Titles You Can’t Hire

From the Wednesday cafe windows,
You can see the cooling towers.
As you’re breaking down the day
Between the records and the showers.
And a stranger lights your cigarette
As he does he starts to cough
And you know it won’t be you or him
But just the DJ signing off

The best points of this precinct
Never left the drawing board
As you wander to the window
Where they keep the movie stored
‘Close Encounters’ and ‘Deer Hunter’
‘Texas Chainsaw’ and ‘Quest for Fire’
But the empty in your pocket says
They’re titles you can’t hire
Titles you can’t hire

The train is full of teachers
Running late for class
In grey and blue the train shows up
In the mounds of powdered glass
By the station there’s a Kingdom Hall
With no steeple and no spire
But you don’t need a witness for
The titles you can’t hire
The titles you can’t hire

There’s a child who calls you ‘father’
And a clerk who calls you ‘sir’
And a wife who works her life away
For the words you can’t bring her
Like ‘October’, or ‘Celebration’
Sweet release or just ‘Desire’
In reds and greys these terms leap up
Like titles you can’t hire
Titles you can’t hire
Titles you can’t hire