Peter Hammill
People You Were Going To
Your father has just left your mother
Gone off to live with his latest lover:
She sits there, just staring
You've got to get back to your own flat
Because the atmosphere in there is
So bad you can't bear it
And the people you were going to America with
Just left on the dawn 'plane
Without you
The people in the downstairs flat
Are no longer there now, because they
Left the gas tap on: they're all dead
So you've no-one left to talk to
You just lie there, in melancholy
Half-naked on your unmade bed
And the people you were going to Africa with
Just left on the Southern Star
Without you
Now the haze that's been forming
Round your window-panes
Is protracted and poisoned
And you cannot feel a portion
Of the world outside
Can you imagine the way you'd feel
If all these things had happened to you
And the doctor says you're dying?
That is the way that I feel now
On finding that your love belongs
To someone else, and not I...
My chance of heaven has just blown away
Upon a passing cloud, and there is nothing
That I can do without you