on nights like these we forgot the work of love
and loosed the chains that tied our hands to our hearts
we jumped and groaned in the rough outline of satire
that left us rolling among the sweet aftermath of our decadence
on nights like these I found my brothers
because no one is closer than troops before battle
and afterwards we were each other's father and son
because we fought like our hand was forced and maybe it was
on nights like these it was all for the boys
for the past we invented and the future we never believed
the world had died and we toasted it with cheap wine
we laughed like animals at jokes beyond men
-GKN 1999
inside a passenger seat breathing in a static drive
leaving rolling hills to the ocean's waves
let's slip into the sands.
hide inside our skin
and dive deep.
I'll meet you on a shore
beached and shy,
full of life
and thirsty.
I remember the last time we talked
My voice trembled like a violin string
As always my mouth was numb and locked
And the phrases I couldn't utter seemed to boil and sting
I watched distraught words float by on the breeze
As I desperately tried explaining to you,
With embarrassment and unease
All we could and should be, all I dreamed and knew
Tried weaving a future from a tangled past.
I saw you through curtains of heavy fog
Your eyes bleary and glassed
I stuttered and muttered and wept and I couldn't
And I knew that I wouldn't
Give words to the ineffable mess in my brain.
I looked up, the mist breathed slowly
You walked away like a slow and silent midnight train
The sun was shining through the clouds, golden and holy
As the white haze of things unsaid weighed upon the rolling hills
They say this
You will look back on this and laugh one day
They say this to comfort
And maybe so if I grow to be you
Old and cynical
Laughing at a lost love
Anything to distract your sore heart
And your night-time longing for youth
But I would rather
Sit and smile
Not denying my heart the right to feel past pain still
And I would like to think
That somewhere
He is regretting
The rolling tears he caused
Salt--
It was a taste on our tongues,
Mingled with sand and hermit crabs.
We weren't quite worth our weight in it.
It's a grit between out teeth tonight,
As we were chewing our lips.
A tinge of metallic warmth being gently seasoned.
Salt--
Rolling over in the mud of the coast,
Our cloths clung to us, too heavy.
We'll never get it out.
Salt--
We don't drink the water,
But we choke it down and wish it were air.
Just a few more mouthfuls and we'll be turned into
Salt.
Great Britain, fantastic Britain, incredible Britain
You're making me sad
How many lives in the name, and religion how do you fare
When parliament crumbles, like fantastic hash
And the heroes are on heroin
Dying in the street
But are they heroes?
Poor Britain, lonely Britain, disparaging Britain
Your lights are all dim
Atheist populace, defending Christian beliefs
and shaming Islam with wild generalisations
The BNP are a joke or a Greek tragedy
and I laugh through acerbic tears
It's pitiable
Bleak Britain, brisk Britain, despairing Britain
Are you happy with yourself?
Fight in foreign lands, maim those trivial children
and keep that payola rolling, we depend on death
Complex industry, the military it is, and we follow
Always follow, follow follow, follow
Britain, Britain, Britain
Blindly patriotic
I love the rattle of bones in my head.
The tumbling pieces of some intricate being that hasn’t been created yet. Smooth details rolling around each other searching for the perfect fit. Different sections that want order;
come together; don’t make sense,
rearrange; indiscernible,
once again; ah!
At last,
They are a skeleton.
he seeks shelter from the rain
in the coffee shop
she offers him a cup of joe
she offers a moment to reflect
the hipsters and hangers about
fill her world with sight and sound
fill her senses with smiles and joy
but inside she know she needs something more
that this place is just an emblem
and cannot sustain a soul like her
she could have anything
she just need ask
but she cant find the words to describe
cant find an image to convey
her souls need
but its clear to him
its a ship sailing to distant spain
its a road leading out into a western desert
its a train rolling thru a dark stormy night to a northern town
its a footpath thru mist
its a man seeking shelter from the rain
he leaves with her smile
which she gave with a hopefull heart
now
wrestle with the shadows in his heart
but its her face that lingers
in the late hour
in this last time he will stand
the standards of the champions
the fighters for truth
the liars
and the ones too dark to do else but die
they gather in harsh light
and prepare to do battle and stand their ground
a prince of the beasts proud and fair
a champion to the ones who have no strength to call their own
the frame of time captures only the movement
but the fickle thought of who he is
prince of beasts proud and fair
champion of the clean linen uniform
regal bearer of the standard of a rising sun
reflected only in the young eyes
those cheering champions like him on from the side
but its only her smile that lingers for him
as his life flows spent onto the sand
she never did catch that train
never did escape that shop
never did grow beyond the borders
of the hipsters and hangers on
but least they loved her too
in their way
and that is some comfort
Knees, keep supporting me
You know I believe in you
Stop with all the frailties
And get me where I'm rolling to
Unscrew
All the blues
You sing and keep running in time
Well fed, sleep when you're dead
Or at least aT the end of this rhyme
Pause time, wipe off the grime
Focus on the words I have to say
Ran five hundred score, just a few more
And we can be in a happy place
Don't stop
Don't drop
Reach mountaintop and valley low
Haters degrade the progress made
Saying that we run too fast, too slow
Oh yes, do your best
Until you glimpse that finish line
Past the dream to reality
And see it was you all this time
These knees
Strongly
Wanted to finish just as bad as you
God be blessed, revel in success
We all run, but how you finish is up to you
Saturate and brimming of my hometown Boston,
of its sunshine Marathon peoples and the terrorist bomb images,
my heart fracture rend.
On the third day—a resurrection of all my sadnesses
came to me, feeling fresh born to fruition,
and so this grew.
It grew and then through my tears coming,
I stood to witness two loving sparrows on a window branch.
My sadness at some abeyance, studying and curious
I was of her--all akimbo shivers and rock-in-roll, of him--
a flying feathered stone, rolling from branch to branch
and coming temporarily home, repeatedly.
Circles flying within moving circles!
Did something better happen
with the last jiggle of her branch?
Did you see that? Science said
what they were doing—they finished.
(But what to believe of Science?
She calls their loving--mating rather).
Now to tell you—the sequencing was this:
when I was full knocked down into my grieving,
and I hardly had the strength to go on,
a Beatles song flew in and gently pierced my heart,
singing to my ear: Why don't we just do it in the road...
no one will be watching us...why, why don't we do it
O, Spring Life of Sparrow surprises!
The open road, that budding tree,
any new notion is something grand!
How do I say now? That you two
were helpful, your innocence
forever abiding?
Fly off Sparrows, forever prayer!
I speak this with my love.
