The Mousetrap (Caught In)

The Mousetrap (Caught In) - Peter Hammill

After all is said and done

Not very much will have been either way:

I'm a chronicler of action

I'm an actor in the play

I know the lines I have to speak

I know that I won't ever quit corpse or dry

But the performance gets so pointless

And the days just drift on by

Every time that I go to turn the pages of the calendar

In the third act of this twenty-ninth year of the show

I'm aware of the latest leading lady and get mad at her

It's perfunctory but why she'll never know

When I began I had my hopes

Believed that I could be a leading light of the stage

But now I've stunned myself to silence

Exhausted all my inner rage

Extinguished all my joy and violence

Trapped all my feelings in a cage

And every time that I go to turn the pages of the calendar

I can see that I'm not really going anywhere;

All these years I have skirted round experience like a scavenger

Can I really feel I wonder if I dare

At the end of the run will there be anyone who cares

And behind the actor's pose heaven knows

If there's anyone left in there