The Balcony Observer
I lean against the rusted rail and light a cigarette
Watching tired strangers pay a debt they won’t forget
The narrow street leaks yellow light on actors in the night
While sirens scream their violence and I do not hear the sound
I am far above the pavement, far above the muddy ground
A woman fumbles for her key, her shoulders shaking slow
But she is just a figure on a screen I’ve come to know
The world is moving forward in a frantic messy blur
I’m sitting steady in the silence where the quiet breeds the purr
I don’t belong to any house or any human heart
I’m the man who likes to keep the two of us apart
The movie is beginning and the seats are all empty
I am drinking down the distance and I find it quite plenty
Pull the heavy curtain and let the reels begin to spin
I am staying on the outside where the light is getting thin
Look at all the little lives and all the little pain
I am watching from the balcony and avoiding all the rain
A man is shouting at the moon and swinging with his fist
Fighting with a shadow that he managed to enlist
I blow a cloud of smoke and watch it dissipate and die
A solitary witness to the grand and local lie
There’s a girl in apartment four whose legs just never end
She’s fucking someone nameless that she calls a former friend
Her silhouette against the shade, the physical her trade
Counting up the heavy moves she’s carefully made
It doesn’t make me jealous and it doesn’t make me sad
I am just a camera for the good and for the bad
I’m lacing up my boots but going nowhere very fast
Living in a present that is built out of the past
The sun arrives to finish off the screening of the show
Exposing every fracture in the streetlamp’s tired glow
I’m standing in the doorway with my hands tucked in my coat
Watching all the wreckage of the morning start to float
The audience is leaving and the theater turns to cold
I’m tired of the record that is always being told
I close the heavy window and I draw the heavy blind
Leaving every single one of those pathetic souls behind
And I don’t belong to any house or any human heart
I am the man who keeps the two of us apart