Peter Hammill Fogwalking

Everything clumsy slow-motion,

I look for the source.

Buildings loom up like icebergs

on collision course.

I don't want to go in there,

I just want to be alone,

unpick the stitches of time

in London

in the no-go zone.

I've been kicking around like a dog,

lost myself in the blank mass of fog,

it's some kind of service.

All humanity's fall-out is there,

slumped in doorways

and mouthing cold air -

I have heard this.

Fogwalking, fogwalking.

Since the curfew

the streets are half-dead,

all the good folk asleep in their beds,

it's so easy to go off the rails

when the fog spores

are breeding inside by head.

Fogwalking: there's a presence that I sense

Fogwalking: the neck muscles tense

Fogwalking: it's right here inside me,

try to find a defense - oh, no.

Fogwalking through the wreckage,

fogwalking through the worm-eaten

Night Apple,

fogwalking through what used to be

Whitechapel.