Trans Siberian Express

Catch a train direct to death
Glide where wheels and rails caress
Hear the last taboos expressed
In language looted and compressed
Abandon this world for the next
Cross the great plain of forgetfulness
Trans Siberian Express

Life on earth is short at best
The cities are a game of chess
Copper domes and statuettes
Victories with marble breasts
Leave your burden with the rest
Watch the sleepers phosphoresce
Trans Siberian Express

Rich man leave your wealthiness
Wanderer, your solemn dress
Seafarer, the sea's caress
Beowulf, your angriness
Time to take a second guess
Time to make a pact with death
Trans Siberian Express

The world is long, there is no consolation
For those who join at the end of the line

Through the train the four winds blow
The arctic and the sirocco
Stalactite and stalagmite
Stalag camp and satellite
Pass the captives on death row
The gulag archipelago
The skulls of reindeer in the snow
The longboat drifts, the dead float slow

Frightened wolves, nowhere to go
Find winding cloths of sleet and snow
The sleeping kings of long ago
Deep beneath Ben Bulben grow
Drifts are shifted by the plough
Like waves that break against the prow
How do you like your blue-eyed boy now
Mr. Death?

Before the crocus cloaked the steppes
Before the tadpoles and the nests
Jack Frost screamed, his voice so hoarse
The signalmen were blown off course
They passed Attila on his horse
Passed the Visigoths and Norse
Villages with Viking forts
And knew not where they were

The world is long, there is no consolation
For those who join at the end of the line
The skeletons were at the feast
Before the dreams of ancient Greece
Before the shaman and the priest
Jason and the Golden Fleece
Before the Dead Sea Scrolls released
Their meaning or the experts pieced together
The epic of Gilgamesh
Trans Siberian Express

Don't cry for me I never cried for you
Just left without the name
Of the place I'm going to
Left without so much as a whisper to remind you
I'm travelling to forget you
And to find you