Lost on him
Drastic measures were called for
And as in antiquity the
Lonely man was blessed
With wisdom to the point of desperation

But there in his corner, developing
Around him like a sun
Was a climate of such rare
Beauty that sight and sound
Could no longer be considered sufficient
Food for the senses

And he had begun to notice
As his hearing failed, that mind
And matter were in no way
Connected to one other
As if in fact the one could not propose and
Prove it's erotic existence in
Terms of the other

"What does this word mean?" he enquired
Of the solemn waiter hopefully
"Nothing for desert sir", came the reply
"perhaps
A cocktail, demitasse or a herbal essence
It helps the breathing you know sometimes"
"The bill, if you don't mind"
Quickly he shot back

And as the patter of the
Feet faded in the room, for
He barely heard them now, his
Eye slowly began to close
And by the time he emerged
On the sunny street he was forced to
Rely entirely on the other eye
For help, but happily it continued it's
Many functions, blinking gently
For lubrication, and registering images
It was rush hour, in Hawaii only 10am

So, turning into his street
He stopped at the drug store and bought an
Eye patch that soon covered the reluctant eye

Climbing the stairs he pondered
What to do next, he would call a doctor
And have tests made, eat nourishing food
And if necessary consent to surgery
The last resort of the gambling man

And at 1am he awoke from a dream and after
Fumbling his way in the opalescent light of
His room he peered into the rusty veins of
His mirror and lifted away the patch
What he saw astonished him where once
Was tremulous tissue and membrane was
Now a follicle and perfectly formed vagina
With vulva, overgrown and mysterious
Unrevealing and still to the untrained eye

But in the deep dark recesses
Of that sticky occlusion lay
The unclosing watchful eye of disgust
In it's closing moments
Lunging forward and hungry for the
Cold light of days