Gone Ahead Peter Hammill

We bite off our tongues
While chewing the fat;
Though the fire in our lungs is celestial
Our delivery falls flat
Would a time come to be silent?
Oh, we never spoke of that

We talked out of turn
In the school of hard knocks;
Although willing to learn from experience
It still comes as a shock
When the time comes to be silent...
One by one the jaws all drop

The voice is still clear in my head;
It's the last word in monologue...
Close-up, interior, night

Mmm...

The voices alive in my head
Are all tongue-tied to silence now

It's the darkest of moods
It's the cruellest of jokes
That this facility I used, once so fluent
Is cut out at a stroke
And the time came to be silent
As the core connection broke...
Absurd ineloquence
My own words on which I choke