I have no memories of my grandmother
No photographs to cherish
We shared a birthday
But cancer stole her from this world
Before I could meet her.
I will never hear her voice
I will never hear her laughter
I will never know her sense of humour
I will never see her smile
Or her eyes sparkle
But I know that I would have loved her
And she would have loved me.
I have never visited Granny’s house
On a miserable rainy Saturday
Never been greeted with fresh baking,
Or a dinner she’d been cooking
And I sometimes feel sad
But I once heard someone ask
Why the best people always die too soon
The reply was that we are all beautiful flowers
And only the most special ones get picked first
It sounds like a stupid platitude
Something people say to console themselves
But in my Granny’s case it must have been true
Because none of my birthdays have passed by
Without me wishing she was still here.

My life is an endless succession
Of people saying "I'm sick of your ****"
Then stepping off at the next stop
Like passengers before a trainwreck
And I call this train my life.

It's just part of life, I guess
People love you until they know you
And those who know you love you best
Pleasing everyone is the impossible puzzle
And I haven't even put myself together yet

My life is like the sequel to some awful movie
That nobody wants to see
But it's funny how it bombs at the box office
If you hear my name and smile in fondness
Then you haven't been paying attention.

Set my clothes ablaze
I do not need them anyway
I've founded Scotland's first nudist colony.

Scrap my car and pack in my job
and head for the nearest beauty spot,
I've founded Scotland's first nudist colony.

Be brave and join me in the hills
but be careful not to catch a chill,
I've founded Scotland's first nudist colony.

Feel the freedom on your skin,
if you wear clothes you won't fit in
at Scotland's first nudist colony.

We bathe in the sun and dance in the rain
When it snows we'll pray for clothes again
and shut down Scotland's first nudist colony.

I have been
made to feel like a piece of trash,
but I have also felt like a king.
why don’t you people
make up your minds?

I have heard
a host of angels sing the songs of leonard cohen
but i felt like i was in hell.
what kind of madness
is this?

My name has been spat out
like the worst insult in the world
but it is still mine
and cannot be taken
from me.

I have been
made to feel like a piece of trash
but any piece of trash can climb
to the top of the pile
and today it’s me.

In another lifetime
maybe I could glue my dreams to the sky
and they would never come unstuck.

On another night
I might not age three decades
while crushed under the weight of a migraine.

On another morning
I could snooze my alarm a thousand times
or maybe there would be no alarm?

In another place
the sun is kissing everybody’s face
but here the rain spits on mine.

Maybe in an hour
a moment of clarity will arrive,
but I will blink and miss it.

In the furthest away place
my beloved is buried
in the wedding gown she never wore
beneath a bleached white stone.

Her name cannot be recalled
by the morning rain
or the thousand-year-old tree
it is lost to all memory.

One night she unravelled the rivers
and tied her hair with them like ribbons
She stole a seashell and held it to my ear
so I could hear the roaring ocean
and she said “nothing will ever part us;
not water, not distance, not even death”

and whenever I see a dove in flight
as elegant and graceful as she was
I smile and think to myself
That maybe the most beautiful souls become doves.

You say I'm too quiet, well that's my shrewdest ruse
To tell you the truth I only talk to people's shoes
And sometimes the shoes talk back
In a language that sounds like silence
Maybe I should learn it?

Whoever said “slow and patient wins the game”
Has never played the games you play
I seek but never find you
I chase but never catch you
Maybe I should play with someone else?

You say I'm not like other boys;
I dance between raindrops
and shelter from the sun.
I would walk across thin ice for you
But conversation is worse than death.